At this point, we’ve decided to take a breather and focus on other endeavors. We hope that we’ve been able to provide you with some useful and interesting information.

Please feel free to contact us at: fross [at] hevanet [dot] com if you’d like to get involved in the future.

Again, thanks!

The 324-pound  Enertia Plus uses a 6.0 kWh Lithium-Ion battery and travels twice as far as its predecessor.  Improvements include a simplified charger and better maneuverability.

The sticker price is around $9K – fairly inexpensive for the latest in EV energy storage technology.  It is also eligible for all applicable Federal and State EV tax incentives; Oregonians can subtract $1,869 from the price thanks to these tax incentives.  Though not delivered until 2011, the Enertia Plus can be pre-ordered now on Brammo.com.

The 2011 Enertia Plus will be revealed at the 68^th EICMA in Milan, Italy Nov 2^nd – 7th. Also on display at EICMA will be the recently announced 2011 Empulse together with the Enertia TTR and Empulse RR race bikes. After EICMA the Brammo  electric motorcycles will travel to China for the 57^th Macau Grand Prix Nov. 18th – 21st.

PoSI Events:

EcoDistricts Summit Keynote: John Knott
7:30 p.m., Tuesday, October 26
Smith Center at Portland State University
1825 SW Broadway
Free and open to the public
RSVP here

This year’s Summit keynote features John Knott, President, CEO and Co-Founder of the Noisette Company, LLC.  Knott has led the sustainable restoration of 3,000 acres of North Charleston, South Carolina, including areas of the city’s historic urban core and a former naval base. A third generation developer, he specializes in ecologically sound development, emphasizing energy efficient design in the holistic development of sustainability communities.  As keynote speaker, Knott will explore the theme of sustainability at the district scale, building from his experience in North Charleston.  The keynote lecture is free and open to the public.  RSVP here.

The EcoDistricts Approach: Assessment, Governance, Finance and Policy
8:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m., Weds, Oct 27

This half day session marks the debut of the Portland Sustainability Institute’s training program.  It will cover the basics of the EcoDistricts approach with lessons learned from Portland’s pilot districts and other international precedents for sustainable neighborhood projects.  The focus will include integrated assessment, governance, and finance of district scale sustainability as well as policy implications for municipal governments.  Register here.

Community Events:

What would a “perfect” university look like?
9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Saturday, November 6
Hoffman Hall, 1833 SW 11th Ave
Portland State University

Portland State University’s Institute for Sustainable Solutions (ISS) wants to know your response to this question.  Please join ISS on Nov 6 as students, faculty, staff, alumni, nonprofits, government agencies, private industry and community members come together to share visionary ideas for creating a model University.  The first hour will include an introduction about the envisioning process, after which participants will form into self-selected topic groups to discuss their visions for a “perfect” university.  At the end of the event, each group will share its ideas with the wider audience.  Lunch will be provided.

To RSVP, or for any questions about the event, please email: envision@pdx.edu

Zenger Farm
3rd Annual Farm to Table Fundraiser
6:00 p.m.
Friday, October 22nd
University of Portland’s University Commons

Based in the Lents EcoDistrict, Zenger Farm is hosting their 3rd Annual Farm to Table Fundraiser to celebrate the year’s successes and raise the funds vital to their work educating youth and adults about where good food comes from.  Enjoy a delicious four-course meal crafted from produce fresh from the fields by Bon Appetit chef Joe McGarry.  Savor wine and beer from Oregon’s finest wineries and breweries including A to Z Wineworks, Laurelwood Brewing, Montinore Estate, Owen Roe Winery, Sineann, Sokol Blosser, Soter Vineyards and Widmer Brothers Brewing.  Bid on silent and live auction items featureing the region’s best food and farm treasures.

Tickets are currently on sale.  Find out more here.

Azuray Technologies

These panels bring greater solar energy generation to new solar installations. The new technology will draw on Azuray’s exceptional maximum power point tracking (MPPT) DC to DC technology, which yields up to 25 percent greater solar energy harvest from panels affected by shading, mismatch or other real world conditions.

“This cooperation with Azuray Technologies bolsters our commitment to innovate solar energy beyond today’s standards of excellence,” said Mr. Shijun Cai, Senior Vice President of Suntech. “Through collaboration with Azuray we hope to support solar installers and owners in their quest for greater power generation and faster returns on investment, in any environmental conditions.”

Azuray Technologies power optimization solutions increase energy harvest from solar panels and use power-line communications in combination with its communications gateway to track and enhance solar panel performance.  The Azuray communications gateway offers monitoring and safety features for installation and grid power disruption.

All Azuray power optimization solutions are designed for high reliability, durability in extreme temperature conditions and a long 25-year life.

