The Green Button Initiative is gaining traction with the launch of Green Button Connect, a web portal launched by energy-focused software developer, Tendril. One side of the site serves consumers who can upload their green button data and try out different applications to make sense of it. The other side of the site serves developers who want to develop applications for these consumers to use.
Letting the sun’s rays reach your home’s interior rooms, or down to lower level, is a challenge on any project, and virtually impossible without cutting a large hole in your roof. But now, Solectric offers an electronic skylight that promises the next best thing — interior lighting that is powered by the sun and can be rendered at the same color temperature.
The Green Button initiative, which gives customers access to their energy consumption data, is gathering steam as three California utilities announced in January they are offering the standardized energy use data to more than 10 million customers. The initial announcement by San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and Pacific Gas & Electric was followed by Glendale Power and Water, and Pepco Holdings, Inc., which said it will provide the streamlined data by summer of 2012 as it continues to deploy smart meters in its service area.
New Town Builders, the company that uses beetle-killed pine for their framing, opened this net-zero energy home with an announcement yesterday. The company is the first in the area to offer a zero-energy package as a regular, additional option. In other words, if a buyer wants it, the buyer can get a home that generates as much energy as it uses over the course of a year for the right price — in this case, $26,900.
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