News

Five years ago, Project Green Fleet set out to make every eligible school bus in the state cleaner and greener. We are nearing the finish line—have YOU joined yet? From Rochester to Roseau, and Minneapolis to Morris, school bus fleets all over Minnesota have partnered with Project Green Fleet to retrofit over 2,100 buses, keeping our air clean and our kids healthy.

Let Honeywell send you a little holiday gift in the New Year! If you purchased a Honeywell Do-It-Yourself Programmable Thermostat before November 30th, you are eligible for up to $10 off your model with a special rebate from CERTs and Honeywell. The deadline for postmarking your rebate form is December 31st, so be sure to fill out your form and mail it in.

Xcel Energy and The Green Institute launched a free energy efficiency makeover for the Lao Family Community in Saint Paul.

An energy audit determined ways the nonprofit could save energy and money. Those measures will be implemented over the coming months.

Fargo’s Green Vision Group could make this a reality by 2014.

Excerpt from Sugar beets could be next big biofuel by Marino Eccher of INFORUM:

A Fargo-based energy company is moving forward with plans for the nation’s first-ever beet ethanol plant – the first step in an ambitious plan to turn one of the Red River Valley’s top crops into a biofuel mainstay.

Phantom power is the energy being drained from your devices when you’re not using them.

It can be difficult to know and understand this, but a website from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory can tell you exactly what wattage your electronic devices are using when they are on, off, or in “sleep” mode.

D&E Management’s lofts just got an energy boost.

The Minneapolis lofts just received a 12 kW solar array, which boasts a carbon offset equivalent of 21,602 pounds of carbon, 1,193 gallons of gas saved and the equivalent of 273 trees saved each year.

Solarflow Energy installed 52 solar photovoltaic (PV) panels on the loft’s roof.

The University of Minnesota retrofitted more than 7,400 inefficient, T12 lamped, magnetic ballasted fluorescent light fixtures with modern solid state ballasts and high efficiency T8 lamps in eight residence halls on the Twin Cities campus.

The lighting retrofit has improved the quality of light provided in the students’ living spaces, study areas, common areas and dining facilities.

There are many groups in Minnesota trying to figure out how to save energy in multifamily properties, which has often been a challenge since residents don’t have the same financial incentives to save energy as homeowners do.

Northfield School of Arts and Technology (or ARTech, for short) is a small charter school in southeastern Minnesota. Many people would call ARTech a “green” school, with good reason!

During the summer of 2008, a student-driven project installed a 2kw solar array on the south of the school, in part with a SE CERT seed grant.

Watch this short video to find out how a group of Minnesota high school students, a faculty member, and a community worked together to install a solar PV project to produce renewable energy for their school, reduce their carbon footprint, provide leadership and career development opportunities for students, and create an educational resource for the school and the community at large.

If you’re a small business in Minnesota that’s considered putting in a wind turbine, now is a great time to act! Minnesota’s Office of Energy Security recently introduced wind turbine rebates for businesses with 20 or fewer full-time employees (Non-profits also qualify assuming they meet all other criteria). The rebates are for up to 35% project costs, capped at $25,000.

The CERTs 2011 Clean Energy Convergence will unite you with other Minnesotans who are blazing the paths to a clean energy future by working on energy efficiency and renewable energy projects in their communities.

Find a camera and get ready!   Submit a digital short for a chance to win $500 or cool clean energy prizes! Videos are due on January 7th at 5pm.

The Minneapolis & D.C. based Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) recently launched the website Energy Self-Reliant States. The website hopes to “provide the tools and rules for states and communities to maximize their returns from renewable energy.” We spoke with primary author and ILSR senior researcher John Farrell to learn more.

iSEEK Solutions has developed two new career pathways for the residential and commercial energy efficiency sectors.

These interactive tools allow users to view common job titles, wages, job openings, and training/education requirements specific to Minnesota. In addition, expanded pathways for wind and ethanol careers are also now online.

Seven educational institutions and one nonprofit group in Minnesota were selected to be part of the Midwest Solar Training Network (MSTN) and include:

Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College
Century College
Hibbing Community College
Riverland Community College
Minneapolis Community College
St. Paul College
Central Lakes College
Minnesota Renewable Energy Society.

There are lots of lists out there of things that you should do to get your home ready for winter—keeping you and your family comfortable and keeping more of your hard-earned dollars in your pocket. CERTs put together these eight items as a short list for you—you could get all of these done in just one weekend, with on minor investments.

Give to the Max Day is The Great Minnesota Give Together! Give to the Max Day returns as a day to inspire unprecedented levels of charitable giving in the state of Minnesota! The collective goal is to beat last year’s record by having 40,000 people give to their favorite Minnesota charity on November 16.

 
It’s time to register for the Community Wind across America Midwest regional conference, presented by Windustry, a national leader in helping communities develop their own wind project. This Midwest conference will be a networking and educational event focused on Community Wind and Small Wind development on November 15-16, St. Paul, MN.

The Minnesota Department of Commerce Office of Energy Security (OES) requests proposals from eligible applicants for Training for Dislocated and Disadvantaged Energy Professionals (an ARRA Grant Program). Grants will be awarded competitively to successful respondents.

Are you a student? Have ideas or thoughts about how to make your school more sustainable? Want to meet other engaged students around Minnesota? On Monday, October, 25th the Green Schools National Youth Summit is taking place in Minneapolis! The Summit will engage over 100 high school leaders, Will Steger and Philippe Cousteau, and organizations and people involved in clean energy projects.

Sitting at a table in the bustling Global Market, eating a Manny’s sandwich, I visited with both Agatha Vaaler and Julia Eagles of the Green Institute on a windy day in December. This was my initial meeting to discuss volunteering at the Green Institute.

Here’s a quick update on a few funding and incentive programs from the Housing Finance Agency, Office of Energy Security, Department of Employment and Economic Development, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and others. You should also check out the most recent installment of Funding Opportunities in the Fields of Energy and Environment from OES.

A new report, Ownership and Regional Economic Impact: The Case of Wind Development in Minnesota, by Arne Kildegaard, Professor of Economics & Management at University of Minnesota Morris, posits that the Upper Midwest is poised for a major investment boom in wind-powered electricity generation.

CERTs Coordinator, Joel Haskard, recently connected with Bob Olson, a tax attorney in Minnesota, about an intriguing public-private model for wind development. Many of the questions posed here relate to Bob’s recent document, Public/Private Wind Turbine Project: Financial Alternatives, outlining this specific model.