Spirit Solar Powered Lighting Column integrates panels into the post

Street lights are one of things people in heavily populated areas tend to take for granted. They make walking and driving a safer, more pleasant experience, but they also account for a significant chunk of a city's energy usage. Solar powered street lights offer a solution for places where electricity is at a premium, or locations that are off the grid completely and the Spirit Solar Powered Lighting Column is the first example we've seen which rolls the post and the panels together in a standalone design.

Kaal Masten, the studio responsible for the new LED street light, says it can function using 100-percent solar power, who means it does not need to be connected to the grid at all in order to function.

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HEVO "manhole" wirelessly charges EVs

Combine the convenience of a wireless electric vehicle charging station with the safety and inconspicuousness of a manhole cover. This is the vision of HEVO (Hybrid & Electric Vehicle Optimization), and it’s made the company a semifinalist for the SAFE Emerging Innovation Award. Noting the problems typically associated with EV charging, such as vandalism, faulty connectors, and the inconvenience of plugging in and paying, HEVO set out to make charging a car, or a fleet of cars, as simple as parking.

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Neurio sensor monitors multiple household appliances to cut energy consumption

Smart energy company Energy Aware, based in Vancouver, Canada, has developed a new product called Neurio that is designed to help people better control their domestic energy usage by monitoring home appliances. The product also allows users to be reminded of domestic tasks involving appliances. In cases of smart appliances, Neurio can detect behavior patterns and program appliances to meet specific requirements.

To be at the hub of all electricity consumption in the house, the Wi-Fi-enabled Neurio sensor is installed in the breaker panel and sends data to a cloud service that analyzes it with smart pattern detection algorithms. The package includes an app called Wattson (iOS and Android), which reports power usage in real-time and can notify users when they forget to turn something off and tell them how much energy their appliances are using. Since Neurio uses Wi-Fi to send all the data to a cloud server, it can be accessed anywhere.

Read full article HERE

Power for the People

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Let’s talk about the benefits of having Johnson City Power Board (JCPB) as your electric provider. You may not have heard, but JCPB is one of more than 2,000 public power utilities across the country. And “public power” makes a difference.

That difference began here in Johnson City, TN in 1945 when JCPB was created as an enterprise fund of the City of Johnson City and began providing low-cost, reliable and community-owned electricity to all of Washington County and sections of Sullivan, Carter, and Greene County.

Since JCPB follows public power’s not-for-profit formula and operates within the Tennessee Valley Authority's system, our community’s electricity rates are among the lowest in the nation and have remained very stable for the last 68 years.

Public power utilities are also community-owned, which means our community is included in  decision-making processes. Perhaps the greatest benefit of public power is this local control. JCPB not only works for its customer/owners, it is run by an independent Board appointed by the community's elected officials. The quality of JCPB's hometown service is a reflection of the pride we have in our community.

Why we have pride in public power: 

·      We are proudly driven by public service, not profit. 

·      We exist to serve you – our fellow citizens, friends and neighbors.  Our loyalty is to our customers – not stockholders.

·      We help to make northeast Tennessee a good place to live and work.

·      We take pride in our governance structure, with an appointed policy board that has open meetings the forth Tuesday of each month at 4:15 p.m., at JCPB's headquarters (2600 Boones Creek Rd. 37615)

·      We are accountable to you, not to a management and board of directors in another city or country.

You can take for granted that JCPB will continue to provide low-cost, reliable electricity—and deliver it to you instantaneously, day or night.   We hope we can also take for granted your support of public power as an American tradition that works in the public interest here at home.