RMI Outlet

Plug Into New Ideas

The Road to Solar’s Future? Getting Mean and Lean

At the Solar Power International conference this past October in Chicago, more than 70 solar developers, equipment manufacturers, researchers, installers, DOE staff, and industry representatives attended RMI and NREL’s “Soft Cost Impact Forum.”

Can Efficiency Save Chinese Cities from Airmageddon?

China is facing pollution challenges today similar to what Los Angeles faced during the 1980s. In northern China, children are forced to stay indoors and home from school during peak smog events. What can be done about “airmageddon”

Reinventing Buildings

From the neighborhood corner pharmacy to the skyscraper taking up an entire city block, office and retail buildings use a lot of energy. The big question is how to transform the energy use in these buildings to efficiency and renewables.

Higher Education’s Energy Lessons

We tend to think of colleges, and especially their students, as our future. We’re not only talking about the students themselves, who will become the next generation of leaders, but the actual campuses, and what we can learn from them about our electricity future.