I really enjoyed West Coast Green.  After spending several hours helping with the Innovation Pipeline, promoting the conference through our website, and flying down to participate as a second-year media sponsor, I’m certainly happy I was able to hang out on the exhibit floor and view the Harbinger house.  I met some very nice people and left with the feeling that the best and brightest are hard at work trying to market products that can help everyone live healthy, sustainable, and comfortable lives.  Although you may have seen a few of these companies previously, they all caught my eye.  They’re all very cool. 

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Mounting on the green building success of their previous stores, including the green Boulder REI we wrote about previously, REI today opens the doors to its second generation of green prototype store in Round Rock, Texas.  The Texas store is projected to consume 48% less energy than a typical store and generate a portion of its power from a solar panel installation, building integrated photovoltaics, and a solar hot water system.  After that, Round Rock will rely on Solatubes to displace a portion of articifial lighting and the purchase of green power generated from biomass digesters. 

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University of California, San Diego is in the process of installing Solar Trees by Envision Solar on the roofs of two of its parking garages.  The Solar Trees are designed to provide clean energy for the campus, shade for vehicle parking, and future infrastructure for electrical vehicles.  Each Solar Tree at UCSD will generate more than 17,000 hours of clean energy per year, which is enough to power more than four single-family homes.  In aggregate, with two parking garages topped with Solar Trees, you can imagine the power they’re generating. 

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METALAB and Ttweak have taken a novel approach to marketing the first proposed LEED certified condo building in Houston.  The two designed a sales center for MirabeauB using two 20-foot containers.  On the roof, solar panels generate ~180 kwH per month and can fold up during bad weather. 

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When Maria Surma Manka brought us news of Broadstar Wind Systems last June from Windpower 2008, our interest was stoked, especially considering the fact that Broadstar was claiming that their AeroCam turbine could achieve $1 per watt installed.  Well, the company is still beta testing the AeroCam turbine, but demand is crazy and they’re "on track" to install more than 70 turbines.  J.C. Penny Co. plans to install AeroCam turbines on their distribution facility in Reno, Nevada by November this year.  Plus, 15 companies have contracted to test the turbines and 12 more are in talks. 

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