“We are proud to be working with one of the world’s leaders in solar PV modules,” said Les Crudele, CEO of Azuray Technologies. “Suntech shares our drive to develop innovative smart panel solutions to improve energy harvest and bring greater value to our customers.”

About Azuray Technologies, Inc.

Azuray Technologies, Inc is a leader in the distributed solar electronics sector with its reliable, efficient products and progressive vision for the PV industry.  Azuray is dedicated to designing world class solar power electronics that increase the energy harvest, while at the same time, reducing the overall cost of solar PV systems.

About Sunteck

Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (NYSE: STP) produces industry-leading solar products for residential, commercial, industrial, and utility applications. With regional headquarters in China, Switzerland, and the United States, and gigawatt-scale manufacturing worldwide, Suntech has delivered more than 10,000,000 photovoltaic panels to over at thousand customers in more than 80 countries. Suntech’s pioneering R&D creates customer-centric innovations that are driving solar to grid parity against fossil fuels. Suntech’s mission is to provide everyone with reliable access to nature’s cleanest and most abundant energy source.

This latest version of FoodHub was introduced earlier this month at the 2010 Oregon Restaurant and Lodging Association Convention in Bend, Oregon. Improvements and new developments reflect changes made as a result of user analysis and feedback gathered over the last eight months, including:

• More Products to Buy or Sell: The site’s taxonomy has more than doubled to over 2,000 products, meaning more regionally grown and produced food products are simply a click away.
• Heightened Matchmaking: The new version expands the range of customized searches, from general product descriptions to highly specific product requests and suggests potential matches to members upon login.
• Easy-to-use Design: An improved, more approachable homepage interface and navigation tools do a better job of orienting new members to the site, and a new welcome video provides new members or returning users with an overview of the system’s features and quick coaching on how to get started and make the most of FoodHub’s matchmaking functions.

Membership Discounts Now Available

To motivate regional farmers, ranchers, fishermen and food buyers of all kinds to join FoodHub now, several diverse entities from the region’s food and farming community have brought discounts, ranging from 20 to 80 percent off the annual $100 membership fee, to the table. Go to food-hub.org and visit the “Join Now” page to learn more about special discounts and promotions currently available for new members.

“With over 600 active users, FoodHub is fast becoming an indispensable marketing tool for food producers of all scale, and where chefs, school districts, grocers,  retailers and others are turning to find regional suppliers large and small,” said Amanda Oborne, FoodHub’s sales and marketing director.  “The new site is more user-friendly and truly a one-stop shop for anything grown, caught or produced in the greater Northwest.”

About FoodHub

A social venture business of the nonprofit Ecotrust, FoodHub (food-hub.org) makes it easy and efficient for regional food buyers and sellers to find each other, connect and do business.  It is the only network of its kind that accommodates food producers and food buyers of every scale and production type across such a significant geographic range. Launched in February 2010, FoodHub is quickly becoming the leading resource for regional food trade in the greater Northwest.

About Ecotrust

FoodHub is an Ecotrust project made possible by the generous support and contributions of many. Ecotrust’s mission is to inspire fresh thinking that creates social equity, economic opportunity, and environmental well being. With regard to our Food & Farms program, we improve public understanding of agriculture and the challenges it faces and increase the market share of regionally grown, processed, and manufactured foods. Whether by introducing a farmer to a chef or a food processor to an institutional buyer, Ecotrust is a trusted “benevolent broker” that has been making connections between food buyers and sellers in the greater Northwest for a decade. Learn more at ecotrust.org.

Wineries in Oregon are reducing their carbon footprint in innovative ways.

Advanced insulation and solar panels are part of the solution, complemented by the use of goats and raptors, rather than lawnmowers and pesticides.  Remaining carbon offset purchases are funding a dairy farm methane digester.

Sustainable Business Oregon is covering the story.

Oregon wineries are poised for an even bigger spotlight in the national fight against global warming.

Beginning in 2011, when a voluntary carbon reduction program becomes a full-fledged certification process, these winemakers will leapfrog ahead to become the first in the world to develop an industry-specific program.

Oregon wineries are poised for an even bigger spotlight in the national fight against global warming.

Beginning in 2011, when a voluntary carbon reduction program becomes a full-fledged certification process, these winemakers will leapfrog ahead to become the first in the world to develop an industry-specific program.

It isn’t just cute labels and talking points.

A new $92,000 grant expected from the United States Department of Agriculture will evolve the Oregon Environmental Council’s Carbon Neutral Challenge by funding the development of long-term certifications for wineries that remain carbon neutral, and others that follow their lead.

The new certification, called Climate Pioneers, will build on the success of the 14 wineries that completed the Carbon Neutral Challenge in April — a list that included three of the state’s largest wineries: Willamette Valley Vineyards of Turner, King Estate Winery of Eugene, and A to Z Wineworksof Dundee.

