Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick proposed a resolution at the New England Governor’s Conference that passed unanimously and will advance the process toward a coordinated regional procurement of renewable energy.

Distributed renewable energy installations today represent far less than one percent of total worldwide electricity generating capacity, but according to a new report from Pike Research, a part of Navigant’s Energy Practice, they will expand rapidly over the next half-decade.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced a new partnership between its Challenge Home program and Passive House Institute US (PHIUS) on a voluntary certification process for net zero-energy ready homes.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has selected HP and Intel to provide a new energy-efficient high performance computer (HPC) system. NREL’s new HPC data center is designed to be the world’s most energy efficient.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through its Engineering and Support Center, has issued a Multiple-Award Task Order Contractors (MATOC) Request for Proposal (RFP) for $7 billion in total contract capacity to procure reliable, locally generated, renewable, and alternative energy through power purchase agreements.

The question arises from time to time in building industry blogs about whether or not geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) are a source of renewable energy. So where do they fit? 

Renewable power sources — including hydrokinetic, biomass, geothermal, wind, and solar — make up 10 percent of total electricity production in the United States. While the media have highlighted failures by renewable energy companies, North America leads the world in terms of additions of new renewable energy capacity.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) announced that since 2006 it has invested €10 billion (over $13 billion) in energy efficiency and sustainable energy.

Barack Obama has been re-elected president, Republicans have retained control of the House of Representatives, and Democrats continue to rule the Senate. To naysayers, the election may have seemed like one big waste of energy; however, to energy-efficiency advocates, the election may help eliminate a great deal of energy waste.

The IKEA Group has released a new sustainability strategy, People & Planet Positive, in which the company said it plans to use 100 percent renewable energy in its operations by the year 2020.