Green IT

Charging your hybrid or electric car may someday become as simple as pulling into the driveway.

Toyota Motor has invested in and has signed an agreement with WiTricity to collaborate on a wireless automotive charger that doesn't need any point of contact to charge a car's battery, Toyota said yesterday.

WiTricity has developed technology that could eventually enable a plug-in electric or plug-in hybrid vehicle to be charged by simply parking the vehicle in the vicinity of a car charger embedded with a special device.

The Mass.-based company has already been developing the technology for consumer electronics … Read more

Two of the world's leading technology standardization groups have signed an agreement to partner on vehicle-to-smart-grid standards.

The memorandum of understanding has been signed by the IEEE-SA (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association) and SAE International (Society of Automotive Engineers). It is essentially a first step to both organizations agreeing on future standards related to smart grids and vehicle electrification, including vehicle-to-grid communications, the organizations said today.

The immediate effect is that the two groups will share draft standards on any technology relating to smart grids and "vehicle electrification," with the opportunity for each to … Read more

Web technologies are not only letting people telecommute and cutting down on paper--thus reducing greenhouse emissions and saving trees--they're also letting us get more efficient use out of buildings, cars, and everyday objects.

That's according to Sunil Paul, founder of Spring Ventures, who spoke at the GreenNet conference yesterday about how the so-called "CleanWeb" can enable services that reduce the carbon footprint of our lifestyles.

What is the CleanWeb? It's "the idea that information technology is going to be the next big driver of clean-tech innovation and the proposition that IT is going to … Read more

New York City plans to restrict the use of dirty heating fuels, use its capped landfills for solar farms, and issue loans for green and energy efficiency upgrades to home owners.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced the latest initiatives for PlaNYC, the city's sustainability plan, on Thursday at a press conference in Harlem.

It's part of the lead up to Earth Day, which is Friday, April 22, and also happens to be the anniversary of when PlaNYC was first announced, in 2007.

Over 132 initiatives grew out of "48 public meetings with 220 groups, yielding almost … Read more

Get ready for reliable electricity, and an automated world of electronics, appliances, and buildings, to become the new normal.

That's the main message in a report released today by GigaOm Pro and Pike Research.

Smart-grid applications in six key areas will change the way people use, buy, manage, and think about electricity, according to the report "Smart Grid Apps: Six Trends That Will Shape Grid Evolution" led by Clint Wheelock, Pike Research founder and managing director.

Those electricity-related applications focus on home energy management systems, electric vehicles, distribution automation, smart-grid analytics, building energy management systems (BEMS), and … Read more

Big Internet companies are quick to tout the energy efficiency of their data centers, but Greenpeace is pressuring them clean up their energy supply, too.

The environmental watchdog group today released a ranking of the big Internet companies based on how dirty the sources of their energy are. The analysis includes a clean-energy index and a coal intensity ranking, with Apple and Facebook using a higher percentage of coal-powered electricity than the U.S. overall.

For the past few years, Greenpeace has been seeking to draw attention to how much energy the computing industry uses and the role that the … Read more

Google and more than 80 other companies are collaborating with the Department of Energy to make it simple for drivers of electric vehicles to find parts and charging sites.

Via a partnership called the GeoEVSE Forum, the organizations are pooling their data to build a definitive database of all available EV charging stations in the U.S. regardless of the manufacturer or network, the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory said yesterday.

The GPS and mapping system database will also include all available electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) stations.

While the data will be organized using Google mapping tools, it … Read more

LAGUNA NIGUEL, Calif.--An "energy resource management" software company co-founded by Tom Siebel called C3 is growing rapidly in a market that's larger than the one his namesake CRM software company entered 16 years ago.

Siebel, who co-founded customer relationship management software company Siebel Systems and was one of the first employees at Oracle, today provided some details on C3, which boasts some high-profile board members, including former Secretary of State Condeleeza Rice. He was interviewed here at the Fortune Brainstorm Green green business conference.

C3, which was founded a few years ago, is working with a … Read more

Progress Energy is moving forward with its plan to spend $500 million to upgrade two of its electric utilities in Florida and the Carolinas to a smart-grid system.

Together the two utilities provide electricity service to over 3.1 million customers. The Raleigh,N.C.-based company is paying for the upgrade in part with a $200 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). The grant came out of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and is part of the high-profile push by the Obama administration and many state leaders to upgrade U.S. electric grids.… Read more