Archive for April 25th, 2011

On April 14, 2011, Duke Energy announced that it will be incorporating a huge battery storage system at its new 153-megawatt (MW) Notrees Windpower facility in West Texas. The project is the largest wind-farm battery storage installation announced to date.

The announcement highlights the advances energy companies are making toward incorporating renewable power sources into the electric grid in the U.S. Duke will use a 36 MW-capacity Dynamic Power Resource (DPR) from Texas-based Xtreme Power to provide large-scale storage at the facility (photo used with permission). Read the rest of this entry »

Americans love their cars and love driving them. Let’s drive smarter, and who better to give us the opportunity than the students in school today who will be designing the cars of tomorrow. Established by the DOE and General Motors, EcoCAR 2: Plugging in to the Future is a three-year collegiate engineering competition that aims to educate the next generation of automotive engineers through hands-on, real-world engineering experience. The competition challenges teams from16 North American universities to reduce the environmental impact of vehicles without compromising performance, safety and consumer acceptability. Read the rest of this entry »