In a boost to the local solar power industry, commercial property owners in Los Angeles will soon be able to sell solar power generated from their buildings back to the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power.The program, approved by the City Council on Tuesday, could launch in an initial test phase later this year. It will allow owners of commercial properties and apartment buildings that install solar panels to sell the excess solar power onto the DWP grid. More...

The LA CleanTech Incubator is a non-profit that incubates green tech companies, providing them workspace, CEO mentoring, and access to a growing number of experts and capital. Founded by the City of Los Angeles, and in partnership with the area's universities (including UCLA, University of Southern California, Caltech, the Art Center College of Design, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory), the organization plans on reinventing Los Angeles to be the Silicon Valley of clean technology. More...

A great example of a successful RIC is the Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator (LACI) which has become the backbone of the budding cleantech initiatives in LA due to Mayor Villaraigosa's cajoling of various public and private stakeholders. More...

Atmospheric researcher John H. Seinfeld, the Louis E. Nohl Professor and professor of chemical engineering at Caltech, has been named one of two winners of this year's Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, an honor regarded as the top prize of environmental science, environmental health, and energy. More...

The Port of Los Angeles recently received gold-level certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for its new police headquarters. The 50,000-square-foot, three-story facility is the first gold LEED-registered building at the port and in San Pedro, Calif., port officials said in a prepared statement. More...

Thirty thousand daily energy transactions between 140-plus electricity buyers and sellers: That's the $8 billion market the California Independent System Operator Corporation (ISO) manages.The same ISO keeps power flowing reliably from 671 power plants along 25,865 transmission line circuit miles to 30 million electricity consumers. For those services from the ISO, a typical California electricity consumer pays less than a dollar. More...

In 2007, New York City began to soften the harsh environmental effects of its many parking lots by adopting an innovative amendment to its zoning code. For most new and expanded lots it requires the use of planted areas both around the perimeter and inside the facility, with the paved areas graded so as to drain stormwater into the planted areas. It also requires shade trees, bicycle parking, and the screening of trash receptacles. More...

Energy Secretary Steven Chu today announced $5 million to establish the Scalable Data Management, Analysis and Visualization Institute as part of the Obama Administration's "Big Data Research and Development Initiative," which was announced this morning and takes aim at improving the nation's ability to extract knowledge and insights from large and complex collections of digital data. More...

Solar has suddenly become much more important in Southern California because of the outage at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. San Diego Gas & Electric, California's third biggest investor owned utility, could lose fifteen percent to twenty percent loss of its base load electricity. More...

BYD Daimler New Technology Co., the 50:50 joint venture between Daimler and BYD formally revealed in Shenzhen its new Denza brand of electric vehicles developed in China, for the Chinese market. More...

On a conference table in a San Francisco hotel rests five wifi-based sensors, weighing anywhere from a few ounces to several pounds, that their creators say will deliver more accurate and useful data about our environment, from the energy we use to the noise and pollution levels of our surroundings. The display was part of a show-and-tell by Intel, which is betting on a future in which we could not only need, but want, sensors to live healthier lives. More...

The U.S. Department of Commerce's Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) today unveiled a new web-based IP Awareness Assessment Tool designed to help manufacturers, small businesses, entrepreneurs and independent inventors easily assess their knowledge of intellectual property. More...

Stuart Bernstein, the head of the clean energy group at investment bank Goldman Sachs, has a message for startups and investors: hang in there, things are looking up. Bernstein draws a parallel between the cleantech sector and the general tech industry. He points out that many tech companies also had trouble attracting enough interest to make their public market debuts during economic downturns in the past two decades. More...

Electric car maker Fisker Automotive has boosted its private fund raising plans by $200 million, according to a filing, and has now raised around $1 billion in private funding. More...

A technology that could provide electricity to naval bases and islands with the use of super-cold seawater is finally gaining momentum after a hiatus of more than 30 years. The action is in the Bahamas, where the local utility has signed an agreement with a Pennsylvania company to build two 10-megawatt commercial-scale plants, the first of their kind in history. Meanwhile, established military contractors like DCNS and Lockheed Martin are making progress on their own power plants. More...

Next Event: Apr 6, 2012. For the next few months, Hub LA and Mindshare will host a drop-in event EVERY Friday as a chance to get to know the neighbors, build community, and learn about each other's amazing projects! More...

Apr 14, 2012. This forum will address questions such as where the markets are developing, how entrepreneurs and corporate investors play a role in this space, what impact the recession has had on deal size and investors' appetite for risk, and how investment activity varies according to technology type and fuel produced. More...

Apr 29 - May 03, 2012. This program is designed to enable senior executives from corporations, as well as government agency and major program leaders, to more effectively encourage, lead, and manage the entire venture creation process for clean energy-be they stand alone new ventures or pioneering undertakings inside of larger organizations. The process includes identifying opportunities, generating new ideas, designing a holistic solution, and building a viable, significant, and sustainable new energy-oriented business. More...

May 6 - 9, 2012. EVS26 is the premier conference and exhibit for electric vehicles and the electric drive industry. Register to attend the best networking sessions of the year, hear from 200+ speakers on the latest in the electric vehicles industry, and visit more than 160 companies on the show floor. Drive current and future electric vehicles in the EVS26 exclusive Ride, Drive & Charge event. More...

Application Deadline: May 15, 2012. The goal of the LAUNCH: Beyond Waste Challenge is to identify ten "game changing" innovations that have the potential to transform the current waste management systems and practices to ones focused on minimizing waste and/or transforming waste into new products. More...

Application Deadline: May 15, 2012. As part of the Obama Administration's efforts to help consumers save money by saving energy, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu launched yesterday the Department's first-ever "Apps for Energy" competition. "Apps for Energy" will challenge innovative software developers to build new apps - for mobile phones, computers, tablets, software programs and more - that utilize data from major utility companies to help consumers and businesses use less energy and save money. The competition offers $100,000 in cash prizes sponsored by the Energy Department and interested companies. More...