energy_efficiency

Bayport, Minn. – November 06, 2026 -- Andersen Windows has rolled out enhancements across its 400 Series and 100 Series lines, led by wider nationwide availability of triple-pane glass. The launch targets a renovation market in which 54% of homeowners completed a project in the past year, according to Houzz.

Andersen extends triple-pane glass across 400 Series windows

The company expanded nationwide availability of triple-pane glass on select 400 Series products and added triple-pane options for double-hung, picture and transom windows. Patio doors in the line gain black interior and exterior color options. Double-hung picture windows receive factory-applied interior wood trim, while casement and tilt-wash double-hung windows get contemporary grille profiles. Casement, awning and picture windows add contemporary glazing beads.

Waco, Texas – November 06, 2026 -- Mars, Incorporated has invested $165 million in its Waco manufacturing site since 2024, directing recent capital projects toward energy efficiency and operational excellence as the plant marks 50 years of operation.

Waco plant employs nearly 900 and produces three major confectionery brands

Established in 1976 as Mars' first manufacturing facility in Texas, the Waco site produces SNICKERS, SKITTLES and STARBURST. It employs nearly 900 Associates, the company's term for staff. Mars says it has steadily expanded and modernized the plant over five decades to meet growing consumer demand while advancing environmental sustainability.

Erik Owino, Senior Vice President of Supply for Mars Snacking North America, said the ongoing investments reflect a commitment to building an agile, sustainable and modern supply chain.

Lake City, Colo. – November 05, 2026 -- More than 53% of prospective homebuyers say their realistic buying range is $400,000 or less, below the $417,500 median existing-home price, according to COGNITION Smart Data affordability research from Green Builder Media.

Survey shows one in five buyers cannot afford homes above $200,000

More than one-fifth of respondents say they cannot afford a home priced above $200,000. The survey points to a price gap in today's home buying market.

Energy report tracks buyer and builder attitudes from 2024 to 2026

The 2026 COGNITION Energy Insights Report covers demand for all-electric homes, renewables, battery storage and self-sufficiency. It also examines which energy features buyers may value at a premium.

Gothenburg – November 05, 2026 -- SKF estimates that chillers fitted with its magnetic bearings and commissioned in 2030 could avoid 3.4 million tonnes of CO2e over their lifetime, as the company takes its energy-efficiency and circularity portfolio to COP31.

The estimate compares the chillers with traditional oil-lubricated bearing systems. It rests on lower electricity consumption and higher availability. SKF built it from two International Energy Agency scenarios, "Stated Policies" and "Lift-Off", combined with its own business projection.

SKF targets data-centre cooling with contactless magnetic bearings

Magnetic bearings operate without physical contact, which reduces friction and mechanical wear. SKF says this enables more energy-efficient and reliable cooling systems. Frederic Ponson, Director, Magnetic Mechatronics, said cooling efficiency can curb the energy footprint of data centres as AI-driven demand grows.

PITTSBURGH – November 03, 2026 -- Efficient Computer's Electron E1 processor delivers up to a 100X improvement in energy efficiency over low-power CPUs, and edgeAI has selected it for its physical AI and critical infrastructure products.

edgeAI runs large AI models on-device with lower power and cost

Efficient Computer says the Electron E1 outperforms many AI accelerators on both performance and energy efficiency. According to the company, this lets edgeAI run large AI models on-device while easing power, cost and form-factor constraints.

edgeAI CEO Yang Jung Woong said that after evaluating a wide range of processors, "none matched" the Electron E1's combination of performance and efficiency. He said the chip runs edgeAI's models in real time on a fraction of the power. It also gives the products headroom to support the latest vision and compute stacks for years.

Oxford – November 03, 2026 -- The Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), a UK public R&D funding body, will deploy Lumai's Iris inference servers as the first optical inference platform in its Scaling Inference Lab. The deployment will test whether optical compute can cut data center power consumption by 90% in a commercial environment.

Lumai claims one-tenth total cost of ownership versus GPUs

The Scaling Inference Lab is run by CommonAI CIC, a non-profit focused on collaborative AI development. Researchers will use the Iris servers to evaluate optical compute under standard power, cooling and rack integration. Lumai says the servers could cut total cost of ownership to around one-tenth of conventional GPU architectures. The headline claims for the technology also include processing speeds up to 50x higher.

Loveland – November 03, 2026 -- ATS Energy, maker of a Solid-State Generator that converts industrial thermal energy directly into electricity without moving parts, has appointed former Shell executive Ed Ganja as Chief Technology Officer and board member, and added Mike Kleinberg and Brandon Beehler to its Board of Directors.

The appointments follow the company's recently announced financing round. ATS is moving from technology validation to repeatable manufacturing and commercial deployment across multiple industrial markets. The source does not disclose the size of the round.

HONG KONG – November 03, 2026 -- Himel's NERIO Series, built with paint-free manufacturing technology, won the Green Technology – Manufacturing award at the 2026 Hong Kong Business Technology Excellence Awards, as the electrical products maker pushes a portfolio spanning industrial drives, wiring devices and EV charging.

Himel launches X Series drives for pump and fan applications

The newly introduced X Series Variable Speed Drives (VSDs) target industrial customers who prioritize reliability, efficiency and ease of maintenance. Himel cites simplified setup and maintenance and flexible integration across industrial applications. The series also offers energy-saving potential in suitable pump and fan operations.

California – October 31, 2026 -- Switching off Gemma 4's default reasoning with a single flag raised accuracy by up to 48 points, cut cost 6x to 8x and made a correct answer up to 19x faster on short verifiable tasks, according to a 27-model local benchmark run on a Strix Halo machine with a power meter attached. The 12B and 26B variants rose from about 52% to 100% on the easy suite.

Each model answered 190 checkable tasks twice, under two different prompts. Electricity was priced at California summer rates of 34 cents per kilowatt-hour off-peak and 58 cents on-peak.

Gemma 4 reasons on 95 of 95 tasks even when told not to

Asked for a one-line answer with no explanation, Gemma 4 emitted reasoning on every task in both prompt conditions. On a 4,096-token budget, the 12B and 26B spent the entire allowance thinking and returned nothing on roughly half the questions.

DAKAR – October 31, 2026 -- TCL donated a solar-powered 75-inch display delivering 4,000 nits of brightness at roughly 300W to Université Amadou Mahtar Mbow (UAM) in Senegal. The system uses about half the power of comparable outdoor displays, according to the company.

FSC panel drops color filters to lift light transmittance above 15%

The screen is built by TCL CSOT on Field Sequential Color (FSC) technology. It removes conventional color filters and generates color by sequentially switching red, green and blue light. This lifts transmittance above 15%. At UAM it will serve as an outdoor information hub, designed to stay legible in direct sunlight.