Energy Efficiency, Commercial, Finance, Industrial, Sourcing Renewables  -  December 22, 2018

Weekend reads: A record-breaking year; Blockchain comes to RE

The holidays are here! Cozy up with these year-end energy articles:

Report: 2018 A ‘Record-Breaking’ Year For Corporate Renewable Energy Deals (North American Windpower)  Corporate renewable energy procurement in the U.S. is continuing to blossom, outlines a new report from the Business Renewables Center (BRC), a membership program at Rocky Mountain Institute. In its updated tracker for corporate-backed renewable energy procurement, BRC says the U.S. renewables market has almost doubled its annual total of corporate off-site deals since its prior high point in 2015. Further, the number of new entrants in the market has doubled since then. 

American PowerNet Utilizes Signature Bank’s Digital Payments Platform, Signet™, to Purchase Pennsylvania’s Power (Smart Energy Decisions)  American PowerNet, an independent power supply company providing retail and wholesale electric supply services throughout the U.S., announced today its adoption of Signature Bank’s blockchain-based digital payments platform, Signet™, to facilitate real-time payments within the renewable energy sector and to purchase power for Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, through its electric supplier relationship with American PowerNet, is the first entity in the country to purchase its power using Signets, which are digital representations of U.S. dollars that settle in real-time on the Bank’s Signet Platform. 

The Stinkiest, Dirtiest, Nastiest Renewable Energy You’ve Never Heard Of (Mother Jones)  Drive down Interstate 95 through Baltimore and you can’t miss the Wheelabrator trash incinerator, its smokestack emblazoned with the city’s name. The Charm City’s single largest source of industrial air pollution churns out well over 600,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. In 2017, those emissions were equivalent to what’s given off by more than 130,000 cars driven for a year. It is also one of Maryland’s major sources of nitrogen oxides—a principal component of smog. One analysis estimates the facility’s air pollution kills an estimated 5.5 people per year.

eBay, Target, Apple Land On Aspiration's Nice List Of Businesses For The Holidays (Forbes)  Not all consumers are shopping on deals and convenience alone this holiday season. A growing number of Americans want to shop with a conscience, and Aspiration, the digital-only bank, and investment firm is making it easier for people to do that. Earlier this month it released its first-ever Nice List of the top 10 companies across retail, technology, fashion, beauty, and travel that are doing right by the environment and their employees. Aspiration drew from its Aspiration Impact Measurement (AIM) to compile the list. It’s AIM lets customers view their own personal sustainability scores based on their debit card transactions. 

Take a drive through a 5-mile, solar-powered Nite Lites show (M Live Michigan)  John Spink and his team of eight to 12 "elves" start thinking about Christmas decorations before most people have Halloween on the mind. Spink, owner and operator of the Nite Lites drive-through light show at Michigan International Speedway, begins setting up light displays the day after Labor Day. Visitors can drive through the five miles of lighted displays now through the end of December. "It's amazing how different it looks at night than what it looks like during the day when you're working on it," Spinks said. "It's nowhere comparable."

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