Houston organization grants funding to local arts center to make sustainable updates to facilities

solar-powered spotlight

Silambam Houston will use the funding to create the Green Mountain Energy Sun Club Sustainability Pavilion. Photo courtesy of Green Mountain

Green Mountain Energy Sun Club has supplied a grant of nearly $103,000 to a local Indian arts center to make sustainable improvements to its facilities.

Silambam Houston will use the grant to help with the installation of a rooftop solar array and a new pavilion at its Pearland dance studio, which will be called The Green Mountain Energy Sun Club Sustainability Pavilion. The venue will serve as an outdoor gathering space for events at the facility.

“At Green Mountain Energy, we recognize that our choices can have a profound impact on our environment,” Mark Parsons, Green Mountain Energy vice president, says in a news release. “We’re proud to support the rich and diverse culture of the Indian community, and we’re glad to help Silambam take the next step toward a more sustainable future.”

The 14.58 kW solar structure is expected to offset 100 percent of the building’s energy needs, which would save the organization more than $4,000 per year for the next 25 years. Sun Club has donated more than $14 million for 164 projects across Texas and the Northeast since it was founded in 2022.

Silambam is an Indian classical arts organization with an arts academy program that serves 180 students each week with more than 20 teaching artists on staff. The professional dance company has more than 20 dancers that regularly perform at Houston venues like Miller Outdoor Theater where they will perform next on June 7.

“We are thrilled to be able to weave sustainable practices into our arts programming, while also giving back to the community,” founder and executive artistic director of Silambam Dr. Lavanya Rajagopalan said in a news release. “The annual savings from this project will allow us to increase artist pay, provide tuition waivers for economically disadvantaged students, and/or provide free or pay-what-you-can access to our ArtStream Concerts, all while benefiting the environment.”

Silambam Houston will use the grant to help with the installation of a rooftop solar array and a new pavilion at its Pearland dance studio. Photo courtesy of Green Mountain

A Houston nonprofit's farm will soon be completely off-grid, running its entire operation on sustainable resources. Photo courtesy of Hope Farms

Houston nonprofit flips switch on solar panel project thanks to sustainability grant

shine on

A Houston-area farm is one step closer to operating completely off-grid thanks to new solar panels installed with funding provided by a grant.

In a step towards a greener future, Hope Farms, a 7-acre farm operated by a Houston nonprofit organization, Recipe for Success Foundation, unveiled 18 new solar panels on Tuesday. This significant move is part of a collective effort to completely transition the farm to solar power, demonstrating its commitment to sustainability.

“The industry (solar power) itself is intimidating to people,” Gracie Cavner, founder and CEO of Hope Farms and Recipe for Success, tells EnergyCapital. “Part of our work is to inspire people to replicate what we're doing. We want to show that things aren't as hard as you think they are.”

The nonprofit organization is recognized in Houston for its work in addressing childhood obesity, with a long held mission of demystifying the common misconceptions around healthy eating. It is now tackling another challenge: dispelling the myth that solar power implementation is difficult. Hope Farms' latest initiative will not only further its energy independence, it will also show that adopting renewable energy, similar to embracing healthy food choices, is a feasible option.

The 18 solar panels will power the farm's composting toilet facility and all of the electricity used in its barn, which acts as its market stand and kitchen. Its next green phase is fast approaching and will implement solar panels on top of its flower studio, where the farm's internet and security systems reside. Its final phase will install a water well pump.

“We really did a lot of direct learning,” Cavner said. “We worked directly with solar engineers, not somebody with a company that benefited from us making one decision or another. I feel like more people would have solar if they realized they could do that.”

This is not the first green step Hope Farms has taken thanks to a Green Mountain Energy Sun Club grant, and certainly not the last. Last year, the farm cut the ribbons to its rainwater capture system that now saves roughly 95,000 gallons of water per year by capitalizing on the city’s abundant rainfall.

Since the farms beginning in 2016, it has relied on solar, even when it was only fields lit by a few lights. Soon, Hope Farms will be completely off-grid, running its entire operation on sustainable resources.

“With this expansion, I feel like it’s going to be taking the rock out of the middle of the river,” Cavner said. “It’s going to open up this train and make it easier for anybody to jump in and do it. The first step is kicking the door open and making more people want to pursue it.”

Hope Farms installed 18 solar panels and already has plans to add more. Photo courtesy of Hope Farms

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KBR's Mission Technology Solutions spinoff awarded $1.1B NOAA contract

A Big Deal

Amid a major spinoff, Houston-based KBR's Mission Technology Solutions business has been awarded a five-year contract for up to $1.1 billion from NOAA’s National Weather Service to help predict and combat extreme weather conditions.

Under the follow-on Commercial Data Program National Mesonet Program (CDP NMP) contract, KBR will provide weather and observational data from commercial stations, university and research campuses, and other non-federal providers nationwide. The information collected will assist in predicting severe temperatures and high-impact weather conditions like extreme storms.

"This award underscores KBR's proven track record of delivering vital data that strengthens national forecasting capabilities," Todd May, KBR’s senior vice president of Mission Technology Solutions, said in a news release.

According to a separate release from NOAA, the contract expands upon KBR's existing relationship with the agency. KBR will work with about 70 private industry partners on services such as data recording, collection, aggregation and processing, and will lead the CDP NMP's "network of networks."

