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Texas-based Pedernales Electric Cooperative will take part in a distributed solar and energy storage demonstration project funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative.
NSTAR Electric Co. and Western Massachusetts Electric Co., d/b/a in Massachusetts as Eversource Energy, last week asked the state’s Department of Public Utilities to approve a rate recovery proposal for $100 million in energy storage research and demonstrations.
While the Trump administration and Republicans have taken their first steps in the start of the year to follow on promises to reduce government support and policies for clean energy, Democrats who recently took office also are working to achieve change on behalf of clean technologies.
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May plans to try to turn the nation’s early adoption of clean energy into a global business after Brexit, according to a new industrial-strategy paper.
On Jan. 19, the IRS released Revenue Procedure 2017-19 (Rev. Proc.) providing a safe harbor for certain alternative energy sales contracts with federal agencies to be treated as service contracts under Section 7701(e)(3).
When Kristin moved to a historic home in New England, she wanted to save money on her electric bill by going solar. Her biggest concern was how panels on her roof might change the look of her home, which was built in the 1800s.
But what the installer was even more concerned about were the trees surrounding her home. Aesthetically pleasing to her but potentially a hindrance to solar production – especially in New England where once a year the trees turn beautiful colors and shed all their leaves, many of which fall on top of the modules and can cause them to stop producing.
To get around this issue, the installation company chose the JinkoSolar MX module and never looked back.
An argument can easily and convincingly be made for the need of the federal government to take stock of its regulatory holdings. No system is perfect; the federal regulatory framework is no exception.
A battery made with urea, commonly found in fertilizers and mammal urine, could provide a low-cost way ofstoring energyproduced through solar power or other forms of renewable energy for consumption during off hours.
China likely will become the largest energy storage market in the East Asia & Pacific region, with a potential to install about 9 GW of utility-scale and behind-the-meter systems in 2025, according to the World Bank.
Would you believe that there are now more people working in the solar industry than at oil rigs and gas fields? With a 20 percent increase in size, the solar industry added more than 35,000 jobs — making about 209,000 solar energy employees working in the U.S. alone.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include the official numbers for China's annual installed capacity for 2016, how the solar industry deceives itself with "alternative facts," and some of the changes already underway with the new U.S. government in place. Check it out.
The week promises to see two important actions impacting federal environmental regulation. Continuing to churn out executive orders, President Donald Trump signed the long-promised order requiring federal agencies to eliminate two regulations for every one proposed—starting in 2017.
In the mid-1970s, following the oil embargoes as a U.S. Senate energy aide, those of us promoting a clean energy future were ridiculed. While we had public support, we lacked the analytical back-up because these technological approaches were so new, and the emerging industries were so immature. Visionaries like Amory Lovins and Dennis Hayes worked mightily to fill that gap.
In the year following the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015, there was an increased interest in building a broad spectrum of financial solutions that can both deliver on commitments to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and deliver in the unique markets of disparate countries.
Amazon Web Services will purchase power from what will be Virginia’s largest solar farm to power the company’s data centers.
India’s biggest solar power project has stalled as the state which sought bids from generators says it can’t buy the energy at prices it had agreed upon.
According to most analysts 2016 will shake out to be a very good year for solar in terms of deployment and expansion. Installed capacity worldwide will most likely top 70 GW.
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission Chairman Norman Bay yesterday announced he will resign his chairmanship and his commission appointment on Feb. 3.
Everyone makes mistakes — and I’ve certainly made my share of them. On this week’s Energy Show on Renewable Energy World we will discuss in detail some of the most common homeowner and installer mistakes that I’ve seen over the past 15+ years— as well as the actions we can take to do things right the first time.
My discomfort with the largely Republican reform measures of H.R. 5 and H.R. 26/S.21 is the seeming refusal to undertake a dispassionate and measured review leading to proposed recommended revisions. The presumptions—that federal regulatory actions are capricious, dismissive of the costs incurred by the private sector and more appropriately the purview of the industries being regulated—are an over generalization.
Apple Inc. agreed to buy the output from a proposed 200-MW solar farm in Nevada to help power a data center in Reno.
This may come as a surprise to most people: utilities don’t have real-time information about their customers’ electricity usage. When someone adds solar to their home or business, all the utility can see is that the customer’s electricity usage drops; they can’t see how much energy a rooftop solar system offsets energy use.
In late 2016, Mayor de Blasio announced that solar power in New York City has nearly quadrupled since he took office increasing from 25 MW to 96 MW with cumulative solar installations reaching 8,000.
The Maine Public Utilities Commission (PUC) this week approved revisions to the state’s rules on net metering.
Asia’s largest independent renewable energy developer will build a battery-ready 100-MW solar farm in South Australia this year.
We recently published our 2016 50 top solar companies in NY, and we have supplemented the list with an analysis of the competitive environment in the solar industry in New York and a recent Installer Survey report from Energy Sage. The analysis uses the NYSERDA solar database as of the end of 2016.
The tender for the Karapınar Resource Area, a solar-power energy zone with an allocated capacity of 1 GW, will take place on Feb. 21. This tender is the first under the new legislation designed to promote large-scale renewable energy investments in Turkey. The project will be developed by one investor with the requirement to set up a manufacturing facility and conduct research and development activities.
Schneider Electric and Duke Energy Renewables will partner on deploying two advanced microgrids for public safety facilities in populous Montgomery County, Maryland, the companies announced Wednesday.
Without doubt, energy storage has a great role to play in facilitating the integration of renewable energy; and with the rising tide of renewables, the complementary deployment of energy storage is a trend set to continue into 2017 and beyond.
Of the more than 500 exhibitors at DistribuTECH this week in San Diego, a good percentage of them are showcasing their cutting edge tools and services that will help utilities better manage energy on the grid and/or better manage their own T&D operations.
The world’s biggest solar-thermal power plant is finally producing enough electricity. The Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in Southern California initially failed to meet contractual obligations, and a yearlong forbearance deal with Pacific Gas & Electric Co. expired Wednesday.
Most people don’t realize that Alcatraz Island, located in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, is also home to one of the nation’s largest microgrids.
On Wednesday, February 1 during DistribuTECH, operational intelligence provider OSIsoft and distributed energy storage company Sunverge Energyannounced that they have entered into a technology alliance that will enable utilities to integrate data from Sunverge’s residential storage systems directly into OSIsoft’s PI System.
The new alliance streamlines data management and ultimately paves the way for a more agile, distributed grid by making it easier for utilities to “see” and utilize the edge-of-the-grid data generated by the Sunverge systems in the context of their overall operations, according to the companies.
Sunverge’s energy storage system combines batteries, power electronics, and multiple energy inputs in a UL-certified appliance controlled by the Sunverge energy management software.
OSIsoft’s PI System is used by more than 1,000 utilities and grid operators. It captures real-time data from assets like sensors, solar panels and transformers and serves it up to engineers, executives and others so they can cut costs, predict equipment failures or make strategic decisions. The PI System can be found inside utility-scale solar plants, offshore wind farms, nuclear plants and microgrids everywhere. Worldwide, PI System servers manage over 1.5 billion sensor-based data streams.
Ken Munson, CEO of Sunverge Energy said in a press release that the partnership with OSISoft is an advancement “toward the next-generation grid.”
“Our robust and secure platform creates a unified view of all the home load data Sunverge tracks, along with data from OSIsoft’s sensors and other field assets, bridging the gap between the “edge” of the grid and its core.”
Martin Otterson, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at OSIsoft said that collaboration is another step along the way of helping utilities recognize solar and energy storage as just another asset on the grid.
The Campaign for Accountability (CfA) asked Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi to open up an investigation into companies that offer residential solar panels in Florida. The group claims that some solar companies are using misleading sales practices and targeting elderly consumers, who are particularly susceptible to these tactics. The claims are based on a review of complaints filed with the Florida AG since 2011.
Last week, the U.S. inaugurated a new president who has vowed to abandon the landmark Paris climate agreement and roll back bedrock American environmental protections.
On Tuesday at DistribuTECH in San Diego, Calif., experts debated the future of microgrids with a large focus on the economics of these distributed energy resources and energy management systems.
On Tuesday at a breakfast meeting during DistribuTECH, Julia Hamm, CEO and President of the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA), and Sharon Allan, CEO and President of Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), announced their intent to merge the two organizations under the SEPA brand and organizational umbrella.
Testing for the demonstration of a first-of-its-kind energy storage collaborative project in Hawai‘i now is complete. The customer-sited storage fleet provides 1 MW of storage services across 29 customer sites to accommodate renewable energy resources on the O‘ahu grid.
An electricity cooperative association in Texas last week said that it will host a 200-kWh energy storage system at its distribution center in Georgetown, Texas, to support training and education for its members.
U.S.solar-industryemployment in 2016 grew at the fastest pace in at least seven years, with growth in all sectors including manufacturing, sales and installations, as demand for clean power swelled.
As scientists and explorers throughout history have seen, there is no better place to study evolution than on islands. Their boundaries and isolation create unique circumstancesthat often result in unusual species, evolving over time to best adapt to their habitat. Islands are truly laboratories for discovering the next stage of development.
Renewable energy dominated new U.S. electrical generation put into service during 2016, according to the latest issue of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) monthly "Energy Infrastructure Update,” released last week with data through Dec. 31, 2016.
Indonesia has the world’s fourth-largest population, a rapidly expanding economy, and an aggressive goal to increase the share of renewable energy in the country’s energy mix to 23 percent by 2025.
Tesla Motors Inc. is making a huge bet that millionsof small batteries can be strungtogether to help kick fossil fuels offthe grid. The idea is a powerful one—one that’s been used to help justify the company’s $5 billion factorynear Reno, Nev.—but batterieshave so far only appeared in a handful of true, grid-scale pilot projects.
There’s been much written about solar PV storage in recent months. Tesla and Elon Musk are working hard to develop it and other renewable companies, including British-born ones, are beginning to follow suit. The equation is fairly simple — if we can store energy for when the sun isn’t shining, then solar becomes a whole lot more viable.
“Pigovian Tax.” If you know what this means, then you can skip this week’s Energy Show on Renewable Energy World. For everyone else (including me until I looked up the word) a Pigovian tax is a tax levied on an undesirable market activity to offset the negative effects of said activity. The carbon tax is a Pigovian tax — hence the addition of this obscure word to our Renewable Energy World vocabulary.
The chairman of UAE renewables company Masdar last week revealed that it has invested $2.7 billion in clean energy projects since it was formed in 2006.
From 2Q15 to 1Q16, U.S. wind power jobs increased 32 percent and solar jobs increased 25 percent, while geothermal jobs decreased 25 percent, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s 2017 U.S. Energy and Employment Report.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is to oversee the funding of what will be the largest solar plant in Jordan. The World Bank company has been appointed by UAE renewables firm Masdar, whose subsidiary Baynouna Solar Energy Company is developing the 200-MW project.
The head of the International Renewable Energy Agency is taking a wait-and-see approach on Donald Trump’s actions on climate change, but has stressed that the clean energy sector in the U.S. is a business case too powerful to ignore.
JinkoSolar Holding Co. is poised to become the latest solar-industry leader to learn coming in first doesn’t always make you a winner.
At about noon on Friday January 20, immediately after Donald J. Trump took his oath and became President Trump, all references to climate change and renewable energy were removed from the whitehouse.gov URL: https://www.whitehouse.gov/energy/climate-change
In its place is the official Whitehouse.gov website for the new administration. The energy link is here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/america-first-energy
This is the day we’ve been waiting for. Though not in the way we usually mean it. With Donald Trump now sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, it is the day most anyone with an interest in climate change and energy has been anticipating, preparing for, and significantly dreading, ever since we awoke November 9 to an unfathomable election result. For some of us, it will be a moment we’ve been training for, for most of our lives.
At the center of our solar system, approximately 92.96 million miles away, is a nuclear power plant capable of powering the entire globe. We know it by its most common name: our sun.
For 17 years, my colleagues and I at Clean Edge have highlighted the major clean-energy trends to watch at the beginning of each year. Many of our past projections have become reality: the wide adoption of LED lighting...
The executive director of the International Energy Agency on Monday said that the global power sector needs to double its investment in renewables if it is to meet the Paris climate goals.
The proposed U.S. Secretary of Energy, Rick Perry, once said that he would like to see the Department of Energy eliminated. However, now that he has been tapped to lead the department and understands its role Perry said he “would be honored” to be confirmed as the next leader of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).
“My past statements made over five years ago about abolishing the Department of Energy do not reflect my current thinking. In fact, after being briefed on so many of the vital functions of the Department of Energy, I regret recommending its elimination,” he said in his opening statement at his confirmation hearing on Thursday.
On the issue of climate change, Perry said he makes decisions based on sound science, especially when people’s lives are at stake but admitted to Senator Bernie Sanders that he doesn’t view climate change as a crisis nor does he believe that the U.S. should take the lead in transforming its energy supply away from fossil fuels.
Companies with renewable energy services and products should be making friends with public officials in municipalities throughout the country.That’s definitely where renewable power projects are occurring. Cities have numerous priorities and mandates, but every municipality is focused on sustainability, cost reduction and reducing the consequences of climate change. Many are taking bold steps to launch renewable power projects which benefit all three objectives.
The focus of the 10 Clean Energy Stocks for 2017 list will be on companies that rely little on support from the federal government, and which should be relatively unaffected by the possible reversal of President Obama's attempts to encourage Clean energy.
Bertrand Piccard, the Swiss pilot who circumnavigated the world in a solar-powered plane, wants to convince Donald Trump that investing in clean energy is key to creating jobs and growth.
Saudi Arabia’s first round ofrenewable energytenders are expected to deliver $50 billion by 2032 to bankroll 10 GW of clean energy, the country’s energy minister announced this week.
Costa Rica plans to be a carbon neutral country by the time it marks its bicentennial in 2021. And the Central American nation is not so far from that ambition — already 98 percent of its electricity comes from renewables.
GE on Monday won the Large Corporation award at the Zayed Future Energy Prize ceremony in Abu Dhabi.
India’s renewable energy minister this week vowed that his country will not deviate from its renewable energy targets if President-elect Donald Trump puts the brakes on U.S. commitments to tackling climate change.
This week in Wyoming, legislators introduced a new law that would keep the state’s utilities from purchasing utility-scale wind and solar power produced inside or outside of Wyoming.
More than 530 companies and 100 investors signed the Low Carbon USA letter to President-elect Trump and other U.S. and global leaders to support policies to curb climate change, invest in the low carbon economy, and continue U.S. participation in the Paris Agreement. It’s a powerful message from business leaders connecting the dots between prosperity and a low-carbon economy and confirming their commitment to continue to lead the way.
