A new wind investment in Texas

It sure is windy in Texas. So windy, in fact, that we’ve made another wind energy investment there. In late December we finalized an agreement to invest $75 million in the Panhandle 2 wind farm in Carson County, outside of Amarillo. The 182MW facility, developed by leading wind developer Pattern Energy Group LP, has the capacity to generate enough renewable energy to power 56,000 U.S. homes. We expect the facility to be operational by the end of 2014.

The future site of Pattern’s Panhandle 2 wind farm

Panhandle 2 is our 15th renewable energy investment overall, and our second in Texas—last year around this time we announced an approximately $200 million investment in the Spinning Spur wind farm. In addition to these two projects, we’re also buying Texas wind from the Happy Hereford wind farm as part of our goal of operating on 100 percent renewable energy. These efforts reflect our long-standing commitment to renewable energy as both an investor and a consumer.

Sunset at another Pattern facility, Gulf Wind

Let that Texas wind blow!



Posted by Nick Coons, Principal, Renewable Energy



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CubeSensors: Fitness Trackers For The Home

Fitness trackers are all the rage, a result of the juxtaposition of the renewed interest in healthy living and the continuing attraction to gadgets. From FitBit to the Nike Fuel Band (and a bunch of other brands in between), gadget lovers who want to keep track of their fitness and related activities have a wide range of choices. But what good is jogging, running, or cycling if your home is in an unhealthy state?

That’s what CubeSensors is all about.

This piece of hardware caught the attention of CES goers – it even won TechCrunch’s Hardware Battlefield. The premise can be summed up in a single statement: “Understand how your home or office is affecting your health, comfort and productivity.”

The idea is to place a CubeSensor in different areas of your home so that you can monitor the environment and analyze how healthy – or unhealthy – the area is. Each CubeSensor has, well, sensors which measure the following:

• air quality


• temperature


• humidity


• noise


• light


• weather pressure

As can only be expected, CubeSensors are also equipped with accelerometers. Of course, the system is made complete by an accompanying app.

In practical terms, a CubeSensor can give you information that can help you save money, for one. For example, if the heating/cooling system in an area is not right (or not efficient), the device will let you know. This way, you can make cost-saving adjustments. A CubeSensor can also tell you if the air you’re breathing inside is killing you slowly.

So yeah, they’re basically fitness trackers for the home.

Here’s a video so you can see it in action.

Now for the piece of detail that we’re all curious about. How much will these CubeSensors cost you?

It depends on how many rooms you want to monitor, but a small pack (for two rooms) costs $299, a medium pack (for four rooms) costs $449, and a large pack (for 6 packs) costs $599. Not cheap, but I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that health (plus shiny gadgets) comes cheap. In any case, for orders, you can visit this page.

[Image via TechCrunch]

The post CubeSensors: Fitness Trackers For The Home appeared first on TechBeat.

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