OPEC’s oil production dropping, DOE invests $40 million in additional carbon capture projects, and Echelon signs up its first customer for its new control system software platform.

According to a new survey released by Platts, OPEC’s August production of crude oil production dropped 110,000 barrels per day from July to an average of 29.11 million barrels per day. Many see this slide in production due to the highest-ever levels of petroleum inventory that currently sit in the US.  Decreases came from the partner countries of Iran, Nigeria, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Iraq.  OPEC is expected to current production levels at a meeting in Vienna Austria on October 14^th.

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu has approved an investment of up to $40 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding to begin the Carbon Capture and Storage Simulation Initiative The program will allow national labs and regional university alliances to collaborate on carbon capture and storage (CCS) research. The hope is to develop validated, predictive simulation tools to accelerate the development and deployment of industrial carbon capture and storage technology.

Echelon has announced that Duke Energy as its first customer to purchase a new Echelon Control System software platform (ECos). Duke Energy, which is the country’s 3^rd largest electric utility, will spend more than $14.5 million to have a new open software platform for intelligent distributed control, and the ECN 7000 series of products for the smart grid integrated into Duke’s existing infrastructure and systems. Duke expects to have trial units of the ECN series in the field by the end of the year. This is an important purchase for Duke Energy because the ECoS system will offer the utility an open and secure application framework for monitoring and controlling devices at the edge of the grid which is the critical point where the distribution network connects to Duke Energy’s more than 4 million customers.

Which country has the best environment for renewable energy projects, more schools implementing energy efficiency projects and a new green sponsor of the San Francisco Giants.

According to a recently released report by Ernst & Young titled, Renewable Energy country Attractiveness: Indices, China is viewed as the best opportunity for investing in renewable energy projects. Being graded at the top of the attractiveness Indices table puts China alone at the top of the list for the first time. The grade for the United States was lowered because of the failure to pass a federal Renewable Energy Standard, which would have required all states to generate a percentage of their power from renewable energy sources.

Pepco Energy Services has been selected to begin retrofitting C.D. Hylton Seniro High School with energy efficient improvements. The project will require Pepco to upgrade lighting, optimize energy management controls, replace old boilers and chillers with new units and install a 16 KW solar panel system. The project is expected to save the school more than $2.6 million during the 10-year shared-savings plan and lower energy and water costs by more than 27%.

Canadian Solar Inc. one of the world’s largest solar companies, has become a new sponsor of Major League Baseball’s San Francisco Giants. The San Francisco Giants stadium, AT&T Park, is the first Major League ballpark to be awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council a certification for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) for Existing Buildings. The sponsorship kicks off by with the “Score with Canadian Solar” contest which offers Giants fans the opportunity to win free Giants tickets, autographed apparel and free solar installation quotes from Canadian Solar.

New microbes discovered from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, how much money could HUD save if they became more energy efficient and the impact of the administration’s weatherization programs.

The giant underwater oil plume that’s still located in the Gulf of Mexico is degrading faster than scientists expect from a previously unknown microbe. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have analyzed more than 200 water samples of 17 different areas in the Gulf between May 25 and June 2.  And what’s been found is that the microbes living on the ocean floor have left the floor and begun ocean floor microbes have literally risen to the occasion and begun decomposing the oil plume.

According to a report drafted by the National Consumer Law Center, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development is losing $1 billion in energy and housing costs for the less fortunate by not performing energy efficient retrofits faster.  Energy costs for public housing and rental properties for low-income people and families has tops $5 billion each year. By making better use of existing energy efficiency programs (including those offered for free by utility companies), and by improving data collection on energy use in subsidized units, HUD could easily trim more than $1 billion from that tab, according to the NCLC report. HUD admits in its most recent energy report to Congress that one 1% of the nation’s 2,300 small housing authorities and 167 of the 800 largest housing authorities have been retrofitted for energy efficiency.