“As we advance deeper into a new energy paradigm, we need to pick-up the pace of our decarbonization efforts.” That was the message this week from the director-general of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Adnan Amin.
“Today, sustainability sits at the top of the global agenda. In this new era, renewables and hydrocarbons enjoy a symbiotic relationship that is changing the face of the energy world.”
Saudi Arabia is poised to launch its National Renewable Energy Program’s first round of tendering. According to Khalid Al-Falih, the kingdom’s energy minister and also chairman of Saudi Aramco, it is “incredibly close” to the launch.
Four renewable energy projects in developing countries in the Pacific and Africa are to receive $44.5 million of funding. The money will come from a project facility set up by the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include an innovative utility program in Vermont, the importance of quality in the renewable energy industry and how low PPA prices for solar projects impact the industry. Check it out.
The price paid for solar power in India at auction is set to fall below last year’s record lows for the South Asia nation, driven by plummeting panel prices, falling interest rates and competition among developers seeking a slice of the country’s renewables market.
Climate change is a global issue, but if we’re going to correct it, action needs to happen on a local level. National-level initiatives have the potential to sway the habits of a larger audience, but they’re also harder and slower to promote.
“What happened to oil in the late 1970s?” was a question assigned to me in elementary school to discuss with family over the Christmas holiday break. At the time, this question seemed innocent enough, and I didn’t know how my family would react about what I soon learned to be two oil embargos.
Americans like solar. Study after study has shown that the American public supports solar and wants the country to use more of it. Corporations like solar, too. When a company signs a solar PPA, it in effect locks in lower electricity prices for a fixed timeframe, which is music to the ears of the Chief Financial Officer. The fact that that energy is clean and renewable is music to the ears of the Chief Marketing Officer or Chief Sustainability Officer. All good, right?
On Friday, January 6, the Obama Administration released the second installment of the interagency Quadrennial Energy Review (QER 1.2), “Transforming the Nation’s Electricity System”.
Italian utility Enel yesterday said it has acquired Liberty Lake, Wash.-based energy storage software firm Demand Energy.
California State Sen. Scott Wiener on Dec. 9 introduced legislation that would require the installation of solar power — PV or water heating — on new residential and commercial buildings constructed in California.
Since April 2016, there has been 21 MW of new solar PV community mini-grid capacity announced in emerging global markets, according to a new report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF).
California’s three major utilities have proposed plans to move Californians to electricity prices that vary with the time of day. Time-of-use pricing (TOU) is critical to aligning our energy use with times when clean, cheap electricity powered by sunshine and wind is already available.
Climate and energy policy firm E3G, in conjunction with Greenpeace UK, today released findings that point to the possible stripping of assets in advance of the pending sale of the U.K.’s Green Investment Bank (GIB).
On Tuesday, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) announced that Abigail “Abby” Ross Hopper has been named its new president and chief executive officer and will start Jan. 17.
Replacing long-time CEO Rhone Resch, Hopper brings to the top post at SEIA leadership experience overseeing federal and state agencies, most recently as the Director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) within the Department of Interior where she oversaw the leasing and permitting of offshore wind, oil and gas projects.
In New York, Raymond James released its Clean Tech Primer 2017, arguably the most cogent and concise summary of activity and prospects across the gamut from solar power through to water technology, including all biofuels, biopower and bioindustrials.
Bankrupt clean-energy giant SunEdison Inc. is exiting its business in India by selling 1.7 GW of wind and solar farms to Greenko Energies Pvt., according to two executives with direct knowledge of the transaction.
As 2017 begins, China is poised to leap ahead of the U.S. on clean energy to become the most important player in the global market. Last year, China increased its foreign investment in renewables by 60 percent to reach a record $32 billion...
Every year I gaze into my solar crystal ball and make ten educated guesses about the rooftop solar industry. Last year I was pretty lucky, getting 9 out of 10 right.
The San Diego County Water Authority and the City of San Diego said Jan. 6 that they have taken a step toward the possibility of helping the region meet its future energy needs through a new pumped storage opportunity at the San Vicente Reservoir site.
The Public Utility Commission of Oregon has released guidelines for Oregon’s utilities to use when submitting proposals that will meet the state’s energy storage requirements under a 2015 energy law.
Microgrid opportunity grew in 2016 and next year looks even better. But government policy isn’t keeping up with grassroots demand, said Randy Grass vice president at POWER Engineers.
Renewable energy accounted for the majority (50.5 percent) of new U.S. electrical generation put into service during the first 11 months of 2016, according to the latest issue of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) monthly Energy Infrastructure Update (with data through Nov. 30, 2016).
Touted as the future of high-tech manufacturing, Tesla Motors Inc.'sGigafactorywas praised far and wide after it began production Wednesday, but Wall Street analysts had a different take.
It seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? If utilities are in the business of selling kilowatt-hours, then why would it make sense for them to help customers produce enough of their own kilowatt-hours that they don’t need to buy them from the utility anymore?
Burlington, VT-based Green Mountain Power is testing a new program that it hopes will result in dollar and carbon-emission savings for both customers and itself. It’s Off-Grid package includes an energy efficiency audit in partnership with Efficiency Vermont, a solar array, battery storage, home automation controls that allow customers to manage energy resources and usage, and a generator for backup that may be used for short periods of time if needed. In addition to producing their own clean energy, customers will have a flat monthly fee for their energy instead of the fluctuations they experience today.
In another shining example of renewable energy leadership, in 2016, Germany used more renewable electricity than ever before, receiving 32 percent of the gross amount of electricity consumed in the country from sun, wind and other renewable sources.
The Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW) and the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) arrived at this figure in an initial estimate in late 2016. If the projections are correct, more than 191 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity will have been generated from renewables by end of the year. This would mark an increase from the previous year during which the country consumed slightly more than 187 billion kWh, which is 31.5 percent of the gross amount of electricity consumed that year. The federal government's energy targets call for renewables' share in gross electricity consumption to arrive at 35 percent by 2020 and the country is clearly on track to achieve that goal.
Lobbying and legal challenges are important components of any successful strategy to maintain the pace of the transition to a low-carbon economy; however, what will ultimately win the day is engaging the public—defenders and deniers-- in a rational and resonating dialogue.
Residential solar installations in New York increased 12 percent in 2016 to 19,945, which is a significant slowdown from 100 percent growth in 2015.
Spain’s government has announced it will launch a technology neutral auction for 3 GW of renewable energy capacity at the start of this year. The announcement came from energy minister Alvaro Nadal on Dec. 14 as he spoke to the nation’s parliament.
I try, often as not, to refrain from raising problems without suggesting something by way of useful answers. There are those times, of course, when anything approximating an upbeat response is simply beyond the ken or need wait for events to catch up.
Queensland, Australia Treasurer Curtis Pitt said in December that the state plans to increase the size of solar power systems eligible for a feed-in-tariff (FiT) from 5 kW to 30 kW in an effort to encourage the uptake of solar.
The Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC) voted 4 to 1 on Dec. 21 to restructure how distributed generation (DG) is compensated and paid for in Arizona.
New solar installations in India this year will reach 9 GW, according to a new report from Mercom Capital Group.
Fossil fuels burn inefficiently. They are non-renewable energy sources, which means we only have a finite amount to work with on the planet. They produce pollutants and toxins that harm our environment. Yet, despite these major disadvantages, they continue to be used throughout the U.S. (and around the world).
A review of all the headlines published by Renewable Energy World this year revealed many interesting trends in the global renewable energy marketplace. Ten trends, however, stand out as being major stories to watch in 2017.
Ohio Governor John Kasich rejected a bill to extend a freeze on a law that requires utilities in the state to buy more electricity from renewable sources including wind and solar power.
The Hawaiian Electric Companies on Dec. 23 outlined a detailed plan charting the near-term actions that will lead to the use of renewable resources to meet 100percent of Hawai'i's power generation needs by 2045.
A 2015 study by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and IBM found that more accurate day-ahead predictions of solar energy generation levels would save ratepayers in California $5 million in avoided costs. Solar forecasts, which integrate weather patterns and solar production estimates to help grid managers predict how much solar energy will be produced across their system on a given day, allow utilities to better allocate resources and avoid the need to ramp up reserve power plants. But grid managers have run into a problem that’s as old as time: it’s hard to predict the future.
Tesla Motors Inc. and Panasonic Corp. completed work on an agreement to begin manufacturing solar cells and modules at Tesla’s factory in Buffalo, New York, eventually bringing some 1,400 jobs to the region.
The first European installation of a grid-connected TeslaPowerpack was completed earlier this month in Somerset, south west England.
According to a recent report by the International Energy Agency, renewable energy is expected to deliver about 28 percent of the world’s electricity by 2021 — up from 23 percent last year. There’s no question that consumers have shown increased interest in leveraging renewable energy solutions over traditional generation services, citing reasons such as reduced carbon footprints, cost savings and even aesthetics.
Regulators in Maine last week said they need more time to review net metering rules for the state, leaving current rules in place for now.
China is reducing the amount of money it pays to newly completed solar and wind power generators for their electricity, in order to reflect declines in construction costs,the country’s price regulator and economic planner said Monday.
While the renewables industry might be about to go into a nose dive in the U.S. because of the election of Donald Trump, some major tech giants are still hoping to go 100 percent green in the next year or so. Among them are Facebook, Apple and Google, with the latter promising that 2017 is set to be a landmark moment for the company.
Electric utilities across the nation are in the midst of change. The concept of the electric utility of the future, or Utility 2.0, continues to gain momentum, market traction and financial backing.
Is renewable energy infrastructure? According to Miriam Webster, infrastructure is the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities (e.g., buildings, roads, and power supplies) needed for the operation of a society or enterprise.
We all know the science. The United States and the world as a whole must reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent or more by 2050 in order to significantly reduce the risks posed by unabated climate change. Intensifying droughts and heat waves, inundation of coastal economies brought on by sea level rise, and increasing wildfires and extreme weather events across the United States are only some of those intensifying risks.
A patch of land in the shadow of Mount Fuji is becoming a testing ground for energy storage, with some of Japan’s leading companies trying to develop technologiessuch as spinning flywheels and fuel cells.
I don’t doubt the nation’s transition to a clean energy economy will continue after The D is inaugurated in January. Economics, a rapidly growing number of companies owning responsibility for their carbon emissions and ordinary people acting on behalf of future generations underpin the trend towards environmental sustainability.
SolarPower Europe has published 10 policy priorities geared at facilitating expansion of solar power and energy storage within the European market.
The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) on Dec. 20 said that it will build the Gulf Cooperating Council region’s first hydroelectric power station — a 250-MW pumped storage hydro plant that will be powered by solar PV.
India will invest 127 billion rupees ($1.8 billion) on lines to transmit power from solar parks to enable Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of boosting clean-energy capacity to 175 GW by 2022.
Residential solar installations fell 8 percent in 3Q16 vs. the prior year. Industry analysts believe this may be due to saturation in areas that are strong fit for solar as well as the impact of the election uncertainty. Reuters covered this trend in its recent article on the San Diego solar market.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in the Dec. 19 Federal Register published a notice that it is amending its regulations governing rights-of-way issued under the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA) and the Mineral Leasing Act (MLA).
A home and rural solar PV-energy storage boom is under way in sub-Saharan Africa, providing residents and businesses access to affordable, efficient, emissions-free electricity. Leveraging cost declines, performance improvements and popular mobile electronic payments services, national and multilateral development agencies are teaming up with African renewable energy entrepreneurs to pave the way for African nations to leapfrog a generation of power and energy, as well as telecoms, technology.
The government of New South Wales, Australia, on Dec. 16 issued a call for energy storage proposals to help wind and solar generators deliver energy to the grid constantly.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include a wrap up of the REWI conference, how Rick Perry could change the U.S. Department of Energy and solar tax credits. Check it out.
Like a lot of Americans who work in clean energy, I worried coming into the election about what a Trump presidency might mean for our industry and all of the public benefits it provides.
In addition to Solar Gardens initiative, Minnesota’s Value of Solar Tariff (VOST) initiative was seen as the first large-scale stage for the new calculation methodology originally pioneered by Austin Energy.
The increasing uptake of renewable energy technology in East Africa has created additional opportunities for various energy storage solutions especially batteries, as the market looks to an era of low emissions and reliable clean energy supply for off-grid consumers.
The solar industry is large enough to seek U.S. Department of the Interior (Interior) regulatory relief, irrespective of any debate over climate change. The President-elect is skeptical of anthropogenic climate change.
Atransformation is happening in global energy markets that’s worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the cheapest form of new electricity.
About 50 percent of U.S. residents are not great candidates for rooftop solar. They may live in an apartment, they may have a very shaded roof, or they may have a very small electric bill. The best option for these people may be some kind of shared solar power system. Community Solar, or Solar Gardens, is a great solution for this segment of the population.
If you were a kid right now, would there be anything about renewable energy that would be attractive to you? All of the conversation around energy is actually pretty stale and boring — even for adults! And since kids are the future of the renewable energy industry, it’s imperative that we don’t overlook this fact and discover ways to engage them.
Stakeholders in the Southeast Asian solar energy market on Nov. 29 gathered in Bangkok to discuss the state of the sector in the region. Delegates from all stakeholder groups were present, allowing for a multi-pronged discussion on the successes and challenges that solar currently faces. Panels and presentations covered the necessary investment, technology, and policies to implement projects of all scale in the focal markets: Cambodia, Laos, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Myanmar.
At Wednesday afternoon’s session on the challenges of low-carbon generation, Benjamin Borsch told an interesting story.
Microgrids are not new. Hospitals, universities, government buildings and military bases have relied on backup generators and central heat and power (CHP) systems for years. But the emergence of renewable energy, especially solar PV, and a heightened need for more reliable and resilient electricity supply has in the last few years catapulted microgrids into the limelight.
Policies to support renewable energy adoption have been in place worldwide for more than a decade and as the installed capacity of renewable energy has grown, technology has also improved dramatically.
The island of Montserrat is a small British Overseas Territory located west of Antigua and north of Guadeloupe. It was devastated by Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and then by volcanic eruptions in 1995 and 1997 when the entire south end of the island, including its capital city Plymouth, were completely buried in pyroclastic ash.
Renewable energy stakeholders on Tuesday gathered at Power Generation Week in Orlando to consider the place for large-scale renewables on the grid, their role in markets and how they can be used to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
On Monday, attendees of Power Generation Week toured solar arrays both on the roof of the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC) and in various locations around its campus.
