Green Investments: Intel, Islamic Capital

The world of cleantech investments is certainly becoming more diversified and interesting each day, here are some more ideas.

Intel Capital

Smart Grid has been an active investment sector in the cleantech industry, especially in the North American markets. Intel Capital, for instance, has made further investments into energy efficiency applications and smart grid technologies; it has been making investments into cleantech sectors consecutively last 12 months.

Over the past 12 months, Intel has made investments into solar energy, energy efficiency equipment, smartgrid and other renewable energy infrastructure projects; the investments has been made both within North America and outside North America. The company has also backed many green businesses as such as green websites and R&D opportunities, some at very early stages.

Islamic Capital as an investment source

Private equity firm Middle East & Asia Capital Partners Pte (MEACP) had introduced a sharia-compliant investment vehicle to its clean energy fund to attract Islamic capital.

This had been gradually expanded by different Islamic countries, to set up a specific vehicle to attract investments from Islamic capital.

MEACP, which set up a clean energy fund in 2008, would expand the fund to $500 million from $400 million upon the launch of the fund's sharia-compliant special vehicle sometime next year, he said.
 

Over the past few years, there has been a notable increasing investments from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait as well as Malaysia and Indonesia; all of them expanding their investments in the CleanTech areas: especially relating to Water Technologies; Soil remediation; also Green Building materials.

Check Out our Global Green Investors Guide with hundreds of investment firms investing in CleanTech & Renewable Energy sectors: http://researchwhitepaper.com

Continue reading on Examiner.com Green Investments: Intel, Islamic Capital - Toronto Finance | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/finance-in-toronto/green-investments-intel-islamic-capital#ixzz1PotNcA56

Continue reading on Examiner.com Green Investments: Intel, Islamic Capital - Toronto Finance | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/finance-in-toronto/green-investments-intel-islamic-capital#ixzz1PotFf3JI

Malaysia Feed-In-Tariff and SEDA Act finally in place

Both bills were passed the parliament on 28th April 2011. 

Monitor your energy consumption, manage your carbon footprint

Monitoring your energy consumption is a crucial part and it is the first step in managing your energy consumption effectively. Moreover, with the current Efficient Electrical Energy Manager Regulation by Energy Commission makes the energy data gathering and analysis of your energy consumption become more important in ensuring the data submitted are accurate and very often that archiving the historical energy data for analysis are time consuming or may be not available. Data gathering is a key activities for Energy Manager or energy engineer in analysing the data so that an appropriate energy saving measures can be recommended and implemented. However with the current trend of multi-tasking jobs, Energy Manager is always a part-time job. It is a time consuming to gather the data and analyse it. 

Nowadays, many energy monitoring system offer some advance features not like as ordinary meter or smart meter. Like Eniscope by Enigin, they offer a friendly and effective energy monitoring system to assist Energy Manager in monitoring and tracking electricity consumption. Conducting electrical energy audit would also become easier as all the data and analysis are already done in the computer and getting a data for analysis will not be easier like this.

This system also provide real-time monitoring facility.  Real-time and Analytics as the first step in developing a robust energy saving programme… only then we can accurately measure and quantify the benefits of the many load-side products currently on the market. The first step in any robust energy management programme is to take control of the situation and understand the problem – before investments are made in expensive solutions that may, or may not as the case may be, give an acceptable result. Eniscope Real-time and Analytics removes the uncertainty and risk, and is the foundation stone on which everything else is facilitated. Moreover this system provides a useful analysis and diagnostics facility which usually done by Energy Manager or Auditor manually.

On the other hand, this system allows you to monitor remotely regardless of location, as it monitoring is on web-based system. So you can monitor your energy anywhere, anytime. For the organisation that want to embark into energy management activity, this system could be a useful tools in creating the awareness among the staff. This system allows you to connect to a public through large screen media and display it at meeting room, lobby or may be CEO's room. 

With its multiple metering support system, it will enable you to monitor more than just one total reading. You can monitor each level of your building electricity consumption, sub-process, main machine and etc. 