Vice President Joe Biden yesterday announced in Manchester, New Hampshire that 200,000 homes have been weatherized due to American Recovery Act funding. The goal is to weatherize 600,000 homes nationwide, which will save homeowners an average of $400 per year on energy costs in the first year. The program is also putting people back to work. The Recovery Act Weatherization Assistance Program has reported that more than 13,000 jobs were created in the second quarter of 2010.

How much renewable energy is the US consuming? Which oil company is working to improve their back office, who’s #1 on Inc. Magazine’s fastest growing company list, and Utility Integration Solutions adds a Kennedy to its board of directors.

A new report by the Energy Information Administration shows that 7% of all energy consumed in the US comes from renewable energy. The sector rose 10 percent to 7.367 quadrillion Btu between 2007 and 2008. Wind generation grew 61 % for the year and accounts for 15% of total renewable generation. Consumption of biofuels also rose significantly with the consumption of the transportation fuel increasing 873 trillion Btu from 2004 to 2008.

Sunoco has agreed to allow IBM to provide managed business process services and application support services. The petroleum and petrochemical company will have IBM make its back office systems more efficient  IBM will also provide Sunoco access to its global operations centers, which will provide Sunoco the ability to better manage its Application Enhancement, Application Maintenance, Finance and Accounting, and Indirect Procurement processes.

Inc. magazine has ranked Ambit Energy as the fastest growing company on its exclusive Inc. 500 ranking of the nation’s fastest-growing private companies. Ambit, which is a leading retail electric and natural gas provider in Texas, Illinois and New York has seen its annual revenues skyrocket from $1.6 million in 2006 to $325 million in 2009.

Utility Integration Solutions, Inc. (UISOL), a leading demand response company has named renowned environmental advocate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to the company’s board of directors. Their demand response management software DRBizNet supports more than 200 companies that manage over 7000 megawatts of demand response from 450,000 end-use customers.

The first LEED for Existing Buildings Gold Certification is awarded in Georgia, which REP has the best customer service in Texas, which company is moving away from coal-fired power plants, and a new Energy Innovation Hub to be built at Penn State.

PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay facility in Perry, Georgia has become the first building to be awarded the LEED for Existing Buildings Gold Certification in Georgia. The LEED program, which is run by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) helps homeowners and businesses improve their design, construction and operation of buildings so that they can be greener. PepsiCo’s Frito-Lay Perry facility has added waste heat recovery boilers, improved maintenance systems and upgraded oven burners. These retrofits have helped account for a 35% reduction in natural gas consumption and a 72% reduction in electricity use per pound of product. The LEED for Existing Buildings Gold Certification is the 4^th that Frito-Lay North America has received. One is located at their corporate headquarters in Plano, Texas, while the other 2 are manufacturing plants that are in Casa Grande, Arizona and Topeka, Kansas.

JD Power and Associates has ranked Champion Energy Services number one for highest customer satisfaction among retail electric providers in Texas. This is the third year that the study has been conducted, which scores a REP’s ability out of a 1,000 point scale to effectively provide pricing, billing and payment, communications and customer service. Champion Energy which received a score of 737, currently services 450,000 residential customers in Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and Ohio and is expected to open for business in New Jersey and California by the end of the year. According to the Public Utility Commission of Texas, about 51% of 5.6 million eligible Texas residential customers purchase power from a retail electric provider that’s not the incumbent in their market. Champion Energy

The Tennessee Valley Authority, has decided to make idle nine coal-fired electric generating units, totaling about 1,000 megawatts, at three of its power plants, in 2011. While some of the units, which are located in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama will stay idle for years, others will potentially be converted to biomass fuel while some natural gas generators are being built at other plants. The TVA is trying to achieve its goal of significantly lowering its carbon emissions by 2020.