On one end of the phone, there was Bill Gates, the Microsoft co-founder, who has pledged a good chunk of his fortune to ending climate change. On the other end of the line, there was President-elect Donald Trump, who has described climate change as a hoax and surrounded himself with fellow deniers.
On Tuesday during the Power Generation Week keynote session, Southern Company’s Roxann Laird was named the 2016 Power-Gen Woman of the Year. The other two finalists for the award were Sheri Blauweikel of Black and Vetch and Caroline Winn of San Diego Gas and Electric.
Phoenix-based utility Arizona Public Service (APS) on Dec. 8 said it is bringing battery-based energy storage to the Arizona desert through a 4-MW energy storage agreement with AES Energy Storage.
One of the goals of PennWell’s Women in Power committee is to encourage young women to enter the power industry and on Tuesday at the Women in Power luncheon during Power Generation Week, Women of the Year finalists participated in a panel discussion that focused on how to do that.
Until recently, the world's most remote off-grid communities have relied on traditional diesel generators to supply their electricity needs. This has created significant cost and reliability issues.
Dozens of wineries in Australia’s premier wine state are harnessing the sun’s power for purposes beyond growing grapes. South Australian wineries are embracing solar energy at twice the rate of other business sectors, installers say.
The U.S. Department of Energy’s Sandia National Laboratories on Dec. 6 said it signed a cooperative research and development agreement with the government of Singapore’s Energy Market Authority (EMA) that will tap into the labs’ expertise in energy storage.
Donald Trump has chosen Rick Perry to be Energy Secretary, putting the onetime presidential candidate and former oil-state governor atop the agency that helps chart the nation’s energy future, according to four people familiar with the president-elect’s selection process.
Trump offered the job to the former Texas governor on Monday evening and he accepted, according to the people, who asked not to be identified in advance of an announcement expected later this week.
The selection of Perry puts the vast Energy Department in the hands of a man who once vowed to shut it down but forgot its name during a debate.
On Tuesday during Power Generation Week, Troy Miller of S&C Electric and Don Harrod of the Village of Minster accepted the Renewable Energy Project of the Year on behalf of Half Moon Ventures, developer of the project.
The Village of Minster Energy Storage Project in Minster, Ohio is a 7-MW, 3-MWh energy storage system is co-located with a 4.2-MW solar PV plant and is capable of providing multiple revenue streams (that flow to multiple parties) by integrating frequency-regulation services, transmission and distribution deferral, demand response services and voltage support.
System designers have more options today than ever before when architecting solar systems. While this may seem like a great advantage, these options necessitate an ever growing number of decision points in the design process.
Benjamin Aufill is Sustainability Communications Manager at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, a bustling campus that serves 22,000 undergraduates each year and provides housing for 12,500 of them. The university has recently committed to installing 5.5 MC (DC) of solar on various locations around its sprawling 1,450-acre campus.
India is preparing to auction a gigawatt of rooftop solar capacity as it strives to meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goalof generating 100 GW of power from the sun by 2022.
Deep down in the small village of Tikoishi, in Kajiado county about 100 kilometers off Nairobi city, both men and women are leaving to tell stories of their sleepless nights and battles with the wild animals to protect their livestock.
Kenya and the World Bank are in talks about financing a $150 million solar-and-wind project in the country’s remote, off-grid northeastern region.
SunPower Corp. is following through with a planned restructuring effort that will reduce its workforce by 25 percent to cut costs after solar prices plunged in an oversupplied market.
In my book, The Microgrid Revolution: Business Strategies for Next Generation Electricity, October 2016, Praeger, I make the case for differentiation of electricity services. That is, parsing the electricity business into product-markets, and pursuing each as an opportunity. Each rectangle in Figure 1 may be treated as a standalone business, and a business plan written for its pursuit.
The solar and renewable energy industries are constantly evolving — and sometimes changing abruptly – and this will continue in the new year that is soon upon us. Here’s what can we expect from 2017:
In the comment sections following articles about big solar projects in the desert, you’ll typically find the claim that we should put solar only on rooftops, citing studies like this from NREL, that stated: "New analysis nearly doubles previous estimates and shows U.S. building rooftops could generate close to 40 percent of national electricity sales.”
2016 was a wild year and not just for solar. Voters seem to be rejecting the status quo in favor of the unknown in many countries. After decades of reliance on government incentives, subsidies and mandates the global solar industry may be inured to unpredictability but the industry as a whole should be wary of global trends.
President-elect Donald Trump’s selection of a chief opponent of the Obama administration’s climate agenda and a staunch oil industry ally to lead the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) prompted vows to battle the nomination.
The U.S. Department of the Army announce in the Dec. 2 Federal Register that it has completed a Programmatic Environmental Assessment (PEA) for construction, operation, and maintenance of solar photovoltaic (PV) renewable energy projects on Army installations and is making the PEA and a draft Finding of No Significant Impact (FNSI) available for public comment.
With the trend of corporate renewable energy power purchasing clearly set by global corporations, it’s no surprise that Google is now claiming it will be fully powered by renewables next year.
Nonprofit New York City Energy Efficiency Corp. (NYCEEC) on Dec. 6 said it made a 10-year project loan of more than $1 million to bring large-scale battery storage technology to a privately owned low-income housing development in Brooklyn, NY.
There is a saying that the two things you should never see made are laws and sausage. As a political activist from the city once hailed as HOG Butcher of the World, I can confirm the truth of it.
The $1.5 billion privatizations of two of China’sbiggest solar companies have been thrown into doubt because of concerns they may run afoul of a government effort to keep more of the nation’s money supply at home.
Kenya Power Company, Kenya’s largest power utility, should come up with technical regulations that require only solar PV inverters with smart grid management functions are connected to its distribution grid.
President-Elect Trump has repeatedly claimed that climate change is a “hoax,” and has appointed notorious climate denier Myron Ebell to run the transition team for theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Originally focused solely on helping intrepid trekkers survive and enjoy India's Himalayas, Global Himalayan Expeditions (GHE) is bringing safe, reliable and affordable electricity to remote mountain villages and communities in India's Kargil and Ladakh provinces that date back centuries.
Last month, politicians, energy executives, and energy experts met in Istanbul for the 23rd World Energy Congress. A newreportwritten by Arup for the congress outlines that although cities consume the majority of the world’s energy and house the majority of its people, they have little control over how energy is produced, distributed, or used.
Our country had a surprise when Trump was elected as our next President. He takes office in fewer than two months. Compared to his predecessors, President Elect Trump has very different views about energy, manufacturing and business in general.
Nova Lumos Netherlands Holding B.V. raised $90 million from a mix of private equity investors and development banks to deploy pay-as-you-go solar power systems in Nigeria.
Trina Solar Ltd. fell the most in more than 10 months as shareholders prepare to vote on a $1.1 billion deal to take the company private.
For nearly two decades, we’ve been tracking and chronicling the transition to a clean-energy economy. While we know that we don’t see eye-to-eye with you on all of the issues, we wanted to send you the following “open letter” to update you on the clean-energy business opportunity, and what you might do as president to enable a massive infrastructure build out which supports American jobs and home-grown energy.
When solar labeling first surfaced around 1980, there were no set standards. Over time, the National Electrical Code (NEC) included solar systems and labeling in its standard, which started with the 1984 edition, with the most current revision being the 2017 edition.
The U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) on Nov. 29 released electric generation statistics through the end of September 2016. Generation from geothermal, solar, and wind energy increased by 24 percent compared with the first nine months of 2015. Non-hydro renewable energy, including biomass, has made up 8.5 percent of U.S. electric generation thus far in 2016.
The International Renewable Energy Agency and the Abu Dhabi Fund for Development have opened a fifth round of funding for renewable energy projects in developing countries.
In the age of Trump, all sustainability programs and policies will not be equal. Proven technologies and designs will surely be easier to market to the incoming administration than environmental regulation.
I have a plausible, yet provocative and unproven hypothesis in my newly published book, The Microgrid Revolution: Business Strategies for Next-Generation Electricity, Praeger, October 2016.
Since 2009, more than 100,000 homeowners have made energy efficiency and renewable energy improvements to their homes through residential Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) programs, representing nearly $2 billion in investments.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently published the ninth edition of its Tracking the Sun report, a SunShot Initiative-funded summary of trends in the installed price of residential and non-residential solar photovoltaic (PV) systems.
There are challenges to living on a remote island - from food scarcity to destructive weather - and the lack of affordable, reliable power is among the greatest. The island of Ta'u in American Samoa, located more than 4,000 miles from the West Coast of the United States, is no stranger to power rationing and outages.
New installed renewable energy capacity surpassed coal for the first time last year, the International Energy Agencyreported recently. It means that we added more wind and solar to our global energy system than oil, gas, coal or nuclear power combined—a trend that is expected to continue over the next five years.
Solar power is now more affordable in the U.S. than at any other point in history. Reductions in the cost of solar PV systems, innovative financing options, and high consumer demand have led to unprecedented levels of solar deployment over the last five years.
Electric avenues that can transmit the sun’s energy onto power grids may be coming to a city near you.
The UN Paris Climate Change Agreement went into force Nov. 4 having been ratified by the required minimum number of countries accounting for 55 percent of global carbon emissions. World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim deemed the day “a defining moment in human history.”
Launched by President Barack Obama in 2013, Power Africa is achieving unprecedented success in expanding access to electricity and spurring sustainable development across the African continent, particularly in remote rural areas south of the Sahara, where best estimates say two of every three people lack access to electricity.
Just over a year ago, California’s SB 350 became law and was rightly celebrated for its boldness and impact, increasing the state’s renewable energy mix to 50 percent and doubling energy efficiency buildings.
The sustainable energy/environment community is far from powerless to combat climate change or those who would deny its occurrence. The Nov. 8 election has created a different dynamic for pursuing the policy priorities of a clean energy economy and a sustainable global environment.
The Solar Impulse Foundation launched the World Alliance for Clean Technologies during COP22, as a legacy to the first ever solar flight around the world.
E.ON North America on Oct. 31 announced it had broken ground and begun construction of Iron Horse, a 10-MW/2.5-MWh energy storage facility being built for Tucson Electric Power.
At a recent conference attended by various participants in the power industry, including regulated utilities and independent energy producers, an astute speaker quipped that “energy storage proponents are quickly becoming the cool kids in the room.”
Utilities across the country areembracing community solar, viewing it as an opportunity to retain customers and compete against the burgeoning self-generation rooftop solar PV market by providing a utility-operated 100 percent solar option.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include the First Solar announcement that it is restructuring, laying off its workforce and canceling its Series 5 module; the finalization of the Tesla buyout of SolarCity and the residential solar market in Japan. Check it out.
When solar analysts talk about the solar coaster, they aren’t kidding. News on November 16 that U.S. thin-film solar module manufacturer First Solar was planning to lay off a significant portion of its workforce, cancel its series 5 module production line and restructure the company hit the industry hard, especially since the news came just one week after the U.S. presidential election in which Trump was elected.
But it’s important to remember that while the news did coincide with the news that the Trump administration will be taking office in January 2017, the two announcements have nothing to do with one another.
On Friday, November 18th, NRG Energy, announced that its newest community solar facility in Massachusetts has come online in the town of Spencer to serve the electricity needs of 1,600 residential and commercial subscribersin the Commonwealth, including six affordable housing developments.
The Spencer community solar farm — situated on 200 acres of the historic St. Joseph’s Abbey — is 100 percent subscribed and has a rated capacity of 14.7 MW. St. Joseph’s Abbey is a Trappist monastery in which the monks brew beer and make jam in order to bring in revenue for the facility. The addition of a community solar farm on about 10 percent of its ample land not only gives the monks an additional revenue stream but it also aligns with their core values, according to a spokesperson for NRG.
Saudi Arabian renewables developer Acwa Power International and China’s Chint Group Corp Ltd. were chosen to build as much as 170 megawatts of solar projects in Morocco.
At Renewable Energy World, we know our readers are always looking for ways to support a sustainable way of living, and we like to help with that goal. That's why we’ve compiled our top six sustainably focused ideas for the holidays.
By the summer of 2017, solar homeowners could store surplus daytime solar in an ice-based energy storage unit with a 20-year life, for less than half the cost of a battery storing the same solar kilowatt-hours, according to Ice Energy CEOMike Hopkins.
When discussing the outlook for the 2017 wind market, it’s very clear that the wind industry has arrived. Yes, problems remain in many markets across the globe but the fact that wind exists in many markets across the globe means that it will steadily march on in 2017.
ABB will provide an innovative microgrid, combining battery and flywheel based storage technologies, designed to test scalability and improve power stability for around 300,000 people in Anchorage, Alaska.
A long planned high voltage, direct current transmission line to move wind energy from western Oklahoma to the southeast U.S. is one of several major electric transmission and power projects listed high among possible priorities for President Donald Trump as he reportedly considers infrastructure of high emergency or national security interest.
A state of the art test platform is being established at the FraunhoferInstitute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology in Bremerhaven, northern Germany.
While the EU has seen a remarkable increase in offshore wind, a Swedish project in the Baltic Sea has been cancelled due to a growing threat from Russia. What would have been a gigantic two-nuclear-plant-sized (2 GW) offshore wind farm in the Baltic Sea; Blekinge Offshore AB was denied its permit in December due to recent heightened tensions in the region.
China will invest more than 700 billion yuan (approx. US$100 billion) in wind power facilities from 2016 to 2020, according to the National Energy Administration of China’s latest wind power development plan.
Shortly before the end of 2016, Italy concluded a renewable energy auction that will see some 870 MW of capacity introduced into the nation’s energy mix.
Abu Dhabi clean energy company Masdar has acquired a 25 percent stake in Statoil’s floating wind farm project in Scotland. Hywind Scotland is a 30 MW wind farm in the North Sea which Statoil has been developing for several years.
Wind-power skeptic Donald Trump’s proposed tax reform may have an unintended consequence: threatening wind farms’ balance sheets.
The Carbon Trust’s Offshore Wind Accelerator (OWA)last week launched a global innovation competition to fund the development of offshore wind cable condition monitoring systems.
The first turbine out of 67 Siemens 6-MW wind turbines was installed on Jan. 7 for the Dudgeon offshore wind farm by the crew of A2SEA’s Sea Challenger vessel.
It would have been the first 100 percent community-owned renewable power project in NorthAmerica. Located just south of Swift Current, Sask., the $90-million project would have generated 35 megawatts of electricity from wind turbines and solar panels with electricity sold to the provincial utility,SaskPower.
