News

On Saturday, September 27th a fired up crowd gathered at the Minneapolis Urban League to help create a new clean, green, inclusive economy.

Recently, Minnesota Environmental Initiative hosted a forum on carbon cap-and-trade. The keynote speaker, former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack, spoke from personal experience in support of a carbon cap-and-trade policy at the federal level.

100 Schools, 3 years…How much energy can we save?   With the Minnesota Schools Cutting Carbon program you can save your school money and reduce your carbon footprint! The program is focused on helping schools reduce carbon in two ways:       1. Supporting carbon-cutting student-led projects       2.

You betcha, Powershift will soon be making a visit to the great state of Minnesota. The home of nice people, hotdish, Garrison Keillor, the Democrat-Farmer-Labor party, community wind, the highest voter participation rates in the country, and the Mall of America now has its very own Powershift!

Minnesota Powershift 2008 is much more than a conference.

On August 19th the Southeast Clean Energy Resource Team toured two green landmarks in the Twin Cities: The Green Institute’s Phillips Eco-Enterprise Center Building in Minneapolis and District Energy in St. Paul.

QUESTION Are any programs available to fund transmission interconnection studies and wind studies for C-BED projects? ANSWER Yes, the Minnesota Department of Commerce, Office of Energy Security has a Rural Wind Energy Development Revolving Loan Fund.

In April 2008, the Minnesota Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) received over 90 submissions for this year’s Request for Proposals to fund energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. This represents nearly a twofold increase in the amount of proposals submitted for spring of 2008, and attests to the tremendous wealth of clean energy projects happening in communities across the state.

Many land owners across the state have been approached recently with offers for wind energy land leases, leading the Northwest, Southeast, and West Central Regional Clean Energy Resource Teams to hold meetings in June where they discussed the ins and outs of land leases for wind development.

The Mahtomedi Area Green Intiative, MAGI, is a group of citizens who came together in December 2006 to initiate and carry out activities to reduce carbon-emitting energy use, pursue and acquire renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, and encourage an enduring community commitment to sustainability.

Brooten, MN – Jerry and Linda Jennissen of Brooten hosted a field day today on their 200 acre, 160 cow dairy farm, featuring a methane digester project that recently became operational.

On Monday, June 16, 2008 from 1-3pm The Minnesota Department of Commerce gave a web seminar on the Phase 1 results of their Minnesota Dispersed Renewable Generation (DRG) Study. The purpose of the webinar was to inform the public of the first phase results, key findings, and conclusions.

CREBs in Brief

 
The Clean Renewable Energy Bond (CREB) program is administered by the Internal Revenue Service and provides bond authorization for public entities on a competitive basis for renewable electricity projects. The benefit of the CREB program is that public entities receive the bonds at “zero” percent interest.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.

Presenter: Pat Huelman, University of Minnesota Cold Climate Housing Program

Pat tells us how—if we can sharpen our pencil of building science, and better engineer—we can get better building performance while spending less money.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference R.T.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.

Facilitator: Dane Smith, Growth & Justice, former Star Tribune writer
Panelists: Ellen Anderson, Senator, State of Minnesota | Edward A.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.

Presenters: Rick Carter and David Williams, LHB, Inc.

View the presentation from this session

LHB began researching and documenting actual performance data from projects in early 2007.

Dan Thiede live-blogs this session at the Minnesota Green Communities third annual statewide GREEN BY DESIGN Conference. View all conference presentations here.

  For the Twin Cities Bike Walk Week, the Phillips Eco-Enerprise Center hosted a breakfast on their green rooftop, delighting even the vegans with a spread of tofu scramble, caramel rolls, breakfast burritos, pancakes, fruit, Peace Coffee, and juices.

There is a buzz right now in MN about land leases for wind development   We have compiled a few resources so that you know what is going on, and what you need to know before you sign.

Welcome to the completely redesigned CERTs site!   HISTORY   Since 2003 the Clean Energy Resource Teams Web site has played a key role in our mission to connect people with the technical resources needed to identify and implement community-scale energy efficiency and clean energy projects.

The Metro CERTs Network Kick-off on April 15th was attended by over 200 people, from elected officials to community members—and everyone in between! It was held at the Landmark Center in downtown St. Paul, where the main room was buzzing with conversation. There was good energy, and many great connections made. “It was a very well done get together and I think very beneficial to everyone.

The Duluth Energy Design Conference held February 26 and 27, 2008, at the Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center, offered 27 sessions per day for conference attendees to learn a vast array of green building techniques, small business practices, alternative energy technologies, construction financing methods, and storm water management principles.