Energy Efficiency, Solar, Sourcing Renewables  -  January 26, 2019

Weekend reads: Top green companies; Horses & sheep in RE

It's the weekend! Kick back and relax with these must-read energy stories from around the web:

The Invisible Energy Bonanza: Creating Wealth Out Of Nothing (Forbes)  Three guesses: is this blog about a new, cheaper renewable technology? a cheaper, safer nuclear fission or fusion technology? a new technology to extract more fossil fuel at lower cost? None of the above. It’s about neither energy supply nor new technology. It’s about a more important but far less familiar story: how smarter design can better apply existing technologies to create radical energy efficiency at far lower cost. That game-changing linkup creates a potential new compet­i­tor to all forms of energy supply. 

World’s greenest businesses revealed (What Investment)  The businesses blazing a trail on environmental issues are named by CPD, the non-profit global environmental disclosure platform. The platform has announced its annual rankings to time with the opening of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos which brings together international leaders for a week of high-level discussions on the future of the global economy, with a key topic being the threat ecological challenges pose to economic development. 

Ohio hospitals embrace energy efficiency (Yale Climate Connections)  By saving energy, hospitals in Ohio are saving money that they can put back into patient care. Rutschilling: “Hospitals are incredibly energy-intensive facilities. Our member hospitals utilize lots of lights, HVAC controls and complex medical machinery and equipment.” That’s Nolan Rutschilling of the Ohio Hospital Association. Through its sustainability and energy program, he says the association has worked with more than 160 hospitals to reduce energy use.

Budweiser’s Clydesdales Are Back for a Renewable Energy Message With a Bob Dylan Soundtrack (Adweek)  Budweiser will tout its commitment to sustainable energy in its Super Bowl spot. The beer giant has brought back its famous Clydesdales—they only appeared in a bumper spot last year—for the ad, which uses Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind” to illustrate the brand’s point about renewable energy sourced from wind farms. Budweiser unveiled a 60-second version of the spot today, though a 45-second cut will appear during the Big Game. 

Kauai: World’s Biggest Solar Power Plant Relies On A Flock Of Sheep (Honolulu Civil Beat)  A new solar generating plant capable of producing and storing power in daylight and then releasing it at night will be partially dependent on 300 sheep. The plant was commissioned Jan. 8 by the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative and pushes the utility over the 50 percent mark in terms of the amount of its power that comes from renewable sources. It’s the second such plant put in service by KIUC and, according to David Bissell, the co-op’s CEO, it is currently the largest such installation in the world. 

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