On both sides of the Atlantic ocean recently a total of four wind turbines fell down and one more dropped a 40-meter long blade. In Nova Scotia, a 15-year old Vestas 660 kW turbine collapsed inGrand Etang as a result of strong winds. In Germany, a 100-meter tall turbine collapsed in Hamburg in early January; a 95-meter tall turbine collapsed in Saxony in late December; and a 70-meter tall turbine fell in Suderholz in early December.The turbine that dropped its blade was in Zichow, which is in the northern part of the country.
One of the fallen German turbines was 16 years old and one was 18 years old. Each incident is being investigated thoroughly according to the stories below.
Perhaps drone technology could help in the future. See our recent piece on advances in wind power O&M through drones.Offshore Wind O&M Will Soon Be Aided by Dronesand Drones to Play Greater Role in Wind Turbine Inspections
Macquarie Group Ltd. bought a 50 percent stake in the Race Bank offshore wind farm being developed in the U.K. North Sea from Dong Energy A/S for 1.6 billion pounds ($2 billion).
A pumped storage hydropower facility in Montana that was recently given a license by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) will support operations of local wind generating facilities once the project is completed.
The increasing size of wind turbines captures much of the attention surrounding that evolution, but the substructures that support the tower, nacelle and blades, are not to be overlooked, and are proving equally vital in reducing overall project costs.
Building energy infrastructure that keeps wildlife safe is a key concern at the U.S. Department of Energy, which is why we have funded six teams to improve technologies that will protect eagles sharing airspace with wind turbines. More than $3 million has been allocated across the six teams for groundbreaking, critical eagle-impact minimization technology research, development, and demonstration projects.
Statoil said Dec. 16 that it has been declared the provisional winner of the U.S. government’s wind lease sale of 79,350 acres offshore New York. Statoil will now have the opportunity to explore the potential development of an offshore wind farm to provide New York City and Long Island with a significant, long-term source of renewable electricity.
Deepwater Wind last week said that the 30-MW Block Island Wind Farm project has completed its commissioning and testing phases and began commercial operations, marking the startup of the first commercial offshore wind farm in the United States.
The first commercial power from MHI Vestas’ V164-8.0 MW wind turbines has been achieved after energization of Dong Energy’s 258-MW Burbo Bank Extension offshore wind project in UK waters.
A brisk, late November morning in Northern Germany provided backdrop to a ceremony held to mark completion of the structural supports of the factory slated to secure Siemens Wind Power’s position as purveyor of next generation wind turbine technologies.
With an installed capacity of more than 70 GW, the U.S. wind power market now has a massive fleet of installed generators that need regular upkeep for top performance. As a result, the U.S. Department of Labor this year identified wind turbine service technician as the fastest growing occupation — with an expected increase of 108 percent between 2014 and 2024.
U.S. Wind Inc. applied Nov. 30 to the Maryland Public Service Commission for approval to develop a 750-MW wind farm project off the coast of Maryland, and is also seeking offshore renewable energy credits (ORECs) for approximately 248 MW of the project.
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Investors are looking beyond hiccups such as the stalling of the scheme to buy clean energy by the South African government from independent power producers to create a very large wind sector by 2050, but they want clear regulations.
The U.S. Court of Federal Claims decided that Halloween was the perfect day to release its Alta v. United States opinion, and the plaintiffs are enjoying the treat.
Well, what was unthinkable just a short while ago is now the reality, and Donald Trump is President-elect of the United States, sending shockwaves across the U.S. and around the world. The press and social media are rife with speculation about which of the many and often conflicting positions he took during the campaign will become reality.
China’s aggregate wind power curtailment reached 39.47 billion kWh during the first nine months of 2016, according to data from the National Energy Administration of China. The country’s average wind power curtailment rate was 19 percent, down from 26 percent in the first quarter of 2016 and 21 percent in the first half of this year.
For those who are worried about the future of renewables following the reality of a Trump presidency, the news isn’t looking good. These are worrying times. Don’t let anyone tell you different. Rumors abound that he is looking to climate change deniers in selecting his energy secretary.
In part one of this article, we looked at five trends in the rapidly evolving technology of advanced blade pitch systems. Let’s take a look now at three key insights for making the right blade pitch system decisions.
Skipjack Offshore Energy LLC applied Nov. 30 with the Maryland Public Service Commission for approval of a 120-MW wind project that would qualify for a Maryland set-aside program for offshore wind energy.
As the fourth busiest European port in cargo tonnage, the Port of Amsterdam is of substantial economic importance to Amsterdam and the Netherlands. More than 2,000 companies use the port and generate€6 billion in revenue per year. Companies in the port area employ 55,000 people.
The latest developments in blade pitch technology have opened new opportunities for wind turbine manufacturers. In this two-part article, we will look at five key trends of this rapidly evolving technology and three important insights to keep in mind to make wise pitch system decisions, avoid pitfalls, and choose the right pitch partner.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, fresh from taking over the presidency of the Group of 20 nations, plans to use her leverage to challenge Donald Trump’s skepticismabout the value of renewable energy by pointing out where it’s a viable business.
Last year, a record-breaking 147 GW of power globally came from renewable sources. If we’re to continue this trend — especially in the light of the COP21 agreement, and recently concluded COP22 — we need to ensure renewable energy is as reliable and accessible as possible.
Since 2014, passionate college students from across the country have learned the ins and outs of the wind industry by participating in the U.S. Department of Energy’s Collegiate Wind Competition, which challenges undergraduates to design and build a wind turbine and develop a business plan to market their project.
The emergence of floating wind power in France took another step forward earlier this month when the government announced two winners to a call for floating wind pilot plants.
Trump’s opposition to climate change policy no secret. Abolishing the EPA, revoking the Clean Power Plan and pulling American support from COP21 were all mentioned in his loose plan for America’s energy sector.
Oliver Wind III LLC, in a Nov. 4 filing of its decommissioning plan for the 99.3-MW Oliver Wind III Wind Energy Center in Morton and Oliver counties, North Dakota, told the North Dakota Public Service Commission that the project is due to be operational in December of this year.
One of these three finalists will be named the 2016 POWER-GEN Woman of the Year during the Power Generation Week keynote session, which takes place in Orlando on Dec. 13.
TerraSmart recently introduced the latest in its expanding portfolio of autonomous, cloud-connected solar PV technology services. The Florida company's new High Precision Aerial Site Mapping service highlights the way innovative, high-tech-driven industry participants are capitalizing on the latest advances in unmanned aerial vehicle and drone technology.
The electric utility industry is currently in the midst of a major paradigm shift that could arguably be classified as one of the most important industry transitions of the 21st century.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission on Nov. 17 issued a noticed of proposed rulemaking that plans to direct U.S. transmission system operators to establish market rules to accommodate energy storage participation in organized wholesale electric markets.
Microsoft Corp.committed to its largest wind power purchase to date with a deal to buy 237 MW of capacity from projects in Wyoming and Kansas.
Amsterdam, the Netherlands — Cycling is a big part of Amsterdam’s clean transport story. The city has more bikes than people and is increasing the number of green bikeways, separated from roads.
The U.S. Department of Interior Bureau of Land Management recently selected the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) to compete for the right to develop a new wind energy project off the coast of Long Island.
I imagine many in the renewable energy, energy efficiency and environmental communities are still trying to wake up from what they are hoping is just a bad dream. Well, let me tell you, Donald J. Trump is not the result of a piece of bad fish you ate or some incubus who has dropped in to disturb your sleep.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell on Nov. 10 said that the Bureau of Land Management has finalized a rule that creates a new competitive leasing process and incentives for solar and wind energy development on public lands.
The Canadian Wind Energy Association said Nov. 3 that a provincial leader in Alberta made a major policy pronouncement at the final day of the association's 32nd Annual Conference and Exhibition inCalgary.
Turns out that Americans are a bit overly optimistic about the role that renewable energy plays in the U.S. The average American believes that 20 percent of the country’s energy use comes from renewables—11 percent from solar and 9 percent from wind.
Government involvement in the design, development and operation of mini-grids in East Africa is hampering the much anticipated fast-growth of private sector investments in renewable energy technologies suitable for off-grid regions.
The planet is warming, dangerously so, and burning more coal will make it worse. President-elect Donald Trump thinks man-made climate change is a hoax, and he's promised to revive the U.S. coal industry by cutting regulation. So renewables are dead in the water, right? Maybe not.
The French government has announced fresh targets for renewable energy capacity to be installed by 2023. The new objectives will serve as trajectories to be used in defining the priorities for the French government in relation to the development of renewable energy on mainland France between 2016 and 2023.
It’s no secret that companies use goals to push their businesses in a positive direction. Whether it’s about creating more value or reducing impacts, goals provide focus, direction, and a sense of urgency.
Donald Trump’s surprise election victory turned into a bad day for clean energy investors. U.S. solar panel-maker SunPower Corp. had its worst decline in three months on Wednesday, dropping 14 percent to the lowest since the beginning of 2013.
Now that the groundbreaking Paris Agreement on climate change has entered into force, how do countries make good on their national commitments to tackle this global threat?
Maybe it’s the nature of the “new”: Although the renewable energy movement has been gathering momentum for several decades now, it’s still the young citizens who are primarily transforming the industry, and pushing for greater innovation and higher adoption rates.
The October edition of our “Top 5 Hybrid Energy News” features KarmSolar, SolarAfrica, Singita, Tesla, Sungrow, Aquion Energy, Blue Sky Utility, Bpi, Luxor Solar,Juhayna, and Alpha Omega Winery.
What might Donald Trump’s victory mean for people interested in the now-huge universe that seeks energy investments only if those investments reduce climate impacts? A review of some issues vis-à-vis the President-elect’s campaign planks:
Shares in Vestas Wind Systems A/S plunged after U.S. voters unexpectedly propelled Republican nominee Donald Trump to the presidency, sparking concern that the renewable- energy industry will face future political headwinds.
The world’s biggest maker of wind turbines fell as much as 14 percent and traded 6.6 percent lower at 440.10 kroner as of 12:50 p.m. in Copenhagen. Stock of the Danish company already lost ground last week after U.S. polls tightened, bringing this year’s declines to about 10 percent.
China, the world’s biggest clean-energy investor, lowered its solar and wind power targets for 2020, a reflection of how record installations of renewables have overwhelmed the ability of the nation’s grid to absorb the new electricity.
In Part One, we discussed community choice aggregators and the power charge indifference adjustment. Let’s take a look now at three main issues with the PCIA.
Join us on Twitter on Tuesday, Nov. 22 at 11 a.m. EST to explore the path for large renewable energy infrastructure progress in the near and long term.
A new report from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) — Global Wind Energy Outlook 2016 — forecasts highly promising growth for wind power capacity around the world going into the future.
Community choice aggregators could displace as much as 20 percent to 40 percent of electricity load in California. They are a new kind of offtaker of renewable power.
In January, officials at the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) received an unsolicited proposal for a major project. The plan — to build 100 floating wind turbines in the Pacific Ocean, 35 miles off the coast of Morrow Bay, and send 650 MW of power via undersea cable to an existing utility connection at Morrow Bay, about half-way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. The estimated cost of the project was $3.2 billion.
Even though evidence on an ever-worsening global climate keeps pouring in with alarming frequency, the last 12 months have, in fact, been a relatively good year for global climate policy. Next week, the world’s countries meet in Marrakesh, Morocco, to follow up on the gains made at Paris last year, and to try to reconcile these two facts.
The U.S., and the world as a whole, is now in a transition to a clean energy future. The State of Hawaii—a leader in this transition since it established the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative in 2008 with the Energy Department—is well on its path toward achieving the most ambitious clean energy target in the country.
New prospects for “green” economic development are shaping up as project developers move forward with plans to construct the nation's first offshore wind power facilities.
Although the question of climate change has been raised a lot lately, it has been mostly by movie stars, pundits and bloggers like me asking: “why the candidates aren’t talking about it?” Inconvenient though it may be, I don’t think it particularly surprising.
It’s a dilemma all countries face in trying to figure out the best way to develop renewable energy: What should be the role of a government-regulated utility in future production and distribution?
Technology used in European offshore wind has matured significantly over the past decade through a strong pipeline of projects. And now the offshore wind industry in the U.S. is emerging.
While it is a coincidence that the Bentley Year in Infrastructure 2016 (YII2016) Conference kicked off for media on the first day of Offshore Wind Week in the U.K., what isn’t a coincidence is Bentley’s ability to transfer its technology from offshore oil and gas to offshore wind.
Mining or mineral exploration is the mining process of finding ores. Due to the remote locations, power generation for mineral exploration camps is particularly expensive. Typically, power is generated by gensets, and the diesel fuel needs to be transported over long distances by truck or sometimes even by helicopter.
Although a number of independent power producers have made a foray into East Africa’s renewable energy market, they still face challenges that governments in the region need to address to ensure the fast deployment of clean energy technologies.
The United States is blessed with many energy resources: huge fossil fuels reserves and substantial renewable energy potential, from offshore wind to geothermal power. It’s also a signatory to the Paris Agreement on climate change and has committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 26 to 28 percent compared to 2005 levels by 2025.
After the Paris Agreement last year, sustainability has been an increasingly common topic of discussion for businesses. Global warming is real, yet people worry that not enough is being done about it.
U.S. homeowners, businesses and institutions alike rely on utilities to provide consistent, affordable electricity. These consumers increasingly want renewable power, but our current markets prevent many of them from getting it.
The Los Angeles City Council recently passed a unanimous resolution requiring Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to study how the city can achieve a 100 percent clean energy future.
Anyone following the Justice Delayed series knows I have been waiting for the other shoe to drop in the continuing saga of challenges to the Clean Power Plan. Well—it dropped.
There can be no question that across the globe, energy systems are transitioning from the old, dirty way of generating electricity to a new clean energy future that embraces carbon-free electricity powered by renewable energy. Add to that the fact that the wind that blows off U.S. coastal waters and in the great lakes could power the country more than two times over and you quickly come to the conclusion that the time is now to develop offshore wind in the U.S.
D.E. Shaw & Co., a New York hedge fund that manages about $38 billion, bid to become the operating sponsor of TerraForm Power Inc., a yieldco founded and controlled by bankrupt clean-energy giant SunEdison Inc.
The amount reported as the cost of renewable electricity has nearly reached 7 cents per kWh, almost as much as the lowest retail rates in the U.S. Yet, the main price driver is reportedly “falling wholesale prices.” Sound weird? Maybe it’s time to change the surcharge’s name.
Traveling from Denmark, to France, and finally to Rhode Island in the U.S., Fred. Olsen Windcarrier’s Brave Tern jack-up vessel was instrumental in the construction of the Block Island Wind Farm.
