efficiency
London officials are urging the mayor to lobby the UK government for a renewed commitment to energy efficiency. Under a motion passed this week, the London Assembly is asking Mayor Boris Johnson to push for a reversal in UK reductions to the Energy Company Obligation (ECO). The government’s stance
efficiency
Energy efficiency is a strange “fuel.” You don’t get a monthly efficiency bill like you would for, say, heating oil or natural gas. But efficiency — or the lack of it — can have as big an impact on your bottom line as what you shell out for every kilowatt-hour or
efficiency
Foreign students will get more than just a place to stay while visiting the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland — they’ll also help the VTT investigate new ways to encourage people to control their home energy use. That’s because visiting students’ accommodations aren’t any old dorm, but
efficiency
Can smarter building techniques also make for faster construction? China’s Broad Group hopes to answer that question with a resounding “Yes” by completing the world’s tallest building in 90 days. The company plans to build the 220-story Sky City tower in Changsha City using modular construction technology developed
efficiency
Thanks to innovations like ever-faster and more affordable PCs, smart phones and cloud computing, a small or mid-sized business today can enjoy an advanced IT infrastructure unimaginable even five or 10 years ago. One “perk of the future” that has yet to be delivered, though, is the paperless office. In
efficiency
There are lots of ways to measure how efficient a thing or process is: miles per gallon, GDP per barrel of oil, lumens per watt, etc. There are also, as Mark Twain (or was it Benjamin Disraeli?) said, “three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics.” What does that
efficiency
Is bigger necessarily more efficient? It all depends on circumstances. For example, an Amazon certainly enjoys an economy of scale no brick-and-mortar local bookstore can … as fallout in the book-selling business has proven. On the other hand, when conditions on Earth changed dramatically, the mighty dinosaurs that ruled for millions
efficiency
ABB’s programmable logic controllers are helping to run what is believed to be the world’s first zero-emissions data center, a facility in Iceland that gets its electricity from hydropower and geothermal energy. The Thor Data Center near the capital city of Reykjavik recently opened its first data storage
efficiency
Sick and tired of circling the block in the vain hope of finding an open parking space? There could soon be an app for that in a city near you. IBM and Streetline, a company using smart technology to tackle the perennial lack of parking in urban areas, have started
efficiency
Residential doors in the UK will now be given energy efficiency ratings much like windows have long received, under a new program from the British Fenestration Ratings Council (BFRC). The Door Energy Ratings (DER) scheme extends the rating system already used for doors on fridges, freezers and other white goods
efficiency
Data center efficiency software firm Sentilla Corporation has raised $15 million in new financing to help it expand sales and marketing. “Sentilla’s technology of maximizing business value from IT organizations addresses a critical need — not just for the telecommunications industry, but also in other enterprises that are looking to
efficiency
Following its recent acquisition of a product and software business from CURRENT Group, smart-grid firm S&C Electric Company has introduced a new optimization solution aimed at improving grid efficiency and stability. With up to seven percent of electricity lost during distribution, utilities need a way to reduce total