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Washington, DC (April 22, 2010):  Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today announced an initiative designed to help agricultural producers transition to more energy efficient operations. This initiative will make funding available for individual on-farm energy audits designed to save both money and energy when fully implemented.

"Reducing energy use on America's farms and ranches will not only help our agricultural producers become more profitable, but also help the United States become more energy independent," said Vilsack. "Through this initiative, producers will be able to receive individual on-farm energy audit evaluations and assistance with implementation of energy conservation and efficiency measures.

"Approximately 1,000 on-farm energy audit evaluations in 29 states will be funded by $2 million through the Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP) in fiscal year 2010. The energy audits will be individually tailored to ensure coverage of each farm's primary energy uses such as milk cooling, irrigation pumping, heating and cooling of livestock production facilities, manure collection and transfer, grain drying, and similar common on-farm activities. Participating states include: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Officials from USDA and U.S. EPA also signed an interagency agreement yesterday to expand their efforts to help farmers start energy projects by capturing methane from their livestock operations.  And the White House will bring in rural stakeholders for a "clean energy economy forum" tomorrow. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Council on Environmental Quality Chairwoman Nancy Sutley will host the forum, intended to highlight opportunities for biofuels and other renewable energy projects in rural areas.

Rochester Hills, MI, May 6, 2010 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE):  Energy Conversion Devices, Inc. (ECD) (Nasdaq:ENER) today announced that a total of 1.8MW of its UNI-SOLAR® brand photovoltaic laminates were installed on the Toyota Parts Center Europe building in Belgium. Toyota recently officially inaugurated the solar panel park, which Blue Planet Solar NV financed, built and will operate. The installation includes 12,800 panels on the roof and covers 861,000 sq.ft., making it one of the largest thin-film solar panel rooftop installations in Belgium.

This is the third project the company has done for Toyota. In 2007, the company won a $3.3 million order for a BIPV roofing system that was installed on a building owned by a division of Toyota Germany AG, in Germany. And, in 2006, ECD provided a 700 kW BIPV roofing system for Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. for their New York Region parts distribution center located in New Jersey.The rooftop solar installation will produce between 15% and 20% of the annual electricity requirements of the facility. With a peak power supply of 1.84 MW, the panels can produce 1,620 MWh/year. The CO2 saving is forecast to be 1,875 tons/year. As a result, Toyota will considerably reduce its CO2 emissions while also making significant savings on its energy bill.