ANN ARBOR - The Michigan House of Representatives voted today to pass a bill that makes energy efficiency upgrades more accessible for customers of municipal utilities. House Bill 5397 passed with nearly unanimous, bipartisan support by a vote of 108 to 2. State Representatives Goike (R - Ray Township) and Franz (R - Onekama) voted
DETROIT - Two NextEnergy demonstration programs were selected by the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy as finalists in the SmartAmerica Challenge. Two teams comprised of NextEnergy and four Detroit-area companies representED Michigan at the SmartAmerica Expo in Washington D.C. on June 11. The SmartAmerica Challenge was created to advance developments in the
LANSING - The Michigan Legislature might have given Clean Corporate Citizen Program enrollees too much protection, at least one observer said in comments on the state's federal Clean Air Act implementation plan. New law guiding the program allows enrollees to avoid penalties if they can show a violation was not intentional or due to gross
LANSING - The proposed emission rules announced earlier this week by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would be more stringent on Michigan than other Midwestern states and changes should be made to the proposal, U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, the Democratic candidate for Michigan's open U.S. Senate seat, said on Wednesday. Peters made his comments two
BROOKFIELD TOWNSHIP - DTE Energy Co. is buying one of two Pheasant Run wind parks in Michigan from a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC. The Detroit-based utility announced Monday that the 75-megawatt Pheasant Run II wind park in Huron County will be renamed the Brookfield Wind Park. Operating since earlier this year, it will
LANSING - The state is already on track to meet the carbon emissions standard the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set for power plants, one of the state's major utilities and environmental groups said Monday. The EPA has proposed standards that would reduce carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030 from those levels in 2005. "It's highly
MASON - The 2014 Michigan Energy Fair will be held on June 27-28 at the Ingham County Fairgrounds in Mason. The 2014 Fair will be the 14th statewide energy fair sponsored by GLREA. The Fair is the biggest and longest running energy event in Michigan and provides a unique opportunity to reach out to individuals
LANSING - The Michigan House Energy and Technology Committee began exploring bills Tuesday that would expand the items considered renewable fuels and would allow natural gas utilities to expand their service territories. But the bills saw objections from groups that argued, respectively, they would allow non-renewable resources to be considered renewable and would allow expansion
DETROIT - The Power Electronics Industry Collaborative has been awarded a $500,000, two-year grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology for the Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia Program to fund a proposal to strengthen the domestic power electronics ecosystem. NextEnergy will receive more than $300,000 as a sub award to support grant activities. The
TROY - There's still time to register for the upcoming SAE Detroit Section event featuring a presentation by Michigan Green Chemistry Roundtable members. Safer products and processes are a key value proposition for business and can drive regional economic development. For a manufacturing facility, Green Chemistry and Engineering practices can yield costs savings in reduced