“NOAA gathers environmental information from a wide variety of sources, and a growing list of private industry partners have joined our agency to collect this vital data,” Ken Graham, director of NOAA’s National Weather Service, said in the release. “This agreement streamlines the process that turns raw data into the gold-standard forecasts that Americans depend on.”

KBR will utilize its Speed to Mission ImpactSM technology for the project to supply data from across regions, measurement types, and system configurations. Both KBR and NOAA say the expanded data collection contract will help the agency create more accurate and timely forecasts, particularly for severe weather and extreme events, while also creating a path for new weather-observation technologies.

KBR has supported the CDP NMP for more than nine years. The program will be managed in Greenbelt, Maryland.

"We're driving expanded integration of commercial sensor and data sources into this platform and are honored to know our work helps forecasters give their communities earlier warnings and more time to prepare for dangerous weather,” May added in a release.

KBR’s Mission Technology Solutions business will be rebranded as Trinzic after its planned spin-off, the company announced last month. The spin-off is expected to close in January 2027.

Trinzic will work as an independent, publicly traded company focused on technology and engineering services for the space and national security sector. KBR will remain a separate publicly traded company that will focus on sustainable technology and services to support the energy transition.

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This article originally appeared on InnovationMap.com.

Houston researchers map data center growth, trends in new interactive platform

data center development

Have you ever wondered why data centers are located where they are?

Energy experts at Rice University’s Center for Energy Studies (CES) have developed a tool to help answer that question.

Rice researchers at the CES, part of Rice’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, have created an interactive map to track data center growth and energy infrastructure in the United States.

Kenneth B. Medlock III, Miaomiao Rimmer, Anmol Mital and Beck Edwards developed the tool, known as the U.S. Data Centers and Infrastructure map. It aims to provide a comprehensive view of the factors shaping where data centers are located, from power and water costs to infrastructure, public policy and local sentiment.

“The map lets you see why data centers are being built where they are by connecting the dots between infrastructure, power costs, water availability, public policy and public sentiment across different regions,” Medlock, senior director at CES, said in a news release. “You can zoom out and look at the whole U.S. to easily realize why data centers locations are being chosen—the price of power and water matters.”

The tool maps information on data center locations against other factors like energy, water, economics and politics. It also shows existing infrastructure in the area, including electric transmission lines, power plants, and fiber-optic networks, and provides information on water stress, electricity prices and natural gas prices.

According to Rice, the map will be updated in real time and currently includes information on existing data centers and proposed data centers.

Additionally, the map provides county-level analyses of news coverage and media to explore local attitudes towards the development of data centers in communities. Users can also explore political and demographic information.

According to the Pew Research Center, most data centers that are being built will appear in rural areas, with Virginia, Texas and Georgia leading the way in the number of planned facilities. Pew’s 2026 findings also noted that 38 percent of Americans live within 5 miles of at least one operational data center.

Meanwhile, Houston and Texas are poised for continued data center growth. Other reports predict that Houston’s data center capacity could more than double by 2028. Texas is home to an estimated 400-plus data centers, according to commercial real estate services provider CBRE.

UH team lands $2.9M DOE grant to develop next-gen magnets with AI

critical minerals

University of Houston researchers are leading an effort to find alternatives to a key element of the U.S. economy.

A UH-led coalition is exploring the use of AI to design and manufacture next-generation permanent magnets for the energy and industrial sectors. The project seeks to develop new, more sustainable magnets that reduce U.S. reliance on vulnerable foreign sources of critical minerals, primarily China.

A nearly $2.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy supports the work.

“Rare earth elements, critical minerals, and magnets are indispensable to American energy, industry, and national security,” Conner Prochaska, director of the Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy, said in a news release. “These projects will accelerate domestic mineral discovery and develop ultra-powerful magnets to mobilize U.S. critical mineral reserves, safeguard supply chains, and protect American energy and economic interests.”

Over the three-year grant period, principal investigator Jakoah Brgoch, a chemistry professor at UH, will head the Guided AI for Magnetic Boride/Carbide Intermetallic Technologies (GAMBIT) project. Brgosh was one of seven new senior members from UH named to the National Academy of Inventors earlier this year.

Other members of the team include Joshua Bocarsly, an assistant professor in the UH chemistry department; scientists at Rice University; and Houston-based startup Newfound Materials, which occupies space at Greentown Labs.

The UH-led team aims to surpass the properties of neodymium iron boron, the current industry-standard material for high-performance permanent magnets. These magnets are vital components in electric vehicles, industrial motors, generators, electronics and other advanced technologies.

“Strong magnets are used all over our economy. For example, many modern air-conditioning systems rely on permanent-magnet motors to drive compressors and blower fans,” Brgoch said.

“This has been a longstanding challenge to think about how we replace these magnets with high-performing and more reliable materials, and optimization by just replacing elements is not working,” Brgoch added. “Our goal is to use AI to find entirely new materials while simultaneously balancing these supply constraint concerns.”

The research team will work on discovering and testing potential magnet replacements. According to UH, the project’s ultimate goal is to commercialize the magnets through a new startup or by expanding Newfound Materials’ business units. The local startup has developed a predictive engine for materials research and development.

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