Advanced Energy Perspectives

This week Hyundai announced that it plans to produce a hydrogen-fueled SUV in 2014—the first mass-market vehicle to be powered by hydrogen fuel cells. The 2014 Hyundai Tucson was unveiled Wednesday at the Los Angeles auto show, which also featured a fuel-cell concept car from Honda. Toyota also unveiled its concept fuel-cell vehicle at the Tokyo Motor Show. Both Honda and Toyota expect to bring their fuel-cell vehicles to market in 2015.

Facebook announced this week that its new Altoona, IA, data center would be operating entirely on wind energy. The data center, which will be operational in 2015, will get its energy from a wind project in Wellsburg, IA. The Des Moines Register reports that the new data center will bring close to $1 billion to the region over six years.

This Veterans Day, we at AEE would like to take a moment to thank the current and former members of our Armed Services for their service. Military service members put their lives on the line to protect America, and we are proud to help them as best we can.

Computing giant Microsoft announced on Monday that it entered into a 20-year wind power purchase agreement with RES Americas, an AEE member company. The 55-turbine, 110MW, $200 million Keechi project is expected to come online by summer 2015. With this agreement, Microsoft joins Apple, Walmart, and Google as a top-tier company with significant investment in advanced energy.

“It’s a sign of the times that the price point for these renewable projects is quite attractive to them,” Rob Morgan, chief development officer for RES Americas, which develops wind and solar projects, told AP.

This week we saw reports of a U.S. “solar surge” as several major utility-scale CSP projects go online in the Southwest deserts. Renewable Energy World compares to the effort to “building a massive Hoover Dam” of solar energy, crediting a Department of Energy loan guarantee program.