Low-carbon microgrids have assumed a place in the strategic agendas of some of the world's largest power and industrial engineering corporations. That includes Swedish-Swiss ABB, whose roots in the now fast moving microgrid market segment date back some 25 to 30 years.
We see increasing interest in strategic partnerships for both main segments of the microgrid market: remote solar- or wind-diesel hybrid and utility microgrids.
The barriers to offshore wind are formidable. Yet, after many years of delays and cost increases, there are signs of progress. Offshore wind bids coming out of Europe suggest that steep cost reductions are at hand; the most recent of those bids, for a 350 MW near-shore project off the coast of Denmark, came in at a record-low of just $67 per MWh. These and other developments hold promise for further cost reductions in the years and decades ahead.
Fossil fuels were always intended as bridge fuels until a clean, inexhaustible source of energy could be developed that was economically viable. While large pockets of oil, natural gas, and coal remain underground, supply must be constantly increased as our demand for energy continues to grow.
PennWell Corporation and Renewable Energy World are pleased to announce our 2016 Renewable Energy Project of the Year Finalists. Projects are nominated by the industry and finalists are selected by a committee of editors from PennWell Corporation.
Job growth is a prime topic in the U.S. presidential race, but Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have very different takes on the role clean energy could play in creating employment.
A long-planned Lake Erie wind project got an important boost in September. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), along with the Coast Guard and the Army Corp of Engineers, held a public scoping session to start a federal environmental assessment for Project Icebreaker, which would construct six wind turbines about eight miles from shore.
Dormant corporate properties are low-hanging fruit for corporate procurement. The corporate owner already has the liability for the underlying contamination. Provided the owner is sufficiently creditworthy and willing to indemnify the developer and EPC contractor, the path forward for clean energy development is open.
2016 will be remembered as “the year U.S. offshore wind arrived,” as Block Island Wind Farm, a 5-turbine 30 MW offshore-wind project, arose off Rhode Island’s coast this summer and will soon power the grid. Relatively modest in scale, this wind farm's christening carried significance greater than its size. The first "steel in the water" for U.S. offshore wind, it was proof of the promise this abundant home-grown renewable resource holds to light boardwalks and boardrooms up and down the Eastern seaboard.
More than 60 percent of the Fortune 500 companies have adopted sustainability commitments. Many other leading businesses have similar initiatives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, conserve resources, increase efficiency, generate cost savings and give back to their communities.
Convinced that a rapid transition away from fossil fuels would be a “win-win” for the city, Amsterdam officials are committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 80–90 percent by 2050, largely eliminating reliance on fossil fuels.
The triple-disaster of earthquake, tsunami and nuclear meltdown that hit the northeast of Japan in March 2011 was a wake-up call for many people. This was true for Masayoshi Son, a founder, chairman, and chief executive officer (CEO) of Softbank Group, a Japanese multinational telecommunications and internet corporation. Having experienced the danger of nuclear power plants in Fukushima, he felt the need to replace nuclear power with safer and cleaner renewable energy for a better future.
One concept over the last few months that seems to have become more prevalent is the idea of baseload power. Politicians seem to mention it at every opportunity when they talk about energy. At the moment it’s being used as a reason why the UK needs more nuclear and other similar types of projects rather than just renewables.
China’s Ministry of Finance, National Development and Reform Commission and National Energy Administration on Sept. 23 jointly released the sixth edition of national renewable energy tariff surcharge subsidy catalogue, which lists the 1,300 new energy power stations approved for the subsidy.
Whether proscribed by law or not, unequal treatment of women continues to pose challenges in both industrially developed and lesser developed countries worldwide. With an estimated 1.2 billion worldwide people living without electricity, so does energy poverty.
Prices for credits used by refiners to show compliance with the U.S. biofuel mandate plunged after President Donald Trump’s administration ordered a freeze and review of 30 environmental regulations published before he assumed office.
In Washington D.C., the Office of the Secretary of Defense announced a $55-million funding opportunity for a 10 million gallon biorefinery capable of producing advanced drop-in bio-equivalent fuels suitable for military use.
This week we reported from Thailand: “The government launched its 10-year plan to build a bioeconomy hub for the region with private and public sector investment expected to reach $11.3 billion as it focuses on sugarcane and cassava to feed modern biorefineries that will produce biofuels and biochemical as well as biopharmaceuticals, “future” food and “future” feed.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Institute of Food and Agriculture in February will issue a request for applications for funding of biomass research and development.
ExxonMobil will continue its ongoing research into advanced algae biofuels through an agreement with California-based Synthetic Genomics Inc.
A “cutting-edge” waste-to-energy plant is to be built in the United Arab Emirates. The plant in Sharjah is planned to take up to 300,000 tons of waste each year and convert it into electricity.
A new, approximately $6-million collaborative project is using a unique climate-simulating laboratory system as part of a new streamlined process to quickly pare down heaps of algae species into just a few that hold the most promise for renewable fuels.
The Maryland Energy Administration (MEA) has opened 2017 program to provide grants to selected recipients to install animal waste-to-energy projects.
Portland General Electric on Dec. 30 asked the Public Utility Commission of Oregon for authorization to defer for later rate-making treatment certain revenues associated with the scheduled Boardman Power Plant 100 percent biomass test burn.
Recent criticism of secrecy and alleged manipulation in biofuel credit trading, delivered by a top adviser to President-elect Donald Trump, is striking a chord among ethanol and other renewable fuel producers.
New funding from the U.S. Department of Energy will support development of a demonstration-scale facility using industrial off gases to product 3 million gallons per year of low-carbon jet and diesel fuels.
Albany Green Energy LLC applied Dec. 22 to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for acceptance of its market-based rate tariff effective Feb. 20, 2017, and for certain other blanket approvals.
One billion tons of biological material—that’s enough to fill a 16-foot flatbed truck stacked roughly up to the moon! But we wouldn’t have to “shoot for the moon” to produce this much biomass every year.
Spain’s Ence – Energia y Celulosaon Dec. 15 said it will buy Spanish utility Endesa's stake in two biomass plants.
Shares in Drax Group Plc surged to the highest since July after the European Union approved a U.K. government subsidy to support the conversion of one of its coal-fired units to biomass.
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Argonne National Laboratory have conducted a detailed study of the reflectivity effects of converting land to grow biofuel crops.
News has arrived from Denver (the company) and the UK (the project and partners) that SynTech Bioenergy will build what it terms “a revolutionary clean-energy plant in the United Kingdom capable of carbon negative operation.”
As a sprawling 725-acre operation, the F.R. Bowerman Landfill is one of the largest landfills in the United States. The landfill, located in Orange County, California, contains an estimated 31 million tons of waste.
For some time in The Digest, we have examined the problem of matching capital to projects. As Ecostrat’s Jordan Solomon observed at ABLC Next a few weeks back, “the vast majority of projects are given junk ratings, if they can get rated at all.”
The Obama administration is forcing refiners to use a record amount of biofuel next year, delivering a victory to Midwest farmers at the expense of oil companies that say they are struggling with the program’s costs.
This past week, a remarkable group of people gathered in Ottawa, perhaps described best as the “friends of Jeff” because the ostensible excuse for a get-together was Jeff Passmore’s Scaling Up Conference and because, to no surprise amongst those who know him well, Jeff has a legion of friends and no more so than in the corner of the advanced bioeconomy dedicated to deploying technology at scale.
In Washington, USDA Farm Service Agency Administrator Val Dolcini announced Nov. 10 that $1.5 million will be available in fiscal year 2017 for farmers and foresters who harvest and deliver biomass for renewable energy.
Is it possible to increase vehicle performance and fuel efficiency while also slowing climate change through reduced greenhouse gas emissions?
Western Water and Power Production Ltd. LLC (WPP) on Nov. 7 filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission a petition for enforcement under the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act of 1978 (PURPA) against the New Mexico Public Regulation Commission to remedy its alleged improper implementation of PURPA.
BP Plc will invest $30 million in Fulcrum BioEnergy Inc., which makes biofuel from garbage, in a new partnership designed to curb airplane pollution.
In Washington, Donald Trump captured the U.S. Presidency in an upset victory that confounded pollsters and political pundits even as it delighted supporters of his maverick candidacy based on themes of immigration and trade reform coupled with a message that government policies of the past generation had failed for too many Americans.
Chile's Schwager Energy and China-based Shenyang Yuanda Commercial & Investment Co. signed a memorandum of understanding on Nov. 3 to build the 3-MW Los Pinos run-of-the-river hydroelectric plant in southern Chile's Lagos region, according to BN Americas.
What is anaerobic digestion? How has General Mills’ Murfreesboro Plant leveraged it to save25,000 gallons of diesel fuel, produce 1.6 megawatts of electricity and return 2,000 acres of farmland back to agricultural use?Sustainable Woman and Energy Engineer Leslie Marshall discuss.
On Oct. 23-26 the algae industry gathered in Phoenix, Ariz., for the Algae Biomass Summit, its annual get together. Gone are the glory days of algae biofuels capturing headlines and promising to save the world from climate change.
The UK government has outlined plans that seek to make amends for widely condemned changes made in July to the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) tariffs for biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plants.
Plans to convert a coal-fired power plant in Oregon into what would be the nation’s largest biomass facility will be tested before year’s end when 8,000 tons of toasted wood thinned from a national forest is burned to ensure compatibility with the power plant’s equipment.
The beautiful island of Kauai, Hawaii, is known for its pristine beaches and dramatic mountain ranges. But Kauai is not just a vacation spot; it is also the location of one of the largest algae biofuel production facilities in the U.S.
Japan is turning to a small German company to generate powerfrom timber irradiated by the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear meltdowns.
When you think of Colorado, images of snow-capped mountains and lush evergreen forests may come to your mind. But Colorado’s forests have been under attack. It began more than two decades ago when severe drought led to an infestation of mountain pine beetles, spruce beetles, and other pests. The beetle infestation, over time, killed millions of acres of lodgepole pine trees and other tree species. There is now an abundance of dead trees standing on the mountainsides of central and western Colorado.
Finnish Valmet and Danish HOFOR Energiproduktion A/S have signed a €150 million (US$163 million) contract for development of a state-of-the-art biomass combined heat and power plant for Copenhagen, Denmark.
Statkraft opened its renovated and expanded 350-MW Nedre Rossaga hydropower station on Oct. 18.
At the U.S. Department of Energy's Bioenergy Technologies Office, we think of innovation as a way to work towardcontinuously improving the world that we are leaving for future generations.
The battle between the biomass energy and power industry and members of the environmental community continues to rage in Washington. The catalyst of the conflagration is on-going consideration of the North American Energy Security and Infrastructure Act of 2016 (S. 2012).
Over the past few days my in-box has been overflowing with hopeful news about the Paris climate agreement. Today hope became promise. As of Wednesday evening, 72 nations responsible for 56.8 percent of global emissions formally filed their ratification papers.
In Canada, the worldwide aviation industry has applauded a crucial climate agreement reached by governments meeting at the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO). The negotiations, to put in place the world’s first carbon offsetting scheme for any global sector, have had the backing of the aviation industry, which first proposed the measure in 2009.
The airline industry’s plan to ease its impact on global warming hinges on fuels made from vegetable oil, corn and household garbage. The hitch: nobody has ever been able to produce the stuff in the volumes needed.
Renewable gas holds a nascent status in the UK, but a recent change in rules for reporting greenhouse gas emissions may provide a promising route for its expansion via enabling large consumers to demonstrate reduction in their carbon footprints by using biomethane.
House and Senate Republican leaders are at odds over whether to renew expiring alternative-energy tax breaks during Congress’s lame-duck session after the Nov. 8 election.
Wind was the cheapest source of energy in Argentina’s first power auction after the country implemented reforms designed to transform its fossil fuel-dependent grid.
In a new report, the International Energy Agency said that renewable energy occupied a 17 percent share of global energy investments in 2015, up slightly from 16 percent in 2014.
News at the end of August that over 50,000 green heating schemes had been approved since the inception of the Renewable Heat Incentive in April 2014 caused some in the industry to hail a new era of heat pumps, biomass boilers and CHP.
The U.S. has 50 unique policy laboratories, many of which have economies larger than many of the countries on earth. They have something to say when it comes to energy policy.
The world's largest waste-to-energy downdraft gasification plant is being constructed in Tennessee — area mayors were invited to take a look at the facility in preparation for full startup early next month.
By the time this column is published, oral arguments in the legal challenge to the Clean Power Plan will have already been made. The en banc panel of 10 appeals court judges is not likely to render its decision before the New Year. No matter the opinion, it will be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Here we are again. Election 2016. Deemed “the most important election of our lifetimes” — the same claim made about the 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 Presidential elections. As usual, each side is predicting that if their candidate’s opponent wins, we will witness the end of American democracy as we know it.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on Tuesday heard oral arguments in the State of West Virginia v. EPA, the case challenging the legal basis of the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan.
Hillary wants to put 500,000,000 solar panels in place during her presidency meanwhile Trump wants to get rid of the Clean Power Plan because he believes that climate change isn’t a threat and regulations are hurting the American economy. That was the takeaway for clean energy supporters who watched last night’s debate between U.S. Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton (D) and Donald Trump (R).
To anyone who watched the debate, it was apparent that should she be elected, Clinton will support and work to continue similar clean energy initiatives that have been put forth by Obama. Trump, on the other hand, will work to undo them.
Clinton views clean energy as a job-boosting economic opportunity for the U.S.: “We can deploy a half a billion more solar panels. We can have enough clean energy to power every home. We can build a new modern electric grid. That's a lot of jobs; that's a lot of new economic activity,” she said.
Trump said clean energy incentives are “a disaster” reminding viewers of the failed solar company Solyndra that received more than $500 million in aid from the U.S. government before filing for bankruptcy.
“She talks about solar panels,” he said, adding “We invested in a solar company, our country. That was a disaster. They lost plenty of money on that one.”
The Washington Post has the complete transcript of the debate. Check it out here.
By directly sourcing renewable energy, more and more companies are reducing energy costs and energy price volatility while achieving their sustainability and climate change goals. However, many potential renewable energy buyers are worried about the risks associated with committing to a long-term power purchase agreement.
Nearly two years afterpresidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro announced a thaw in relations, Cuba’s communist government is turning to foreign investors to boost renewable energy as it faces cutbacks in cheap oil imports from Venezuela.
A report published by the UK Energy and Climate Change Committee (ECCC) forecasts that “on its current course, the UK will fail to achieve its 2020 renewable energy targets.”
