ElectricSmarts Network (Glastonbury, Conn.): Sal Huerta has been promoted to V.P. of business development for the company’s NetPricer Division. His responsibilities include sales and managing customer service. NetPricer allows distributors to furnish estimate pricing directly to an electrical contractor’s software, expediting the bid process and reducing man-hours.
Archive for March 9th, 2010
WiFi lighting?
Can’t get enough of wacky technological convergence? Here’s one that’s new to us: some researchers in Germany are working on wireless broadband networking that uses flickering LED lighting to transmit the signal instead of radio frequencies. The connections would have virtually unlimited bandwidth to work with, but would be limited to line-of-sight connections because visible frequencies don’t pass through walls – that means more security from wardrivers and eavesdroppers but less range. Mark this under “we’ll see.”
Here’s the release on the research, to be presented at the Optical Fiber Communication Conference March 21-25 in San Diego, via Eurekalert: Details
NY Times: A cautionary tale for U.S. solar industry
An interesting piece from today’s New York Times profiles a town in Spain that staked it all on solar and saw a rapid boom followed by an even more rapid bust when the Spanish government realized it would have to subsidize the nation’s solar industry indefinitely and pulled back its support. The article draws parallels with the push to create green jobs in the U.S.
NYTimes article, “Solar Industry Learns Lessons in Spanish Sun”
First Solar to Provide Golden State’s PG&E with 300MW
First Solar Inc., Tempe, Ariz., announced a power purchase agreement to supply Pacific Gas and Electric Company with renewable electricity from a new 300MW utility-scale photovoltaic solar power facility it will build Southern California. The Desert Sunlight project will have a total capacity of 550MW megawatts, enough to power approximately 160,000 area homes – or about 480,000 residents. The other 250MW portion of the project is already under contract to Southern California Edison. First Solar’s power purchase agreements with PG&E and SCE are subject to the approval of the California Public Utilities Commission. The company has 1,700MW of utility-scale power projects with power purchase agreements in North America. Details
KB Home to Pre-Wire Homes for Electric Vehicles
KB Home, Los Angeles, one of the largest publicly owned homebuilders in the United States, will offer an option to pre-wire its new Built to Order™ homes to accommodate charging stations for homeowners’ electric vehicles. The option is designed to ease the future installation of a station to charge an electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle conveniently at home. The pre-wire option is now available to KB Home homebuyers nationwide. Details