Through the challenge, the wineries reduced their carbon emissions by retooling practices in their vineyards and wineries, an effort that called for solar panels, retrofitted lighting, tank insulations and even using goats and raptors instead of lawnmowers and pesticides. The wineries also purchased carbon offsets to neutralize their remaining emissions, which built a methane digester for a dairy farm in Boardman.

Looking ahead, as many as a dozen new wineries are predicted to jump into the program following the USDA funding for its development.

Salem-based LIVE, Low Input Viticulture Enology Inc., is tasked with crafting the program will oversee Climate Pioneers. The 11-year-old agency also runs a sustainability certification for wineries with third-party backing from Europe.

While the Climate Pioneers program will likely lend a marketing advantage to participating wineries, Hannelore Schmidt Buckenmeyer, project director of the Oregon Wine Board, said that hasn’t been the program’s biggest lure. Most people at the helm of the effort simply want to be good stewards and set an example for other industries, she said, particularly because grapes are highly susceptible to climate change.

Tony Soter, co-owner of Soter Vineyards, echoed that sentiment.

“I’ve been doing organic farming since the mid 80s and frankly it’s more of a conviction that it’s the right thing to do than anything else,” he said.

Soter Vineyards is among those wineries that will pursue a Climate Pioneers certification next year. Soter said he hopes the effort will inspire other industries to launch similar carbon-neutralization efforts. He is also hopeful that consumers will notice and support responsible provenience of grapes and wine in the future.

“It will be their pocketbook, their taste and their sense of responsibility,” he said, that pushes the concept forward.

For now, LIVE is proposing two tiers of certification for Climate Pioneers, one for wineries that track and gradually reduce carbon emissions and another, higher standard for wineries that purchase offsets as well.

Wineries that certify as carbon neutral will track different scopes of carbon emissions, ranging from direct emissions from fuel used by tractors or in bottle sterilization, to emissions from electricity use and from things out of a winery’s control but related to business, like emissions associated with transporting wine, making glass and or employee travel for sales.

A panel of experts — including industry professionals, researchers and environmental groups — is still fine-tuning requirements for both tiers of certification and is expected to add new components as science advances.

Certification will be costly at first, and Buckenmeyer said the ability of wineries to participate would depend largely on economics.

According to Soter, certification requires a $6,000 audit and another $2,000 inspection by a third party, in this case the Oregon Department of Agriculture. It also costs $600 to register with the Climate Registry.

Carbon reduction can be affordable, Soter said. In some cases it’s as simple as changing light bulbs and training employees to reduce waste streams. Other efforts at reduction, such as buying carbon offsets or installing solar power, can require big financial investments. Those investments will continue to present challenges over the life of the certification, particularly as science aimed at carbon reduction changes.

Of the 387 wineries in Oregon, 16 of the 30 that participated in the Oregon Environmental Council’s Carbon Neutral Challenge were unable to purchase offsets because of the cost, though many made reductions in their own emissions. A few small wineries also found it difficult to track carbon use because of the effort’s demand on staff time.

In what was expected to be an electric vehicle tour kicked off at Portland State University, Ford Motor Company announced a major partnership with Portland General Electric.

Sustainable Business Oregon is writing about the partnership that will support the influx of new electric vehicles within Portland and Oregon.

Ford Motor Company announced Tuesday that it will make formal a partnership with Portland General Electric to develop electric vehicle infrastructure and policy and study driver behavior as the cars start hitting the streets. The auto giant made the announcement during the launch of its national electric vehicle tour at Portland State University.

The partnership is further validation that Portland — and Oregon —are making strides toward the head of the U.S. pack when it comes to electric vehicle infrastructure.

“We set out to make Portland a premium launch site for electric vehicles,” said Charlie Allcock, director of economic development for Portland General Electric and the utilities point person on electric vehicles. “This is another recognition by a global brand that we’re doing something right here.”

The PGE-Ford partnership involves the following elements:

• • Ford and PGE will work together to share information on charging needs and requirements to ensure the electrical grid can support the necessary demand for electric vehicles, as well as partner on electric vehicle consumer education.
• • The companies will work with state and local governments to support charging station permitting, electric vehicle tax credits and future legislation or regulations.
• • Over the next two years, Ford will introduce the Transit Connect Electric small commercial van, the Ford Focus Electric passenger car, two next generation lithium-ion battery hybrids and a plug-in hybrid. While the company has not yet made formal its launch cities for these new vehicles, the partnership with PGE makes it clear that Portland will get them early — if not first — in the game.
• • Ford and PGE will work with universities such as Portland State University to further study urban mobility and the integration of energy and sustainable design.

“We had a common vision, common goals, so we said, ‘Why don’t we formalize it?’” said Mike Tinskey, manager for Ford’s sustainability activities. “We’re going to work together to remove the barriers for electric vehicles.”

