Solar power, biomass and clean technology are important parts of Ohio’s advanced energy economy. In Athens, Ohio, all these components are featured under one roof at Ohio University’s Ecohouse.
The environmentally friendly house, founded in 2005, serves as a student residence and learning center. Advanced energyfeatures of the house include a garden, compost system, water renewal system, solar thermal water heater, solar panels, energy star appliances and a bio-fuel furnace. Residents hope that visitors will incorporate just one sustainable living feature of the house into their own lives.
New research from Pew Charitable Trusts indicates that Ohio is a leader in advanced energy. The national survey, released in June, shows that Ohio ranks fourth in the nation in number of jobs in the clean energy economy. The state also ranks sixth in number of clean businesses, seventh in number of patents filed over the past decade and 17th in the amount of venture capital committed to advanced energybusinesses.
hiVelocity magazine, an online publication about Ohio innovation, features an interview with Kil Huh, project director for Pew Charitable Trusts. In the interview, Kil Huh discusses the results of the study and why Ohio has become a leader in advanced energy.
According to Kil Huh, Ohio has achieved this success by establishing energy efficiency standards, renewable energy portfolio standards and the right set of financial incentives for residential and commercial entities to join the advanced energyeconomy. In order to maintain this momentum, he says that Ohio must stimulate demand and send a clear market signal to keep moving in the same direction.
The U.S. manufacturing industry is in the midst of a long and sometimes difficult transition from old-line manufacturing processes to emerging technologies. This process is rapidly accelerating in the advanced energy supply chain, lessening U.S. dependence on unstable foreign energy markets and creating a thriving domestic clean-energy industry.
Nowhere is this transition more apparent than in traditional manufacturing states like Ohio. Here, state leaders are leveraging key assets such as Ohio's manufacturing infrastructure, skilled workforce and advantageous location to support a growing advanced energy industry. Ohio-based companies are producing solar panels, wind turbines and component parts, biomass products, fuel cells, hydroelectric components, geothermal parts and storage facilities to promote better utilization of advanced energy resources.
The way Ohio-based manufacturers have successfully reinvented themselves as leading suppliers to the technologies of the future serves as a model for other struggling states and cities with economies reliant upon manufacturing. To find out how Ohio is leading America to energy independence, please check out my guest column in IndustryWeek.
New research from 
Nowhere is this transition more apparent than in traditional manufacturing states like Ohio. Here, state leaders are leveraging key assets such as Ohio's