Growing A Green Career in the New Year

Posted on January 2, 2011 by quest

Navigating the Emotional Side of Your Green Job Search

by Carol McClelland, PhD – There’s a very tactical side to any job search. Figuring out the best strategies to uncover contacts and job openings becomes your main focus. There’s also an emotional side to any job search. Though rarely discussed, this often hidden component of every job search has the potential to derail one’s job search.

No matter how you look at it, a job search is a difficult time of change.
•   In the past – you are looking back at what you’ve left behind. No matter what the scenario, there’s a sense of loss as you close the door.
•   You’ve been forced to leave a job and team you enjoyed.
•   You’ve been asked to leave a job you didn’t like, but you weren’t quite ready to leave
•   You’ve chosen to leave a position for personal reasons.
•   You’ve had to leave a position due to a change in another part of your life.
•   In the future – you are facing the unknown. Where will you work? What will you do? Who will hire you? Every where you turn there’s another question you can’t really answer. Uncomfortable. Unnerving.
At perhaps the deepest point in your own job transition, you must put your very best foot forward to network, interview, and land a job. A task that is difficult even when you are at your best!

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Solar Power to Brew Coffee in Virginia

Posted on December 30, 2010 by quest

The Dominion Foundation, has awarded a $30,000 grant to Virginia Highlands Community College for the development of “Wolf Grounds,” an on-campus, student-run coffee shop. The non-profit business will involve 100 percent organically grown and recyclable products, local suppliers, Energy Star appliances, and both solar hot-water heating and solar photovoltaic technologies. The coffee shop project will serve as a student learning tool. “Dominion’s grant will allow our students to experience first-hand the process of opening and operating a business within the security of college supervision,” said Virginia Highlands President Ron Proffitt. “This is an outstanding opportunity for our students, and we are grateful to Dominion for their support of the college, our students and this project.”

Besides providing experience to business students in running a self-sustaining business, the project also will provide a hands-on learning opportunity to students in solar energy system design, equipment installation, and system maintenance and repair. “Dominion is excited about supporting this hands-on learning project and particularly because of its emphasis on energy conservation, efficiency and alternative energy generation,” said Preston Sloane, station director for the Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center. The power station is being built in nearby Wise County, about 30 miles from the campus, by Dominion Virginia Power, a subsidiary of Dominion Resources.

The coffee shop, which is scheduled to open in April, will be managed by the campus organization Students in Free Enterprise. Roughly half the students involved in the project’s development will continue their involvement in the shop’s operation. For example, information technology students will continue to maintain the shop’s Web page and produce brochures, marketing students will promote the business and accounting students will manage the books. Dominion is one of the nation’s largest producers and transporters of energy, with a portfolio of approximately 27,600 megawatts of generation. Dominion operates the nation’s largest natural gas storage system and serves retail energy customers in 13 states. The Dominion Foundation is its’ philanthropic arm.

GO ORGANIC

Solar Prosperity Project in Effect in New Mexico  

Posted on December 29, 2010 by quest

Federal and state governments and private companies have been budgeting millions of dollars to demonstrate cost-effective ways to store electricity generated by the solar or wind energy and dispatch it when needed. As a result PNM, a New Mexico utility, has planned to join with two educational partners and the Sandia National Laboratories in one of a growing number of renewable-energy storage and distribution projects getting under way across the country.   The PNM project has received about $2m from the federal Department of Energy as part of the overall cost of about $6m, and the project calls for the installation of a large lead-acid battery system to store and dispatch energy generated by a 500kW solar photovoltaic array.

The Prosperity Energy Storage Project it is to be built near the master-planned community Mesa del Sol off Interstate 25, about 1.5m south of the Albuquerque International Sunport, the city’s primary public airport.   The utility-scale battery system, which will have a storage capacity of 2MWh to 4MWh of electricity, is to be used for power conditioning, voltage smoothing and peak shifting, according to a Department of Energy document.   The project calls for the utility to test the system’s ability to mitigate voltage fluctuations from solar or wind-generated energy.

POWER FROM WIND & WAVES

SunPower Completes Montalto di Castro Solar Park

Posted on December 28, 2010 by quest

International solar company SunPower Corp has announced that it has completed the sale of its 44-megawatt Montalto di Castro solar park to a consortium of international investors that include MetLife, Fondo PPP Italia (managed by Fondaco SGR S.p.A and advised by Equiter S.p.A) and Voigt & Collegen. SunPower designed and built the solar power plant and will provide ongoing operations and maintenance services for the new owners. Barclays Capital advised MetLife on this transaction.

