White Room

New labels for light bulb packaging will arrive in 2011 with the emphasis on Lumens instead of Watts as the measure of brightness. The effort will help in the marketing and comparison of CFLs and LEDs to the old incandescent bulbs that are being phased out.

Given the potential longevity of the car batteries for Chevrolet's Volt, GM is researching ways to reuse the batteries after the car is out of commission. One possibility is to help with energy storage from renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

According to Microsoft, the need for third-party application developers to accommodate power management modes has become acute.

Utilities and energy efficiency service companies that automatically enroll customers in efficiency programs with an option to "opt-out" see much higher participation rates (and hence, greater efficiency savings) than companies that require consumers to "opt-in."