In New York, jetBlue announced a 10-year, 330 million gallon renewable jet fuel purchase agreement with SG Preston. This marks one of the largest renewable jet fuel purchase agreements in aviation history, and the largest, long-term, binding commitment by any airline globally for HEFA (hydro-processed esters and fatty acids) renewable jet fuel. The first deliveries are scheduled for 2019.
I interrupt the Justice Delayed series for something slightly different. The series has thus far focused on the challenge to EPA’s authority in the matter of the Clean Power Plan (CPP). Today, I want to shift the discussion to a law suit filed in the federal district court in Oregon.
The World Bank has approved US$390 million in additional financing to be used by Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority for extensions of its Tarbela hydroelectric plant.
LanzaTech Inc., based in Skokie, Illinois, produced 1,500 gallons of the fuel known as Lanzanol. It’s made from ethanol created through a fermentation process. It’s estimated to be 65 percent cleaner than conventional jet fuel, according to a statement on Virgin Atlantic’s website.
Let me get this out right up front: I’m not a fan of Donald Trump and I won’t be voting for him. Over the past year, I’ve been both captivated and repulsed by the Republican presidential candidate’s bullying tactics,
Speedily reducing a city’s greenhouse gas emissions to protect the climate may sound straightforward. Amsterdam’s experience as a front-runner in the global race to reduce GHGs, however, reveals that the process can be challenging.
Since the big push from the U.S. government for investment in renewable energy in 2009, we’ve had the opportunity to see how prices have changed between states that have made large investments in renewable energy, and those that have not.
On Aug. 17, the U.S. Energy Information Administration daily update announced that CO2 emissions from natural gas would soon surpass coal. That’s troubling.
One of the most influential people of our time has passed away this week, and his impacts have been huge.
In Belgium, the BIOFOREVER consortium of 14 European companies emerged from stealth with the news that they have started their demonstration project for the conversion of woody biomass to value adding chemical building blocks.
The Bioenergy Association of California (BAC) said it worked with its members to help pass several important bills that will significantly increase renewable gas production and use.
I suppose it should come as no surprise that leading members of a do-nothing Congress are encouraging the states to do nothing to plan for the possible eventuality that the Clean Power Plan will be upheld by the courts.
A three-judge panel at the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on Sept. 2 denied a petition for review of a decision of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) granting Sierra Pacific Industries a prevention of significant deterioration (PSD) permit for construction of a new biomass-burning power plant at its lumber mill in California.
My Ten Clean Energy Stocks for 2016 model portfolio continued to coast upward in August after five months of blistering performance since February, while clean energy sector benchmarks and real managed portfolio, the Green Global Equity Income Portfolio (GGEIP), pulled back slightly.
At the end of the 20th century, electric generation in the U.S. came primarily from five sources; coal, nuclear, natural gas, petroleum, and hydroelectric. In 1999, 45 states relied on three of those five energy sources for their top three sources of electric generation. The exception was five states, which had biomass in their top three. There wasn’t much energy diversity in electric generation back then.
The Netherlands would like to be regarded as a pacesetter in renewable energy, but it lags behind most other European Union nations, with only 5.8 percent of its energy coming from renewable sources. Whereas it is striving to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, the Netherlands’ climate policy relies heavily on voluntary compliance from the corporate sector and has been controversial.
The United States and China on Sept. 3 formally joined the Paris Agreement in a ceremony in Hangzhou, China, ahead of the G20 Summit. President Obama and President Xi both deposited their country’s official instrument with United Nations Secretary, General Ban-Ki Moon.
While the UK has backtracked on a few renewable issues of late, including cutting subsidies for wind and solar, one thing is clear— they have a target to reach for reducing carbon emissions and, at the moment, they look like they will fail to meet this for 2020. That’s less than four years away and the government’s energy and climate change policy seems in a little disarray to say the least.
With just over 70 days left until the general election, presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump offer voters two very different visions for the country’s energy agenda and the future of renewables.
Most Caribbean islands began generating electricity for municipal use around the 1930s through the establishment of public utility companies. But it wasn’t until the U.S. military began occupying several islands prior to WWII for strategic purposes, and constructing self-contained naval bases with state-of-the-art diesel generators, that increased energy production and distribution really started moving forward.
The owner of what was once the U.K.’s biggest coal plant joined a growing list of companies jostling for position to fill a potential energy gap if the government drops plans for an 18-billion pound ($23 billion) nuclear station in Somerset.
A reader writes: I’d hoped that the biofuels crowd would have gotten beyond ethanol by now. The industry has made progress creating all kinds of specialty chemicals from renewable sources and more or less successfully brought them to market. There’s jet and diesel in commercial use whether or not they’re yet profitable.
The year is 1878. The city of Paris is hosting the third annual World Fair, featuring the latest in fine art and innovative machinery. For the first time in history, 64 electric street lamps, running the length of the Avenue de l’Opera from the Louvre to the Palais Garnier Opera House, are lit with the flick of a switch.
The International Finance Corporation (IFC), in cooperation with the Government of Canada and the Clean Technology Fund, will invest $161 million in three biomass power plants in the Philippines.
The Clean Power Plan oral argument is coming up soon. On Sept. 27, attorneys will present their arguments in front of the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.
It’s finally happening. After years of research and development, of policy debates over subsidies and climate change and energy independence; renewable energy is finally starting to replace fossil fuel sources of electric generation across the nation.
In the case of the Fossil Fuel Industry, et. al. VS Earth, et. al., I find myself asking—not for the first time—is justice delayed, justice denied? It should come as no surprise that I am convinced it is.
The G20 meeting in Hangzhou, China, this September brings together leaders of the world’s largest economies for the first such gathering since the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate. G20 Leaders Summits traditionally focus on economic growth and financial stability, but since more than 190 countries collectively agreed to greatly enhance mitigation of the causes and impacts of climate change, the need to tackle a changing climate and foster clean energy has become a clear economic and business reality.
Erex Co., a Japanese power supplier, will add more biomass power plants and expand into wind farms as it seeks to reach out to more customers following the opening up of Japan’s power-retail market.
The U.S. accepted Australia’s offer to supply biofuel for its Asia-Pacific fleet, advancing the Navy’s goal of getting half its power from renewables by 2020.
Can America’s power grid accommodate a more dominant role for renewables in the energy mix? As the grid stands today, the answer is no. Our society is putting increasing demands on electric infrastructure that wasn’t designed for today needs — much less what we’re asking of it to support a cleaner energy future. Modern, robust and flexible infrastructure for delivering electricity generation over long distances is essential to the nation’s successful transition to a larger share of renewable energy.
A new report by the White House’s National Science and Technology Council called the Federal Alternative Jet Fuels Research and Development Strategy outlines the federal government’s plans to lower the cost of alternative jet fuels through coordinated, targeted research and development by agencies including the Energy Department, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the U.S. Department of Transportation, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Greece’s parliament has approved a new law governing the renewable energies sector. The new law, which allows for feed-in premiums, competitive tenders and virtual net metering, comprises a significant rearrangement of the country’s energy sector.
Today’s installment—the last in the series—identifies some of the fissures I see forming in the advocacy community. That is, the group of dedicated renewable energy and environmental advocates whose commitment and diligence to the task of saving the world from itself has gotten us this far down the path to sustainability.
In Washington, the U.S. Department of Energy announced up to $11.3 million for three projects that support the development of biomass-to-hydrocarbon biofuels conversion pathways that, as the DOE remarked, “can produce variable amounts of fuels and/or products based on external factors, such as market demand.”
In July, global wind and solar company Mainstream Renewable Power closed a $117.5 million equity financing package as part of its funding commitment to Lekela Power — a $1.9 billion joint venture between Mainstream and private equity manager Actis that will build 1.3 GW of solar and wind power capacity across Africa over the next three years.
India is targeting a more than sevenfold expansion in its biofuels market over the next six years,stepping up the country’s efforts to cut its reliance on energy imports.
Divided was the third most quoted word given by U.S. voters in response to a recent Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll asking for a one-word description of the current state of the union. Confused ranked fifth.
The complex case of West Virginia v. EPA illustrates the uncertainty injected into the national effort of the U.S. to meet its COP21 commitments, as a result of day-to-day realities. The case is the basis for the Supreme Court’s (SCOTUS) staying the implementation of the Clean Power Plan (CPP or Plan). It is the lynchpin holding up the U.S. promise made in Paris.
With over 6,000 km of coastline, 123 active volcanoes and numerous deserts and mountains, Chile’s renewable energy market is teeming with potential.
The power generation industry lit up Twitter with pictures of projects from all over the world during our #BestPowerProjects TweetUp.
The certainty of uncertainty, in the political arena, is the only thing of which I am certain. The 2016 presidential election is already a cross between The Rocky Horror Picture Show and a full contact spectator sport. If it didn’t have such an impact on the global environment, I might find these theatrics of the absurd entertaining.
Don’t let recent negative news, such as the bankruptcy filing at SunEdison, fool you — renewable energy’s time has arrived. Though market adoption has been slow, renewable energy — driven largely by wind and solar — has gained market share over the past few years, overtaking nuclear power in 2011 and accounting for more than 10 percent of all energy used in the U.S. in 2015. As interest and demand for renewables continue to build, setbacks like the SunEdison collapse should serve as a warning sign to renewable energy and utility (E&U) companies to carefully consider how they innovate and build scale in their business.
New York this week joined neighbor Vermont in aggressively pushing for more renewable energy in its power portfolio. The New York State Public Service Commission approved a mandate issued last fall by Gov. Andrew Cuomo that New York supply 50 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2030.
Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Notice 2016-31, released initially in May 2016, clarifies and expands previous IRS guidance on satisfying the “beginning of construction” requirement for renewable energy facilities to qualify for production tax credits, reflecting the extensions of the PTC under the Protecting Americans from Tax Hikes Act of 2015.
The global climate is not the only environment suffering from an abundance of hot air and inclemency. Consider the political/policy climate in the U.S., e.g., November elections, and abroad, e.g., Brexit, and the near-term impact of these socio-economic factors on national and international efforts to sufficiently slow the rate of climate change. As we ponder these events, we must remember that time is of the essence! Delayed implementation of emission reduction targets of even a few years can have an outsized negative impact upon the rate of warming.
In June, the UK electorate voted to leave the European Union. Now, the question is: will the UK’s departure be a “Soft Brexit” or a “Hard Brexit” and what will be the impact for the renewables industry?
What was once Britain’s biggest coal station is now powered mainly by wood pellets and its owner, Drax Group Plc, will learn in the next few months if can complete the conversion of another unit to run on renewable fuel.
Swaziland, a tiny landlocked monarchy, sandwiched between South Africa and Mozambique, and known for its wilderness reserves and festivals showcasing traditional Swazi culture, is planning a 35-MW biomass-powered plant to begin operations in three years.
In the near future, Russia may take advantage of production of renewable energy from wood pellets for the needs of remote towns and villages where such practice could cut the cost of energy nearly ten times, according to a recent study of National Research University — Higher School of Economics.
Renewables are coming to replace petroleum, predicted by self-proclaimed tech prognosticators everywhere. On the other end — inflated and unrealistic valuations, a shaky stock market, and a weak China, and as the oil prices fluctuate, they will take many smaller and un-mythical bio-based startups down. Why? Because you cannot have a successful bio-based company without a subsidy or an incentive from the government with the era of $44 crude oil! That is the usual reply from the unfamiliar!
Innovation takes teamwork. Sometimes that teamwork takes the form of companies, universities, or state and local governments collaborating together in novel ways. This can also occur through an “innovation cluster,” or a “regional center of innovation,” in which stakeholders come together to solve common problems. Recently, there has been increased focus on innovation clusters for energy projects. Substantial state and federal funds are being allocated toward developing energy innovation clusters due to their many benefits, including the creation of inventions and processes that will improve the nation’s energy efficiency.
Amid the upheaval of Brexit lies cautious optimism that Theresa May’s new government may hold better times for the UK renewable energy industry. Gone is the hawkish chancellor George Osborne — determinedly pro nuclear and fracking — while former energy and climate change secretary Amber Rudd, whose policy lurches over subsidy levels damaged so many green businesses, is now Home Secretary.
Tell us about your power projects! On August 3,join the global power industry for a TweetUp about YOUR power projects: those that you areworking on, those that are going to come online or those that you love.
We’re asking the power industry to tweet photos, articles, comments and questions about the power projects they are working on, have worked on, plan to work on or have admired from afar.
Pumped storage in Hungary? Wind power in Germany? Solar in China? Geothermal in Indonesia? Bioenergy in the UK? Hydropower in Africa? Energy Storage in the U.S.? Not to mention gas, coal, and nuclear projects in Italy, India and Russia, respectively. Tweet about them to show the world where the #BestPowerProjects are located and how they keep our lights on and our electronics running.
Start gathering photos of your projects right now so on August 3 between 10:00 AM and 4:00 PM you can share them with the twittersphere. We hope you’ll join us!
Wewould like you to consider the proposition that alcohol-to-jet fuels, known as ATJ to the three-letter acronym enthusiasts, deserve two RINs and two credits under the California Low Carbon Fuel Standard. For cellulosic jet fuels, two gallons under the cellulosic waiver credit provision and two gallons under the cellulosic production tax credits.
The world is teetering on the brink of a clean energy sea change. The environmental righting of the global ship is motivated by a combination of factors including: growing acceptance of the reality of catastrophic warming; consumer adoption of clean energy options; incorporation of environmentally sustainable practices by industry; and, recombinant investing by the public and private sectors, e.g., through the Clean Energy Investment Initiative and green bonds. Virtually every nation on the planet—even the traditionally most reluctant regimes like Russia, China and India—has signed on to the Paris climate accords (COP21).
As voters go to the polls this November, at least four states will consider ballot questions on marijuana legalization. Pending proposals in Nevada, Maine and California would authorize recreational marijuana use, while Floridians will vote on whether to allow medical marijuana use.
As economic and political landscapes around the world drive industry to more sustainable and economically viable sources of fuel, producers are rapidly turning to alternative production processes and sources of energy. For many governments, part of this shift involves adopting a circular economy approach, utilising all aspects of ‘waste’ throughout the production chain. The concept of the biorefinery embraces this standard by making use of the entire waste stream, recycling secondary products, valorizing co-products and even producing the very energy with which to power the process itself.
Eduardo Porter, in a recent piece entitled “How Renewable Energy is Blowing Climate Change Efforts Off Course,” demonstrates that one can bend so far backwards to support nuclear energy that one ends up with their head in the entirely wrong place.
