Aneesh Chopra, the nation's first Chief Technology Officer, resigned his office last week. Chopra was a champion of merging America's IT prowess with the health care and energy sectors. He also brought a focus on the cybersecurity sector. He had spoken about accelerating the smart grid through innovation enabled by open standards. His office was "extraordinarily concerned about cybersecurity in the grid." He was also demand-response-savvy.

In a White House blog post, Chopra asked, "Why can’t the same common-sense concept be applied to the energy industry with a 'Green Button'?  Consumers should have access to their energy usage information.  It should be easily downloadable and in an easy-to-read format offered by their utility or retail energy service provider." Just recently, as Jeff St. John reported, California's largest utilities have risen to the occasion to work on safe, secure ways to share their customers' energy data.

No successor to Chopra has yet been chosen.

 

Jeannine Sargent was appointed president of Flextronics Renewable Energy, a division of Singapore's Flextronics (NASDAQ:FLEX).  Sargent is executive chairman at AstroWatt, EIR at Crosslink Capital, and former CEO of Oerlikon Solar.
 
 

SolarCity, the solar financier and installer firm, appointed Toby Corey as chief revenue officer. Corey was co-founder and former president and COO of USWeb. (See "Who Reigns Supreme in Residential Solar".)



As part of the completion of production for the massive 30-megawatt CPV installation in Alamosa, Colorado, Amonix contractor Flextronics laid off about 200 people, or two-thirds of its workforce. However, the move is less a layoff and more a retooling of the factory for its next-generation CPV product, according to the company.