El incremento de los incendios que afectan a las instalaciones fotovoltaicas en viviendas, edificios y naves industriales, cada vez preocupa más a los expertos en prevención de este tipo de siniestros, según se puso de manifiesto en la “Jornada sobre Prevención y Protección contra Incendios en Instalaciones Fotovoltaicas”, organizado por Cepreven.

En España, en 2022 y 2023 se produjeron más de 1.000 incendios en instalaciones fotovoltaicas, la mayoría de los cuales se declaró en el primer año de vida de la instalación. La instalación inadecuada y defectos de producto aparecen como la primera causa de este tipo de siniestros.

Un estudio publicado por la Universidad de Berlín en 2014 señala que, en Alemania, de 400 siniestros analizados que involucraban a sistemas de generación fotovoltaica, 180 tuvieron su origen en la propia instalación.

El estudio localiza los puntos de origen del incendio en el diseño técnico incorrecto (insuficiente sección del cableado, usar fusibles de AC en circuitos de DC, entre otros), instalaciones inadecuadas (soldaduras inadecuadas, tornillos mal apretados, terminales mal insertados, etc.) y otras influencias externas (roedores, deterioro de los aislantes, etc.).

The New York Independent System Operator (NYISO)’s new DER & Aggregation Participation Model reflects how far distributed energy resources (DERs) have come as well as the potential they can unlock as the Empire State drives toward its Reforming the Energy Vision (REV) initiative for creating a more diversified grid by better integrating customers.

Not only has the state’s grid operator acknowledged the collective power of DERs aggregated into virtual power plants (VPPs), but it has also launched the country’s first program to integrate aggregations of DERs into wholesale markets in sync with an effort to create New York’s grid of the future.

As the first registered aggregator for the DER Model and a contributor to the state’s efforts to shape its future grid, CPower sees four key takeaways in how NYISO’s new program improves grid reliability.

A survey of 508 industrial operators across 14 countries conducted by Researchscape and cloud ERP provider Rootstock Software found widespread enthusiasm for digital transformation and rapidly-growing implementation of artificial intelligence into their operations—but also worries that their peers are ahead on AI and about overall economic conditions.

The results of the research, released May 29 and contained in San Ramon, California-based Rootstock’s 2024 State of Manufacturing Technology Survey, assessed how manufacturers with revenues over $10 million a year in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, the U.K., and the U.S. view their digital transformation journeys, where they are currently making tech investments, and where they see opportunities for technologies such as AI.

If the United States is to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we need new homes and buildings to minimize energy use and emissions. A new ACEEE white paper identifies 22 programs advancing zero-energy, zero-carbon, or zero-energy-ready buildings, including 14 residential and 8 commercial programs. 

A zero-energy building generates at least as much energy as it consumes over a year, often using solar panels. Some aim for net-zero-carbon or -emissions, meaning they emit net zero carbon dioxide annually. The difference between zero-energy and zero-carbon classification is that the latter accounts for the carbon emissions associated with electric power generation, which vary based on when the power is needed and which generating plants are operating at those times.

Short of building to zero-energy or zero-carbon criteria, many programs promote zero-energy-ready buildings, which are efficient enough that they could be operated with onsite energy and be zero energy if a solar energy system were eventually installed. Zero-energy-ready buildings often include floor and roof configurations, conduit or wiring, and electric panel capacity that will make it easy to hook up electric heating and cooking equipment and solar panels in the future. Zero-energy and zero-energy-ready buildings typically use 25–50% less energy than current building code requirements. 

If 2023 was the year the world discovered generative AI (gen AI), 2024 is the year organizations truly began using—and deriving business value from—this new technology. In the latest McKinsey Global Survey on AI, 65 percent of respondents report that their organizations are regularly using gen AI, nearly double the percentage from our previous survey just ten months ago. Respondents’ expectations for gen AI’s impact remain as high as they were last year, with three-quarters predicting that gen AI will lead to significant or disruptive change in their industries in the years ahead.

Organizations are already seeing material benefits from gen AI use, reporting both cost decreases and revenue jumps in the business units deploying the technology. The survey also provides insights into the kinds of risks presented by gen AI—most notably, inaccuracy—as well as the emerging practices of top performers to mitigate those challenges and capture value.

The National Energy Codes Collaborative is a new nationwide network to help states and jurisdictions effectively and sustainably implement updated building energy codes, driving innovation through convening and collaboration, technical assistance, community engagement, capacity building, and thought leadership. By providing this support and connecting states and localities facing similar challenges across the U.S., our goal is to see more states and localities on the path to regularly updating their energy codes, resulting in the widespread improvements in energy efficiency and decarbonization that are imperative to addressing climate change. 