Developing and operating more renewable energy electricity generation is an essential component of decarbonizing our electricity grids. Mr. Porter characterizes renewable energy commitments in several countries as ambitious infatuations that have led to a glut requiring adjustments to grid operations. He thinks grid operators mindlessly attach more renewable energy generation to the grid as in some kind of blindfolded pin-the-tail game.
Will the price of power go up? Could the lights go out? Britain’s shock withdrawal from the European Union poses big questions, and urgency was in the air when the House of Lords, Parliament’s chamber responsible for amending legislation, quizzed two experts in energy and climate change last week.
Smart Village Initiative (SVI) organized a three-day workshop on Energy Access to Off-grid Communities for Sustainable Development. Despite the increasing efforts towards improved access to modern energy services at the global, regional and national levels, energy poverty remains a major global challenge. Studies show that about 1.1 billion people globally live without access to electricity...
Iran is planning its first tender for utility-scale renewable energy projects by year end as it begins a green power build out that could draw $12 billion of investment by the time it’s complete.
It is a new era for American energy. In 2015, increased use of sustainable energy set the stage for a U.S. triple play of carbon reductions, cost savings, and economic growth.
In Washington, as the DOE’s Bioenergy 2016 conference opened its third day, the Energy Department announced up to $15 million for three projects aimed at reducing the production costs of algae-based biofuels and bioproducts through improvements in algal biomass yields.
It was a gamble that went spectacularly wrong for Tory Prime Minister David Cameron: Allow the UK to decide through a national referendum on their future participation in the EU and hope that they choose to remain.
Over the last few years, Mexico has made a series of policy decisions that show its commitment to addressing climate change.
Thousands of German companies are set to keep their exemptions from payment of green power fees in a shakeup of the nation’s financial support for renewable energy, lawmakers in Berlin said.
Carnegie Wave Energy Ltd., in a press release on Nov. 1, announced it intends to change its name to Carnegie Clean Energy Ltd. (CCE).
British Columbia-based tidal developer, Yourbrook Energy Systems Ltd., is testing what it calls a prototype of a shallow water tidal-powered generator pump that could one day be used as part of a pumped storage hydroelectric project.
Five companies were recognized this week by the National Hydropower Association during its annual Waterpower Week in Washington conference for work in hydroelectric power that exemplifies "extraordinary recreational, historical, environmental or educational value."
More than a year after Prime Minister David Cameron publicly announced support for the Perpetuus Tidal Energy Center (PTEC), Great Britain’s Marine Management Organization (MMO) issued a license on April 20 to Royal HaskoningDHV to deploy and operate a proposed 30-MW tidal array at the center, located off the Isle of Wight.
Scotland-based power and environmental consultant Aquatera Ltd. Has entered into a partnership with the Nagasaki Marine Industry Cluster Promotion Association in an effort to help Japan bolster its marine energy sector through international collaboration.
Hawaii Governor David Ige on Aug. 21 joined executives from the Office of Ocean Naval Research (ONR), Makai Ocean Engineering and other organizations on-site at the Natural Energy Laboratory of Hawaii Authority (NELHA) in cutting the ribbon and commissioning the first U.S., and world's largest, grid-connected ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) power plant.
Makai Ocean Engineering Inc. has built an ocean thermal-energy conversion demonstration plant in Hawaii.
After a year of being pummeled by opponents, Obama’s final carbon reduction plan emerged this week with an even stronger push for renewable energy.
Wind and solar energy are centerpieces of the Clean Power Plan, the United States’ first ever rule to reduce carbon dioxide from power plants.
The rule not only makes renewables one of the plan’s three central building blocks, but also creates special incentives to spur communities to build renewables more quickly than required.
The revised version of the rule comes after a year of review, hundreds of meetings and 4.3 million public comments delivered to EPA. It requires that states come up with plans to cut carbon pollution from power plants by 870 million tons, or 32 percent below 2005 levels, in 2030.
Here’s a nightmare for you: at night, when you’re asleep and you think things are quiet, there are vampires sucking power out of your house and increasing your electric bill. The fact of the matter is that every plugged in electrical device in your home uses a small amount of standby power -- even if you think these devices are off.
Executives from 13 major U.S. corporations are announcing at least $140 billion in new investments to decrease their carbon footprints as part of a White House initiative to recruit private commitments ahead of a United Nations climate-change summit later this year in Paris.
Companies including Apple Inc., Berkshire Hathaway Energy Co., and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. will join Secretary of State John Kerry and top administration officials at the White House for the announcement. In addition to pledges to cut emissions, provide financing to environmentally-focused companies, and reduce water consumption, the companies have said they will procure at least 1,600 MW of new, renewable energy. The White House said in a statement that it expects to announce a second round of similar pledges later this fall from additional companies.
The commitments are being announced as President Barack Obama is looking to build momentum toward a legacy-defining global climate accord in Paris. In addition to company-specific commitments, the corporate leaders on Monday will signal their support for a strong climate agreement out of the United Nations talks. They administration is using the pledges to set an example for companies to find ways to eliminate their carbon emissions.
Climate Talks
“As the world looks toward global climate negotiations in Paris this December, American leadership at all levels will be essential,” the White House said in a fact sheet detailing the announcement.
The administration’s actions are pushing the issue into the 2016 presidential debate. Hillary Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic nomination, released an energy strategy saying she would both defend and go beyond Obama’s efforts. Republican candidates have criticized the administration’s initiatives as costly to the economy and unnecessary.
Among the pledges, aluminum manufacturer Alcoa Inc. has agreed to reduce emissions by 50 percent from its 2005 levels, while agricultural giant Cargill Inc. says 18 percent of its total energy use will come from renewable sources.
Coca-Cola Co. said it would drive down the carbon footprint of its beverage production by 25 percent over the next five years, while Google says it plans to triple its purchases of renewable energy over the next decade. Berkshire Hathaway says it plans to invest up to an additional $15 billion in the construction and operation of renewable energy generators, while Bank of America Corp says it will increase its environmental business initiative by $75 billion over the next decade, according to the White House
Other participating firms include Wal-Mart, United Parcel Service Inc., PepsiCo Inc., Microsoft Corp., General Motors Inc.
The corporate commitments won’t be the administration’s only major climate announcement in the next few weeks. The Environmental Protection Agency is set to present final regulations that aim to reduce carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent from 2005 levels by 2030 later this week.
While visiting Kenya over the weekend, Obama repeatedly praised the country for its efforts to address climate change, saying its efforts tor educe emissions “has put it in the position of being a leader on the continent.” And next month, the president will travel to Alaska for an international summit on Arctic climate issues.
©2015 Bloomberg News
For more, see Big Companies, Big Renewable Investments.
In a lopsided 23-3 vote, the U.S. Senate Finance Committee voted yesterday to extend a number of renewable energy production tax credits through the end of 2016. The vote allows developers of wind, geothermal, biomass, landfill gas, incremental hydroelectric, and ocean energy to take advantage of federal tax credits for projects begun before December 31, 2016.
Chief among big renewable winners was the wind energy industry, which received extensions to the Production Tax Credit (PTC) and the Investment Tax Credit (ITC). If passed, wind farms would qualify for a 2.3-cent-per-kilowatt-hour (kWh) credit through the end of 2016.
Publicly, the United Nations climate-change talks look mired in disputes over everything from money to the length of the proposed agreement.
The headline figure from the authoritative REN21 Renewables Global Status Report 2015 (GSR) states renewables accounted for more than 59 percent of all new electricity generating capacity installed worldwide during 2014.
This month alone, we Americans celebrated our nation’s birthday, capped off perfectly by the USA women’s soccer team’s sensational 5-2 victory in the World Cup final. As we hit the halfway point of 2015, the clean-energy industry also has much to celebrate, much of it in the month of June alone and much of it financial.
The U.S.Department of Energy(DOE) chose Sandia National Laboratories as one of five leads in a pilot that will give small, clean-energy companies access to national laboratory expertise and resources. Sandia will receive $2.75 million of DOE’s $20 million investment to launch the voucher pilot for small business assistance and collaborative research.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown, Democrat, has proclaimed “July 13-17, 2015 to be Oregon Wave Week in Oregon and encourages all Oregonians to join in this observance.”
German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel said 13 percent of power stations burning lignite, a cheap form of coal, would be phased out by 2021 under a program to cut power industry pollution. The government abandoned talks on proposals to impose a climate-change fee that the industry said would have forced mines and plants to close, threatening jobs.
Trillions of dollars will be invested in renewable energy overthe next 25 years, driving some of the most profound changes yet in how humans get their electricity. That's according to a new forecast by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that plots out global power markets to 2040.
Pope Francis turned a keen eye toward the environment and the problem of climate change with his encyclical,“Laudato Si” (“Praised Be”).As a clean energy advocate, I’m heartened that Pope Francis recognizes the need to transform our energy system.
In West Virginia, where workers have harvested coal seams for centuries, Pope Francis’ new warning about the risks of fossil fuels will find skepticism even among the faithful.
Carbon emissions in 2014 remained at the previous year’s levels of 32.3 billion metric tons — a milestone that points to the impact worldwide renewable energy investment is having in the face of a 1.5 percent annual increase in global energy consumption, according toa new reportfrom REN21. The tenth annualRenewables 2015 Global Status Reportcites “increased penetration of renewable energy” and improvements in energy efficiency as the chief reasons for the noted emissions stabilization.
The European Commission raised concern that the U.K. and France may not meet their 2020 renewable energy targets, saying the two countries should examine whether they’re doing enough to reach the goals.
Wednesday morning’s 'Regulation and the Marketplace' panel discussion atPOWER-GEN Europein Amsterdam got off to a lively start with a presentation from Randy Mott, president of Polish biogas- and geothermal-basedcombined heat and power(CHP) project developer CEERES and vice-president of Poland's biogas association.
Energy is Europe’s quiet crisis. While the clamour of failing economies, desperate migrants and political clashes grabs the headlines, energy policy is rarely front-page news, but it should be — the statistics are shocking.
Every industry has its challenges and misunderstandings. Sometimes the obstacles we face in simply trying to do our jobs can be very frustrating.
The United States is experiencing a significant shift in its energy landscape. Last year, utility-scale wind and solar power combined for 47 percent of new generation capacity in the U.S. Based on this expansion, 11 states now generate more than 10 percent of their electricity from solar, wind, and geothermal power, with three of these states — Iowa, South Dakota, and Kansas — exceeding 20 percent. In 2014, California became the first state in the nation to garner 5 percent of its electricity from utility-scale solar. When including hydropower, four states —Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and South Dakota — now exceed 70 percent renewables generation.
Driven by rapid expansion in developing countries, renewables are becoming a significant source of the world’s power. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme’s (UNEP) 9th “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2015,” investment in developing countries was up 36 percent in 2014, totaling $131.3 billion.
A new government analysis of President Barack Obama’s signature effort to fight climate change affirms what critics suspected: the proposal could further weaken an already battered coal industry.
Ongoing growth in renewable energy investment and deployment is creating jobs worldwide — and lots of them. This job growth is helping governments address a fundamental economic problem plaguing developed and developing countries alike. Deploying renewablesrather than fossil fuel capacityis also reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other environmental pollution that holds the threat of a sixth great extinction.
Last week, Canada has announced its contribution to the global effort to reduce greenhouse gases by announcing its post-2020 target. The target announced today is off-track to the 80 percent cut by 2050 they committed to in 2009 and significantly higher than the U.S. target. They also announced a series of new measures, but failed to address their largest source of growing emissions — tar sands.
Alternative energy became a serious market player after the turn of the millennium. Since that time, solar, wind, smart grid and other alternative energy stocks have experienced both strong up and down trends. The forces at work driving these markets are complex, counterintuitive, and sometimes mysterious. This article looks at what has been driving the price of alternative energy markets, and as a result, alternative energy company stocks.
With the UK general election now over and a majority Conservative Party government in place, the re-elected Prime Minister David Cameron has now named key members of the government charged with steering the UK’s clean energy policy over the coming years.
North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state that’s home to utilities RWE AG and EON SE, is losing its standing as the country’s powerhouse as wind and solar energy begin to displace conventional sources.
Electricity consumers in the western state, which has one-third of Germany’s installed conventional power capacity,last year paid 3.1 billion euros($3.5 billion) more to subsidize clean energy generation than producers there were awarded, the BDEW utility lobby said in a report Tuesday. The biggest recipient was Brandenburg in the east with a positive balance of 838 million euros.
The surprise Conservative victory in the recent UK elections have some worrying about the future of renewable and climate progress, but officials are now calming those fears.
North Rhine-Westphalia, the German state that’s home to utilities RWE AG and EON SE, is losing its standing as the country’s powerhouse as wind and solar energy begin to displace conventional sources.
Electricity consumers in the western state, which has one-third of Germany’s installed conventional power capacity,last year paid 3.1 billion euros($3.5 billion) more to subsidize clean energy generation than producers there were awarded, the BDEW utility lobby said in a report Tuesday. The biggest recipient was Brandenburg in the east with a positive balance of 838 million euros.
Opportunities and risks abound. Understanding why renewable energy should be developed in Cuba and what the major risks and policy obstacles are will be critical for international investors to assess their potential operations in the country.
The Environmental Protection Agency’sClean Power Plan remains in limbo as to its ultimate fate, though talk of its demise has intensified of late with news that a multi-state coalition has requested that President Donald Trump not enforce the rule. If the CPP does indeed meet its end later this year, this by no means signifies a wholesale return to fossil fuels. However, we are likely to see much more of one fossil fuel in particular.
Installedwind powercapacity in the U.S. at the end of last year outpacedhydroelectriccapacity for the first time ever, according to the American Wind Energy Association’s U.S. Wind Industry Fourth Quarter 2016 Market Report, released today.
A new year is upon us and the renewable energy community, like most industries impacted by federal energy and natural resource policies, approaches the coming year cautiously and with some concern. Biomass energy faced an uncertain future before the U.S. elections in November. Will its prospects improve as President Trump begins his tenure as commander and chief?
U.S. railroads, including Warren Buffett’s BNSF, are joining a corporate brawl over ethanol mandates that pits American corn farmers and fuel distributors against independent oil refiners like billionaire Carl Icahn.
Predictably there’s been a lot written over the last few weeks about the Paris Climate Agreement and whether the Trump administration will continue to sit with other nations. There has been a substantial increase in tweets, polls, studies, press conferences, anonymous reports and mutterings going into and coming out of the Easter weekend.
Energy storage and solar+storage developers now have an online tool to help them pick the right systems for their commercial and industrial projects.
The General Assembly of Maryland just passed a bill that would provide a 30 percent tax credit to those who chose to utilize energy storage technology, making it the first state in the country to pass such legislation. The funds provided by the bill would last from 2018 to 2022.