The Department of Energy has awarded Penn State University $122 million to set up a Regional Innovation Hub that will research ways to make buildings more energy efficient. The new facility will be built over the next 5 years at the Navy Yard Clean Energy campus in Philadelphia. This Energy Innovation Hub is the third Hub to receive this kind of award. The Department awarded an Oak Ridge National Labs team to build a Hub that will research, model and simulate work on nuclear reactors and another group at Cal Tech is building an Innovation Hub that’s focused on researching fuels from sunlight. The development of the Penn State Innovation Hub is important because buildings account for nearly 40 percent of our country’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.

The world’s first green highway to be located in Finland, the largest decommissioning project of a nuclear power plant begins, and AT&T signs a power purchase agreement with SunEdison.

Finland, has decided that they would like to become the first country to build a “green highway”. The proposal would offer electric charging stations and biofuel pumps over an 81-mile stretch of road from Turku to Vaalinaa. The plans show the service stations being built with energy-efficient lighting systems and geothermal heat pumps, but existing petroleum based gas pumps will also be available at these stations as well. The 900 million infrastructure project expects to be built by 2016.

Exelon Corp. is about to begin a 5 year process to upgrading several nuclear power plants in Illinois. More than 4,200 full-time and “full-time equivalent” jobs will be created over the lifetime of the project. One of the first tasks will be to decommission the Zion Station in Lake County and upgrading 6 nuclear plants with equipment that lowers the plants carbon output. The Zion Station project will cost $1 billion and 10 years to complete and become the largest nuclear plant decommissioning project ever in the history of the U.S.

AT&T and SunEdison have announced a partnership to increase the amount of generated solar power for the telecommunications provider. The new began with the installation of new 420,000  KW roof top solar panels system in San Diego. SunEdison will install another approximately 2 MW of power on AT&T building by June of next year in Dunnigan, Commerce, Mojave, Santa Ana and West Sacramento. A power purchase agreement (PPA) has been set up between SunEdison and AT&T under which SunEdison will build, monitor and maintain 5 of the solar installations in return for AT&T purchasing the energy generated from the systems at a reduced rate.

Weatherization programs get a big financial boost, is aggregation solar power purchases realistic, and your business can win $10,000 for becoming more energy efficient.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu has awarded 120 organizations across the country  almost $120 million to further implement the Department’s Weatherization Assistance Program.  The new money will provide effective weatherization organizations to begin new projects and increase their retrofit reach. Currently, about 25,000 homes a month are being weatherized through the government program but in June, this number jumped to more than 31,600 homes. Its estimated that approximately 80,000 homes will lower their energy bills through the governments weatherization program.

One of the first programs to aggregate the purchase of solar power has been executed. 130 people who are City of San Jose employees and members of the San Jose Credit Union purchases will purchase more 300 KW of power at a discounted price from SunPower Corporation and SunWater Solar. The group buy model lowers solar system cost for a large group of homeowners and encourages community participation in achieving San Jose’s Green Vision goals.

The Council of Smaller Enterprises (COSE) has announced the launch of the COSE Small Business Energy Efficiency Challenge.  Small businesses can win up to $10,000 for submitting details of savings that they’ve generated from energy efficient retrofit projects. Entries must be received by Monday, September 20.  To learn more about the content, please visit www.cose.org/energychallenge.

Illinois Governor Patrick Quinn has announced a $4 million grant to fund a 62 Megawatt (MW) Solar Power Plant. The project will become the largest photovoltaic (PV) solar development in the Midwest and one of the largest in the United States. The project, which will generate enough power for more than 10,000 homes, will also help the state towards reaching its 6% Renewable Portfolio Standard goal by 2015.

No timetable set for finishing the Gulf relief well, is the state of Pennsylvania going to deregulate its energy industry, and what makes a residential electricity customer from Texas happy?

Ret. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen has yet to instruct BP to complete the final steps for plugging their blown out well for good. Currently there is no timeline in place and BP has yet to show Allen that they have a sufficient plan in place to handle any increase in pressure that might be caused by the integration of the relief well with the blown-out well. Also, an issue of concern is that the initial plugging of the well may have trapped up to 1,000 barrels of oil in between the well pipe and the surrounding rock layers. While the scenario is considered unlikely, Allen wants to make sure every consideration is made before cementing the well for good.

