A Sunday business story about a bankruptcy filed by the managers of Inland Empire Bioseeds LLC mentioned in passing that Avista Corp. was a minority stakeholder in the for-profit operation. The plant is in Odessa.

What we didn't have at the time of publication was the amount of investment made by Avista in that project, which began making commercial biodiesel out of canola oil in 2009. It had the goal of producing 8 million gallons of fuel per year.

We tracked down Jessie Wuerst, who handles investor relations at Avista to get some information on the investment. Her answer is that Avista is an immaterial investor, meaning its shares come to less than 1 percent of the total.

It's also likely that Avista is among the creditors who together comprise about $2.6 million in unsecured debt.

Needless to say, the story about Avista Corp. offering buyouts to most of its workers, which ran online Tuesday, caught lots of attention. It engendered dozens of comments as well, covering the usual spectrum.

In case you want to know how generous (or not) the buyout from Avista is, we'll provide you the document sent around earlier this week. It's the full two-pager, but it's not necessarily the final version. As Avista moves forward, it's possible some of the terms may change slightly.

Anyway, this is how it reads:  Look for link below this box; document is a PDF. You will need Acrobat Reader, Foxit Reader or some other PDF viewer to read it.

Documents:

Spokane's Ecova, which started life as Avista Advantage and went through a few name changes, has hoisted a new sign on its company office building, 1313 N. Atlantic. The most recent name was Advantage IQ.

The company, which manages and analyzes office energy consumption and billing, was recently featured as the April volunteer of the month for the City of Spokane Parks & Recreation Department.

Groom Energy has just released a list we'll call some attention to; it's a list of 10 smart-grid vendors to watch in the ongoing energy efficiency marketplace. 

Spokane's Ecova (formerly Advantage IQ, and before that, Avista Advantage) is among the 10. 

The group of 10 are all in the specific niche of “enterprise” grid-efficiency companies: The other nine are C3, CA Technologies,  EnergyCAP, EnerNOC, Lucid, Phoenix Energy Technologies, Schneider Electric, SCIenergy and Siemens.

Only Siemens, which operates across many industrial and some consumer markets, may be a familiar name.

We call out this list in part because we believe (sincerely) that the smart grid future is important and critical in helping the world better manage the energy needs of consumers and businesses. We also really don't see many stories that explain how companies like Ecova make a difference in the marketplace. 

They're clearly doing the job, and deserve ongoing coverage in the media.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has awarded Spokane-based Ecova a 2012 Energy Star sustained excellence award, recognizing the company's commitment to energy efficiency.

Ecova, formerly Advantage IQ, is a spin-off company of Spokane-based energy utility Avista Corp.

The company, with offices across the states, provides energy audits and energy management for corporate clients.

A company press release noted that Ecova has been recognized by the EPA for eight straight years. This is the firm's sixth Sustained Excellence award.

This year also marks the 20th anniversary of the Energy Star program. Energy Star is an international standard for energy-smart consumer products. It was launched as a U.S. government program during the early 1990s, but Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union have all adopted it as an energy savings program.

Spokane-based Ecova has completed the purchase of a Georgia-based competitor with the similar-sounding name of Prenova, Inc. Terms of the purchase were not disclosed.