image placeholder

Greetings! 

Welcome to the inaugural issue of the Newsletter of the Institute for Energy Efficiency.  I'm joined by John Bowers, Whitney Wegener, Yvonne Freeman, and Sejal Hall in expressing appreciation for your interest in the Institute and its activities.  The Institute is a research initiative devoted to advancing the frontiers of technologies for energy efficiency, and seeks to provide a variety of solutions to the broad energy problems confronting our nation and world.  New technologies that are better, faster, cheaper, and above all, more energy efficient, are an essential part of this solution set.  We look forward to sharing with you, on a periodic basis, updates on the Institute's activities, news, and events.  We hope you enjoy hearing about the exciting progress of the Institute, and that you will participate with us in making a difference.
 
Kind regards,
Dan Colbert
Executive Director, Institute for Energy Efficiency
 

Research Insights

Controlling the Smart Grid
by Buildings & Design Solutions Group Head Igor Mezic
Technological advances of sustainable power-producing technologies such as wind turbines combined with decreasing costs will result in a large percentage of conventional energy sources being replaced with alternative ones. The nature of electric loads will change as well.  Electric cars of the future may be powered using the electricity produced by neighborhood microgrid sources such as solar panels and wind turbines, and may also serve as storage for electricity to return it to the grid when needed.  But this creates a headache for engineers concerned with robustness and efficiency.    Read More ...
 

GE Says Smart Grid Equal to 41GW of Power Plants
from Greentech Media
Make no mistake: General Electric is a big proponent of smart grids. "We can probably improve the efficiency of the grid by 5 percent," said Steve Fludder, vice president of Ecomagination at GE, during an interview at the Cleantech Forum taking place this week in San Francisco. Five percent doesn't sound like much, but it translates to 41,000 megawatts of generating capacity, or 41 gigawatts.  Read More...
 

Feature Article

Energy Efficiency is the Leading Solution to the Energy Problem 
by Executive Director Dan Colbert
There's a source that can make more energy available, and do so sooner and at far less cost, than all the alternative energy sources we can develop in the United States in the next ten years - and today's energy debate is largely neglecting it.  That source is neither carbon-based nor "alternative," so it will reduce greenhouse gas emissions without requiring the building of new infrastructure.  Read More ...
 

Faculty News

Professor Umesh Mishra Elected to National Academy of Engineering
Umesh Mishra, Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering at UC Santa Barbara and IEE faculty, has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). His election is in recognition of his "contributions to the development of gallium-nitride electronics and other high-speed, high-power semiconductor electronic devices."  Read More ...