Ford is also working with Microsoft and itsWeb-based Hohm product, which helps consumers monitor and improve their home energy efficiency. Ford wants to tap that connection to help its cars interface with electric utilities to optimize charging times.

For its part, PGE brings to the table its close work with Portland State University on a variety of aspects for the electric vehicle roll-out — from the study of how early adopters will use the charging infrastructure to battery technology.

“We work together so seamlessly with PGE, it’s almost like we’re fraternal twins,” said George Beard, the Portland State University professor who heads up the school’s partnership with PGE.

Where exactly Portland’s early lead in electric vehicle roll-outs will end up in terms of jobs and economic development is an open question.

Allcock points out that electric cars are basically smart appliances and the number of applications that will be developed to manage and optimize them is yet to be seen.

Portland State University President Wim Wiewel said he is confident that the city’s early lead will pay off in exportable expertise (think: consulting firms) and new industries.

“I use the example of the street car industry,” he said. “Who would have thought that when we started using street cars that we’d spur Oregon Iron Works to become the only company turning out American-made street cars.”

Rendering of Vestas Americas HQ in Portland

Vestas, the world’s leader in high-tech wind power systems, announced yesterday it will move its North American sales and service headquarters into the historic Meier & Frank Depot Building in Portland’s Pearl District.

The $66-million building retrofit will focus on meeting the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Platinum certification.  There are currently only 15 buildings in Portland designated as LEED Platinum, the highest rating given by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Built in 1928, the Meier & Frank Depot Building, vacant since 2001, will undergo a complete historic renovation by Gerding Edlen Development, one of the country’s largest developers of LEED-certified properties. Construction should begin this October, with Vestas moving into the building in early 2012.

Planned features include a rainwater collection system, raised-access flooring with under-floor mechanical ventilation, thermally insulated operable windows, and a central, multi-story atrium to provide natural light and to reduce energy usage.  Also planned is the largest roof-mounted solar array in Portland’s central business district along with an eco-roof terrace and gardens.

“We are making a long-term commitment to Portland,” said Martha Wyrsch, president of Vestas-American Wind Technology, Inc. “We are intent on growing. Our new headquarters gives us the flexibility to accommodate up to 600 employees.”

Vestas’ 400+ Portland employees work in fields including engineering, sales, project management, training, technology, accounting, human resources, legal services and marketing, among others. Vestas, which employs about 2,400 people in the United States and Canada, also has 30 full-time employees in central and eastern Oregon who maintain and service wind turbines. Vestas first moved its North American headquarters from Palm Springs, Calif. to Portland in 2002.

The search for a new headquarters was competitive, and the company considered other cities within other states, including Denver, Houston, and Vancouver, Wash..  Portland, however, won out because it shares Vestas’ commitment to sustainability and it already employs a large, highly skilled work force that Wyrsch said is committed to the city.

“We have a really terrific work force in Portland,” Wyrsch said. “People who live in Portland, stay in Portland.”

Though other cities could provide deeper subsidies to compete, the company received $1.25 million in state tax credits and another $1 million from the state’s strategic reserve fund in an agreement that stipulates the company, which employs 400 locally, must add at least 100 jobs within the next five years.  The city will also give the company a 15-year, interest-free loan for $8.105 million. The company is expected to repay the loan within five years.

“I am so pleased that Vestas is making a long-term commitment to grow their business here in Portland,” said Mayor Sam Adams. “Today’s announcement shows the success of working strategically to grow quality jobs by building on our competitive advantage as a leader in clean technology and sustainable industries. Moreover, our joint efforts mean that local architects, construction workers and engineers will get to work now converting a Portland landmark into one of the most energy-efficient buildings in the United States.”

Vestas is expected to create 600 construction-related jobs during the building retrofit project.

“This is a great day for Vestas, for the City of Portland and for the state,” Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski said. “This building represents the very best in public and private partnerships. Our collective investments in this project will pay off now and in the future in the form of more green jobs in Portland. It also will establish a stronger renewable energy foundation for Oregon as a whole.”

Vestas has more than 2,400 employees in the USA and Canada, where it has now supplied more than 11,000 wind turbines.  Vestas Americas has an accumulated installed capacity of 7,768 MW.  Vestas Wind Systems, of Randers, Denmark, has supplied more than 40,500 turbines worldwide since 1979.

Check back for regularly updated content, and feel free to follow us out on Facebook.

We started CleanOregon just about a year ago. Our main purpose was to learn about developments in clean tech and sustainable businesses in Oregon.

At this point, we’ve decided to take a breather and focus on other endeavors. We hope that we’ve been able to provide you with some useful and interesting information.

Please feel free to contact us at: fross [at] hevanet [dot] com if you’d like to get involved in the future.

Again, thanks!