Joule, a company focused on developing direct CO2-to-fuels solar conversion technology, has announced changes in its executive leadership. After four years of leading Joule’s early development as CEO, William J. Sims will step out of his management role but will remain a member of the company’s board. Noubar Afeyan, co-founder and Chairman, is assuming the role of interim-CEO while Paul Snaith, who joined the company in 2012, will be promoted to President and COO of Joule.- SolarCity has opened its first operations center in the San Fernando Valley to accommodate customers as far north as Santa Barbara County. The 16,800 square-foot facility is staffed by 61 full-time employees today, and SolarCity currently has 15 job openings at this location. SolarCity already has approximately The company has also begun or completed projects to provide solar power to some 60 school facilities within the Los Angeles, Glendale and Simi Valley Unified School Districts, and will be providing solar electricity to the headquarters of the Las Virgenes-Triunfo Municipal Water District within the next year.
- Rentech, a U.S. supplier of wood pellets and nitrogen fertilizer, has scrapped plans to build a cellulosic biomass to synthetic gas facility in Adams County, Mississippi. The company has sold about 450 acres of land where it had planned to build the renewable-energy project.
- A new commercial algae production cultivation system developed at the National Algae Association’s (NAA) Test Center in The Woodlands, Texas is ready for market. The Algae Growth Cell (G-Cell)™ was developed by AlgaeEquip, LLC, and according to NAA,the G-Cell is the world’s largest custom commercial algae production closed-loop cultivation semi-continuous system for universities and indoor and outdoor commercial algae farmers. It helps reduce the daily contamination issues and low production from open raceway ponds and reduces the high cost of using expensive clear PVC tube photobioreactors.