Direct Energy is pushing for deregulation in Pennsylvania. The company submitted a proposal to state regulators showing that the state could save its citizens as much as $1 billion if the electricity market was allowed to open.  In this scenario Penelec and Allegheny Power would focus on their core competency of electric delivery and troubleshooting. And, this would allow numerous retail electric companies to enter the Pennsylvania and compete on the price.

According to a new study by JD Power & Associates, electricity prices are the key factor in deciding how much a Texas homeowner likes their energy provider. This is the third year that the study has been conducted, which researches how price, billing and payment, communications and customer service impacts the satisfaction of residential customers.  This most recent study also showed that because price is a key indicator of satisfaction, loyalty to a certain provider is not strong. Only 41 percent of customers surveyed have had the same provider for three years or longer, a drop from 49 percent from the previous year.

The world’s first and most powerful x-ray laser introduced, how much oil is still polluting the Gulf of Mexico, and the Zero Race begins in Geneva.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu yesterday participated in a dedication for the launch of the world’s  first and most powerful X-ray laser. Called the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS), the laser produces pulses of X-rays more than a billion times brighter than the most powerful existing sources. The ultrafast X-ray pulses act a lot like high-speed strobe light, with the flashes allowing the scientists to take stop-motion pictures of atoms and molecules in motion, shedding light on the fundamental processes of chemistry, technology, and life itself. The Department of Energy is excited about the launch of the laser because they hope that it will help the discover better sources for energy. More than $420 million was spent on the project, $53.6 million of which came from American Recovery Act Funding.

A new study conducted by the Gulf Coast Fund finds that more than 53 million gallons of oil are still polluting the Gulf of Mexico. The study found that much of the oil is located off the shores in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. Gulf fishermen met with President Obama while he was vacationing in Panama City Beach this past weekend to suggest that tests be conducted on the seafood before allowing the fisherman to fish in the fishing areas.

The first ever Zero Race began yesterday in Geneva Switzerland. The race, which only allows electric cars to enter, has 4 teams who will follow a course that’s more than 18,650 miles long that takes them all over the world in 80 days. Contestants will pass through Berlin, Moscow, Shanghai, Vancouver, Los Angeles, Austin, and Mexico City before finishing in Cancun, Mexico, just in time for the UN climate conference in November. Each team’s car must include two passengers and drive at least 155 miles at an average speed of at least 50 mph. The purpose of the race is to raise awareness for a more sustainable future.

Baltimore Gas & Electric keeps $200 million award from DOE to build a smart grid project, a new free commercial energy assessment available online, and Direct Energy to begin to sell electricity to homes and businesses in Maryland.

Baltimore Gas and Electric Company has received approval from the Maryland Public Service Commission to begin the development of a smart grid project for their Central Maryland territory. Upgrading the territory’s infrastructure to the smart grid is expected to save BGE’s 1.2 million customers over $2.5 billion in electricity costs and increase the reliability of the system.  A $200 million award from the DOE will offset 80% of the total project cost.

The First Energy Group has just released a free online assessment for commercial and industrial companies to gauge how efficient their businesses are. The assessment asks questions about to the condition of facilities to the executives, building owners and facility managers who take the assessment. Customers will receive a customized report within 48 hours of submitting the assessment. Recommendations include changing equipment or certain operations as well as providing federal and state incentives that are available the assessed location.

Direct Energy, has decided to offer electricity to commercial and residential customers in the state of Maryland. The expansion into Maryland’s Pepco service territory represents approximately 2 million potential residential customers. New customers can select a Guaranteed Savings Plan for residential and small commercial customers and receive a 7 percent discount off the Pepco Standard Offer Service Rate through May 2011.