Nearly a hundred energy code leaders and key stakeholders from across the United States came together in Sacramento in early May to kick off the Codes Collaborative. Led by ACEEE and its partners—the National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), the Urban Sustainability Directors Network (USDN), and ASHRAE—the Codes Collaborative brings together states and local jurisdictions and the organizations that support them in implementing updated energy codes across the country. The 27 projects funded under the Department of Energy’s Resilient and Efficient Codes Implementation (RECI) program connect with each other through the Codes Collaborative. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law provided $225 million over five years to the RECI program for states and localities to update their building codes, and with an additional $1 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act to support updated energy codes, this is just the beginning. 

En la década de los 90, las autoridades surcoreanas, en colaboración con desarrolladores internacionales, concibieron Songdo como un proyecto para aliviar la congestión de Seúl y atraer inversión extranjera. La visión era ambiciosa: una ciudad verde y tecnológica que ofrecería una calidad de vida sin precedentes. Hoy, Songdo es un testimonio tangible de esa visión, con infraestructuras que parecen sacadas de una película de ciencia ficción.

Cuando en 2003 empezó a levantarse la isla artificial en la que se asienta la ciudad, las compañías implicadas habían previsto un coste de US$40.000 millones. Esta monumental inversión estaba destinada a convertir una extensión de terreno recuperado del mar en una metrópolis de vanguardia. El plan maestro fue diseñado por el famoso estudio de arquitectura Kohn Pedersen Fox (KPF), conocido por sus innovadores enfoques en el diseño urbano.

La implementación de esta visión recayó en la estadounidense Gale International, la coreana POSCO E&C y la entidad pública de la ciudad metropolitana de Incheon, a la que Songdo pertenece. Estas entidades se encargaron de la construcción de infraestructuras avanzadas y del desarrollo urbano en sus diversas fases. A pesar de que la construcción de Songdo se completó oficialmente en 2015, los primeros residentes empezaron a llegar en 2009, cuando los elementos fundamentales de la ciudad ya estaban en funcionamiento.

The mobility retail market is in for a period of change and disruption as the world shifts away from traditional fuels. Oil demand growth shows signs of slowing and across multiple scenarios demand is expected to begin to decline by 2030.¹ This shift in fuel focus is presenting an opportunity for both established mobility retailers and market entrants to define new offerings using AI and advanced analytics (AA).

As electric vehicles (EVs) become more prominent, the customization of service stations may prove crucial to future success.² Intelligently harnessing AA or AI can help mobility retailers customize their value proposition for each station and unlock a wide variety of use cases that could help improve returns, achieve cost savings, and drive customer engagement.³ Some of these use cases include personalization in customer loyalty programs, fuel price optimization, labor activity improvements, station network optimization, and convenience retail optimization.⁴

This article dives into the latter two use cases—station network optimization and convenience retail optimization—exploring how mobility retailers can use AA and AI to tailor each service station to their customers’ preferences and seize opportunities in the changing landscape.

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, and personal vehicles make up 58% of all transportation emissions. One strategy for tackling emissions from these vehicles is making it easier to reach key destinations without a car. 

The Mobility Energy Productivity (MEP) tool, developed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) with funding from the Energy Efficient Mobility Systems (EEMS) program of the U.S. Department of Energy, measures how well residents can reach destinations in a convenient, cost-effective, and energy-efficient way. The tool overlays a city map with a grid divided into one square kilometer units and measures how many opportunities (including jobs, educational opportunities, healthcare facilities, and others) can be reached from within each unit by different modes of travel. NREL provided ACEEE with data on the efficiency of different travel modes for the 75 cities featured in the recently released 2024 City Clean Energy Scorecard. We looked at two of these cities to understand how the data can be used to explore changes in transportation access over time and among certain populations.  

El Ministerio de Economía y Energía de Alemania ha informado en un comunicado de que la firma fue hoy en Bruselas y ha recordado que dicha conexión ya ha sido reconocida como Proyecto de Interés Común (PCI) europeo.

“El desarrollo de un mercado de hidrógeno transfronterizo europeo es una garantía para la aceleración de la transición energética y para la decarbonización de sectores con emisiones de CO2 difíciles de reducir”, ha declarado el ministro de Economía alemán, Robert Habeck, en la nota.