Energy

Honeywell today summarily denied counterclaims in a patent infringement suit it filed against thermostat startup Nest Labs.

In a court filing, Honeywell stood by its claims that Nest infringed on its numerous patents in programmable thermostats. The suit was first filed against Nest in February.

Nest responded to the suit in April, saying that Honeywell's seemingly broad patents are "hopelessly invalid" and said Honeywell is trying to stifle innovation.

In today's filing, Honeywell fired back, saying the thermostat heavyweight intends to vigorously defend its intellectual property. The filing said Nest Labs' counter claims are "irrelevant … Read more

General Electric today introduced a 100-watt equivalent LED bulb which is the clearest example yet of how high-tech lighting has become.

The company's Energy Smart LED bulb consumes 27 watts to give off the same amount of light as a 100-watt incandescent lamp. It will be released in the first half of next year. The price has not yet been set.

GE's announcement, made at the Light Fair industry conference in Las Vegas, shows how lighting manufacturers have finally cracked one of the toughest challenges in LED lighting -- making lamps able to give off a lot of … Read more

Philips this fall will release an LED bulb as bright as a 100-watt incandescent lamp, filling out its existing LED line.

The company will add to its EnduraLED line with a lamp that gives off almost 1,700 lumens, or about the amount of light as a 100-watt incandescent, and consumes 23 watts. The product will be available this fall. Philips did not disclose the price but it is expected to be in the $40 to $50 range.

This latest EnduraLED has a color temperature is a warm yellow at 2,700 Kelvin, is dimmable, and has a color rendering … Read more

Greenpeace has uncovered documents that the group claims indicate Apple has plans to draw more power at its North Carolina data center than it has stated.

The environmental watchdog group yesterday published a permit application and permit for back up diesel-powered generators at Apple's Maiden, N.C., data center that's now under construction.

The documents indicate that Apple requested and was approved to use significantly more than the 20 megawatts of power Apple projects its data center to use at full capacity. The company received environmental permits to install 54 megawatts of diesel back up power, but because … Read more

It's time for your DVR to get as smart as your iPad. If designers get it right, energy use from household electronics will stay under control without sacrifices in features.

By necessity, mobile devices, such as tablets and smart phones, need to be clever about power, just like an efficient hybrid car uses many tricks, such as turning the engine off when idle, to sip less gas.

By contrast, always-on electronics devices, such as set-top boxes, DVRs or often game consoles, operate as if they were going top speed at all times. As more devices in the home, such … Read more

To make its data center greener, Apple will be getting energy from old garbage.

The company plans to power the fuel cells at its Maiden, N.C., data center with biogas from landfills, according to a regulatory filing spotted by Data Center Knowledge.

The filing also indicates that Bloom Energy will supply the 4.8 megawatts worth of fuel cells that will partly power the data center. Yesterday, Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar told CNET that the company will supply its 200-kilowatt parking space-size Bloom Boxes to Apple.

By using biogas rather than natural gas to power its fuel … Read more

On the day Bloom Energy officially opened shop on the East Coast, the company's CEO confirmed Bloom will supply fuel cells to Apple's North Carolina data center.

Bloom Energy today is breaking ground on a factory in Newark, Del., to build its Bloom Energy Servers, or Bloom Boxes, which produce electricity from natural gas or biogas.

The facility, which was a former Chrysler plant, will have the capacity to turn out 1,000 Bloom Boxes a year, Bloom Energy CEO K.R. Sridhar said in an interview with CNET. Each fuel cell, which is the size of few … Read more

Con Edison is betting that a modest smart outlet can help prevent the grid from crashing during a heat wave. The same gadget will also let people remotely control their air conditioners.

The New York utility said last week it intends to distribute 10,000 smart outlets from startup ThinkEco to residents in large apartment buildings as part of its peak power reduction program called CoolNYC. A regular air conditioner plugs into the smart outlets and allows for remote control of thermostat settings from a smart phone or Web browser.

People can choose to participate in Con Edison's CoolNYC … Read more

In a new twist on using waste for energy, Microsoft is designing a data center powered by biogas, the gas given off from landfills and other sources.

The company last week further detailed its Data Plant experiment, an idea to bring more reliability to its data centers and lower pollution from them.

Fuel cells would supply power to the data center and make it independent from the grid, said Christian Belady, general manager of Data Center Services in a blog post last week. In theory, having on-site power allows a data center operator to use the electric grid as bac … Read more