So ... it is now Virtual Energy Manager ... putting YOU in control of your energy costs and your Carbon Footprint 

ENERGY EFFICIENCY and CLIMATE CHANGE

Energy efficiency represents the lowest hanging fruit in solving the Climate change challenges. According to a joint study by McKinsey and Vattenfall, energy efficiency savings can reduce CO2-eq emissions by over 4.7 Gt by 2030 at a negative cost. In other words, these measures can be implemented profitably with extremely short payback periods and high internal rates of return. Residential energy efficiency investments typically provide annual returns of 10% or more, but commercial building and industrial upgrades can achieve rates of return of 30-50% or more. A recent study by IEA concluded that if best practices were used in the industrial sector, CO2 emission reductions of 1.9 to 3.2 Gt are possible, and if all countries used best practices for fossil fuel production, reductions of 1.8 to 2.5 Gt are possible. FERC estimates that existing demand response systems could reduce electricity requirements by 37.5 GWe. Currently, waste heat from electricity generation and industrial processes is simply vented. The DOE reports that available waste heat sources exceed the current production of all other U.S. renewable power sources combined — 7 Quad BTU.
According to the IEA, energy efficient buildings, industrial processes and transportation could reduce the world's energy needs in 2050 by 33%, and become crucial in controlling global greenhouse gas (“GHG”) emissions.

Continue reading on Examiner.com: What is Green Economy? Trends and Statistics - Toronto Finance | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/finance-in-toronto/what-is-green-economy-trends-and-statistics#ixzz1M12Fy8QG

ISO 50001 energy management standard targeted for publication in 3Q2011

Against a background of rising world energy prices, ISO’s announcement of a third quarter 2011 target for publication of its ISO 50001 International Standard for energy management is particularly timely. ISO 50001 will help organizations to improve their energy performance, increase energy efficiency and reduce climate change impacts.

ISO 50001 will establish a framework for industrial plants, commercial facilities or entire organizations to manage energy. Targeting broad applicability across national economic sectors, it is estimated that the standard could influence up to 60 % of the world’s energy use.

ISO 50001 is being developed by ISO project committee ISO/PC 242, Energy management, whose Chair, Edwin Piñero, comments: “Everyday, organizations all over the world deal with issues such as energy supply availability, reliability, climate change, and resource depletion. A critical element in addressing these issues is how effectively an organization manages its energy use.

“ISO 50001 provides a proven model that helps organizations systematically plan and manage their energy use. With a strong focus on performance and continual improvement, ISO 50001 will contribute to enhanced energy efficiency and prudent energy use. An extremely high level of consensus drove our committee’s fast progress toward publication – proof that the world needs and wants this standard.”

The secretariat of ISO/PC 242 is provided by the partnership of the ISO members for the United States (American National Standards Institute – ANSI) and Brazil (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas – ABNT). Forty-three ISO member countries are participating in its development, with another 12 as observers. Liaison organizations include the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the World Energy Council (WEC).

The document is based on the common elements found in all of ISO’s management system standards, assuring a high level of compatibility with ISO 9001 (quality management) and ISO 14001 (environmental management). ISO 50001 will provide the following benefits:

• A framework for integrating energy efficiency into management practices
• Making better use of existing energy-consuming assets
• Benchmarking, measuring, documenting, and reporting energy intensity improvements and their projected impact on reductions in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions
• Transparency and communication on the management of energy resources
• Energy management best practices and good energy management behaviours
• Evaluating and prioritizing the implementation of new energy-efficient technologies
• A framework for promoting energy efficiency throughout the supply chain
• Energy management improvements in the context of GHG emission reduction projects

World GHG Emissions Flow Chart

Potential Energy Saving Measures in Plastic Manufacturing Plant

the audit was carried out in an integrated plastic resin manufacturing plant. It took about 2-3 weeks to complete the audit. The energy consumed in this plant is thermal (gas)for steam generation) and electricity. . A summary of the energy and cost savings of all the investigated measures is shown in Table 0.3‑1. As shown in the table, total savings in the range of about RM 1,956 thousand or 16.4 percent from current energy cost.

Table 1: Summary of energy and cost saving measures

The potential reduction of CO₂ emissions of all the energy savings measures together is shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Potential reduction of CO₂ emissions