“With the sale of this power plant now completed, we have met the goal of developing, constructing and monetizing 72 megawatts from the Montalto di Castro solar park,” said Dennis Arriola, SunPower chief financial officer. “We are proud of this accomplishment and recognize the dedicated team and various independent parties that helped to deliver this successful outcome.”

The Montalto di Castro solar park, developed by SunPower, is located in the Lazio region of Italy near Rome, where the 20-MW first phase was connected to the grid in November of 2009, several weeks ahead of schedule. The 8-MW second phase was commissioned earlier this fall, and the third and fourth phases, totaling 44 MW, were completed earlier this month. SunPower financed the development and construction of the 44-MW with proceeds from the solar industry’s first-of-its-kind solar bond.

Solar Money House SunRun Expands New Markets

Bill Schuh has joined SunRun a solar power company service that offers a service similar to a lease that allows homeowners to upgrade their home to solar for as little as $0 upfront and simply pay monthly for solar electricity. Joining SunRun as vice president of sales. Bill Schuh will be growing network of installation partners. Schuh has already helped SunRun extend its partnership withThe Home Depot and enlist new installation partners to take SunRun’s solar power service to more communities across seven states.

Prior to joining SunRun, Schuh served as vice president, EMEA for Callidus Software Inc. where he led sales and marketing in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. At Callidus he grew a fledgling EMEA business from a small handful of customers in the UK to a successful business spanning more than 20 countries.

“We have an opportunity to provide clean, attractively-priced solar to millions of homeowners that aren’t aware today of how significantly they can benefit from it. Success requires a top-class sales and partner network that innovates constantly to reach potential customers in new ways,” said Schuh. “I look forward to supporting such a talented and passionate group of employees and partners at SunRun, and we’ll complement creativity with a relentless commitment to quality to achieve our goals.”

MORE GREEN NEWS WALL

Solar Maps Out Power in Salt Lake City

Posted on December 28, 2010 by quest

Salt Lake City joins the ranks of other cities such as San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles County, Anaheim and Portland which have solar maps. The Solar Salt Lake Project, an innovative partnership among Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah Clean Energy and other partners; as well as through work with CH2M HILL and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Solar America Cities program. The solar map gives the citizens of Salt Lake City the ability to visit the site, enter in a property address and see a visual snapshot of the property rooftop and its suitability for solar panels.

Designed by Critigen a global leader in information technology consulting and IT outsourcing. The solar map demonstrates Critigen’s ability to deliver leading-edge visualization technologies. The Salt Lake City map utilizes a multicolored solar layer, where blue indicates lower solar radiation and red indicates an area of higher solar radiation. “As part of broader livability initiatives, Salt Lake City has set a goal to facilitate at least 10 megawatts of solar installations by 2015,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Ralph Becker. “With tools like the solar map, we take the next steps to encourage adoption and further livability in our city,” he added.

These approaches make it simple for property owners to create highly accurate user-defined areas for solar panels in the rooftop areas with the highest solar radiation. The solar map then calculates the system size that will fit into the user-defined area, calculates the amount of electricity that will be generated, and provides information about the cost of the proposed system. If the system is not what the user expected, the property owner can redraw the area to get a different set of results. This tool offers a great deal of flexibility and convenience to those “do-it-yourself” citizens who are interested in solar. “Every step we take to make it easier for the general public to understand the value and potential of renewable resources on their own homes brings us closer to energy security in this country,” stated Salt Lake County Mayor Peter Corroon.

VISIT THE SOLAR WALL

Green Vehicles Riding on Air

Posted on December 27, 2010 by quest

Move over electric car makers Volt and Tesla. The AirPod, no that’s not Ipod has made its way on the streets of Paris. AirPod is the culmination of work conducted by MDI (Motor Development Incorporated) a car company which studies pollution and urban mobility. MDI has operations in the United Kingdom, France, and a unique production design relationship with India based Tata Motors.

AirPod is an air powered car company directed by Guy NEGRE the CEO of the company. NEGRE is a mechanical engineer who started his career researching engine efficiency. Throughout his career Guy NEGRE, has designed nearly one hundred engines.The aims of this company are to promote and develop ecological energies; conceive and produce non-pollutant vehicles and systems. The AirPod along with OneFlowAIR, MiniFlow AIR, CityFlowAIR and are clean energy engines that operate on a totally eco-friendly basis using compressed air stored at high pressure.

By the way the first wedding in the world featuring an AirPod vehicle took place last September 10 at Saint Laurent du Var in the French Riviera. Michel Verdiani, Communications Manager for MDI and his new bride Marsha were riding on air.