Energy experts and policy makers around the globe are following developments in Alberta and Saskatchewan as they begin the first round of their competitive procurements for renewable electricity. These procurement programs aim to help the provinces achieve their renewable energy targets for 2030.
President Donald Trump recently issued an executive order to start the process of reviewing and, ultimately, attempting to disassemble the Clean Power Plan and its supposedly job-killing mandates.
The Board of Directors of Shunfeng International Clean Energy Ltd. (SICE) yesterday said that Atlanta-based solar cell and module manufacturer Suniva filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition for relief under the U.S. bankruptcy code.
The nation’s first ever attempt to have municipal governments collectively buy power from community solar gardens was a modest success, according to a new report.
Walmart is continuing its foray into energy storage ownership with new installations for its stores in Southern California. Advanced Microgrid Solutions last week said it will install 40 MWh of energy storage at 27 Walmart stores in the region.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include the demise of the solar lease, the fall of the yieldco and microgrids. Check it out!
U.S. Energy Secretary Rick Perry is ordering a study of the U.S. electric grid, with an eye to examining whether policies that favor wind and solar energy are accelerating the retirement of coal and nuclear plants critical to ensuring steady, reliable power supplies.
Saudi Arabia will develop 30 solar and wind projects over the next 10 years as part of the kingdom’s $50 billion program to boost power generation and cut its oil consumption.
It may seem counter-intuitive, but you can have too many solar panels on your roof. With conventional net metering, your utility will not reimburse you at the end of the year if you produce more power than you consume.
If global warming is planetary, its negative impacts and consequences are visible everywhere, but are different in nature from region to region. It is more destructive for poor countries, especially African countries which contribute less than 4 percent of global GHG emissions.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today published a notice in the Federal Register that it is seeking public comments on regulations that may be repealed, replaced or modified, in accordance with President Donald Trump’s executive order “Enforcing the Regulatory Reform Agenda.”
The solar, wind and energy efficiency industries already employ millions of people in the U.S., and they’re poised to grow. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, there are 374,000 American jobs in solar energy, 102,000 in wind energy and more than 2.2 million related to energy efficiency.
The price of solar power in India fell to a record low of 3.15 rupees (5 U.S. cents) a kilowatt-hour in a competitive tender where French firm Engie SA’s local arm won rights to develop 250 MW.
Clean-energy investment fell 17 percent in the first quarter, keeping pace with last year’s decline, as the U.S. and China both scaled back support for wind and solar farms.
Welcome to the whacky and wonderful world of Washington politics. President Trump and Speaker Ryan lost the first big test of their budding bromance, Tryancare, their answer to Affordable Health Care, failed to make it on to the House floor after a long night of negotiations.
Last week, Schneider Electric brought media, analysts and partners to its Boston One Campus (BOC), the company’s North American headquarters in Andover, Massachusetts, to unveil what it is calling its new “advanced microgrid.”
With the microgrid, the BOC is able to completely detach from the grid and draw all of its power from the onsite generation, which includes about 448 kW of rooftop and carport PV and a gas generator. During the media and analyst event, Andy Haun, the CTO of the company’s North American microgrid business unit, demonstrated how the system responds to signals from the grid and/or weather events that would cause it go into island mode. During lunch, the building went dark and then was repowered with onsite power.
With major corporations setting ambitious environmental targets, a surge in demand for renewable energy certificates (RECs)* is anticipated, according to the market players gathered at the RECS Market Meeting in Amsterdam on 21-22 March.
A new pilot project from Illinois’ largest utility is bringingenergy storageout from behind the substation and into the neighborhood. Last month, ComEd deployed a 25-kilowatt-hour, lithium-ion battery in Beecher, Ill., about 40 miles south of Chicago. In the event of a power outage, the battery can supply about an hour of backup power to three houses selected for the project.
Research led by a Stanford scientist promises to increase the performance of high-power electrical storage devices, such as car batteries. In work published last week inApplied Physics Letters, the researchers describe a mathematical model for designing new materials for storing electricity.
Thephotovoltaicindustry has been low margin for so many periods in its history that the concept of a margin healthy enough to profitably run an entire company is anathema to it. Focus on the benefits of multi gigawatt economies of scale on margins belies the lengths that PV manufacturers have undergone to salvage margin; lengths that include sourcing lower cost and thus lower quality backsheets, EVA, glass, junction boxes and polysilicon.
Can you imagine a world in which you could spray on your power source and place it wherever you’d like? Maybe on the windows of your home or on the roof of your car. Perhaps on the sides of your tall business building.
Last week, a 2-1 decision by the Third District Court of Appeal in Sacramento upheld California’s program to reduce carbon emissions. California’s controversial and signature cap-and-trade program creates a firm limit on carbon emissions and auctions allowances that permit companies to release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
Against the omnipresent threat of attack to digital assets and infrastructure, the burgeoning renewable energy industry is urged to establish an effective security culture. Renewable Energy Worldheard from Swiss Re and Swiss Re Corporate Solutions about the risks, consequences and solutions as the energy sector becomes evermore interconnected, automated and digitalized.
Nonprofitsolarinstaller GRID Alternatives recently received a donation of about 620 kW of solar modules from JinkoSolar to help expand the organization’s efforts to bring solar power and job training to low-income communities in the U.S.
GermanChancellor Angela Merkelencouraged Spain and Portugal to invest more in solar energy and said they need a better link to France amid a push for aunifiedEuropean power grid.
Renewables were the biggest new source of electricity last year as the cost of building newwindandsolarfarms fell. Clean energy provided 55 percent of all new capacity added worldwide, the most ever, and total investment was about double the amount for generators driven by fossil fuels, according to a report published Thursday by UN Environment, the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
The Kentucky Coal Mining Museum in Benham, owned by Southeast Kentucky Community and Technical College, is switching to solar power to save money. The museum, which memorializes Kentucky's history in coal mining, is modernizing with a new form of cheaper energy.
Despite climate change deniers and oil company executives arguing to the contrary, most scientists (and citizens of the world) recognize how important it is for us to find more sustainable practices, including sources of energy.
India has some of the world’s most ambitious renewable energy goals. Prime Minister NarendraModipromised to boostIndia's solar energygeneration capacity from 5.8 GW in 2014 to 100 GW by 2022. As part of the Paris Agreement, India set a goal to increase the share of non-fossil-based power capacity from 30 percent today to about 40 percent by 2030.
To meet skyrocketing demand for electricity, African countries may have to triple their energy output by 2030. While hydropower and fossil fuel power plants are favored approaches in some quarters, a new assessment by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has found that wind and solar can be economically and environmentally competitive options and can contribute significantly to the rising demand.
Many consider the sun the energy source of the future. But one challenge is that it is difficult to store solar energy and deliver the energy 'on demand'.
It’s that time of the year…tax time, that is. Every year we get questions from customers about filling out their solar investment tax credit (ITC) form. Now, we are not tax experts (so check with your accountant), but the rules are pretty straightforward for the solar ITC.
Spice Village (SV) is a resort in India’s Kerala province, adjacent to the Periyar Tiger Reserve. It is an eco-traveler’s destination, where “birdsong takes the place of television.” Its energy profile, however, was harsh. The regional electric grid was undependable and SV used a diesel-powered generator eight hours per day — noisy and expensive.
Australian green bank Clean Energy Finance Corp. (CEFC) in March said it is working with the South Australian government to develop a financing package to support development of Australia's largest grid-scaleenergy storageproject.
Inspired by an American fern, a groundbreaking prototype could be the answer to the storage challenge holding solar back as a total energy solution.
Our forebearers have been integrating the electricity and extending the electric supply grid ever since the installation of the first public lighting by the Godalming Borough Lighting Committee in 1881 shortly followed by the first demonstration facility of transmission of direct current electrical energy by Miesbach-Munich Power Transmission in 1882 over a 57-km distance.
The International Energy Agency will help support Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’sgoalto spread solar power to more developing nations, especially those clustered around the Equator.
The Ohio House of Representatives yesterday voted 65-31 to pass a bill that would end the state’s current mandate for the amount of renewable energy utilities must provide customers in Ohio.
For over a century, the landscape north of Kimberley, British Columbia, was used for intensive industrial hard-rock mining — but now it’s home to the largest solar farm in all of BritishColumbia. Over the decades, the site of Teck’s (formerly Cominco’s) Sullivan Mine hosted a steel mill, fertilizer plant and tailings ponds, rendering the area tree-less for the foreseeablefuture.
China’ssolar PVindustry continued its recovery in 2016, with gross output value reaching 336 billion yuan (US$49 billion), a rise of 27 percent compared to 2015, according to statistics released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.
Last year marked the first time since 2013 thatsolarenergy growth outpacedwindenergy, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Solar saw a record 71 GW of new capacity in 2016, while wind increased by 51 GW.
The President announced on Tuesday, March 28th at the Environmental Protection Agency his new Executive Order based on protecting 75,000 US coal jobs by threatening over 3 million US clean energy jobs.
Some context:
According to MorningConsult
The order directs officials to review the Environmental Protection Agency regulations on new and existing power plants, withdraw the Obama administration’s “social cost of carbon,” which puts a price on greenhouse gas emissions, end a moratorium on new coal leases on federal land, review regulations on methane emissions from natural gas systems, end a guidance for agencies to consider climate change, and end Bureau of Land Management restrictions on hydraulic fracturing.
The Trump administration has not yet released the text of the order which is based solely on saving coal and other fossil jobs, but a senior White House official shared details with reporters in a call on March 27th.
As President Donald Trump scales down federal efforts to combat climate change, states are ramping up. California’s Air Resources Board broke with Trump and voted to uphold auto fuel efficiency rules, while Illinois offered a bail out to carbon-free nuclear producers. Iowa and Michigan have moved to increase incentives for renewable energy, and Maryland’s Republican Governor Larry Hogan is poised to sign a statewide ban on fracking.
China’s National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Finance and National Energy Administration recently jointly announced a pilot program for the issuance of green certificates to renewable energy producers coupled with a trading scheme running on a voluntary basis across the country.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include President Donald Trump's "Energy Independence" executive order; solar "citisuns," what they are and how you can be one, too; and total installed capacity for solar including how much manufacturing capacity exists in the world today and what that means for solar businesses. Check it out.
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:
Section 1. Policy. (a) It is in the national interest to promote clean and safe development of our Nation's vast energy resources, while at the same time avoiding regulatory burdens that unnecessarily encumber energy production, constrain economic growth, and prevent job creation. Moreover, the prudent development of these natural resources is essential to ensuring the Nation's geopolitical security.
Here’s a solid look at 2016 numbers from shipments to grid connections and an anlysis to help you understand how they will impact your business.
The electric grid is an amazing integrated system of machines spanning an entire continent. The National Academy of Engineering has called it one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century.
The ability to store energy promises to revolutionize the way we generate, transmit and use electricity - making renewable sources such as wind and solar cheaper and more dependable. Massachusetts is one of just three states requiring electric utilities to build battery facilities in the future.
This week, the largest renewable energy project built in the U.S. through an alliance of diverse buyers reached commercial operation. The development of the 60-MW Summit Farms Solar project was driven by demand from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Boston Medical Center, and Post Office Square Redevelopment Corporation.
Leading the way among major producers of consumer goods, Anheuser-Busch (ABInBev) on Tuesday announced its commitment to become 100 percent powered by renewable energy by 2025. According to the company it will then become the largest corporate direct purchaser of renewable electricity in the consumer goods sector.
In total, this will shift 6 terawatt-hours of electricity annually to renewable sources in the markets where AB InBev operates and will help transform the energy industry in countries like Argentina, Brazil, India and markets across the African continent.
Consumers have seen flat or declining energy costs as renewable energy becomes a greater part of the energy mix of Minnesota and the nation. That’s one of the findings in the annual2017 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook, published by Bloomberg New Energy Finance in partnership with the Business Council for Sustainable Energy.
Greenko Energy Holdings, the green power developer backed by sovereign wealth funds, expects to double its capacity in India by 2019 with the help of assets acquired during the bankruptcy of SunEdison Inc.
Generation capacity should grow to about 5 gigawatts in the next two years as new projects come online and Greenko integrates 1.5 gigawatts of SunEdison assets into its portfolio, Mahesh Kolli, the founder of the company based in Hyderabad, India, said in a telephone interview.
President Donald Trump is moving aggressively to undo policies designed to keep the carbon-cutting promises the U.S. made alongside nearly 200 other countries in Paris, while stopping short of a decision to formally withdraw from that landmark climate accord.
Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday that begins unraveling a raft of rules and directives to combat climate change, which President Barack Obama wove into the fabric of the federal government as he made addressing the issue a centerpiece of his second term.
There are significant differences between the clean energy and environmental outlooks of the May and Trump administrations. To-date the Prime Minister has given no indication of renouncing either the Paris accords or the UK’s pledged emission targets. The U.S. commitment to the accords and willingness to fulfill the promisedGHG reductions of the Obama administration remain unclear.
First Solar this week announced that financial close has been reached for the Manildra Solar Farm in New South Wales (NSW), Australia. First Solarwill leverage its expertise in utility-scale solar development to deliver the 48.5-MW (AC) project, which will utilize approximately 466,000 First Solar thin-film photovoltaic (PV) modules and single-axis tracking technology expected to produce more than 120,000 megawatt-hours of electricity in its first year of operation. The Manildra Solar Farm will take First Solar's installed capacity in Australiato more than 400-MW (AC) when it is complete in 2018.
Dominion announced plans to construct, own and operate 81 megawatts (AC) of solar generating capacity inJasper County, S.C.Two projects — a 71.4-megawatt facility that would beSouth Carolina'slargest and a 10-megawatt array —are expected to enter service in 2017.
"Dominion is excited to work with a number of partners — including Solvay and South Carolina Electric & Gas —not only to bring additional non-carbon-emittingsolar generationto the power grid but also to add to ourSouth Carolinaenergy infrastructure portfolio," saidThomas F. Farrell II, chairman, president and chief executive officer of Dominion. "We are proud of the work we are doing inSouth Carolinato help people, electric and gas distribution companies and industry access clean energy."
How do we compensate those who add clean electricity to our shared power grid? This fundamental question has affected the rate at which the U.S. has adopted, deployed, and put into use clean, distributed energy resources.
Imagine a future when solar cells can be sprayed or printed onto the windows of skyscrapers or atop sports utility vehicles -- and at prices potentially far cheaper than today’s silicon-based panels.
It’s not as far-fetched it seems. Solar researchers and company executives think there’s a good chance the economics of the $42 billion industry will soon be disrupted by something calledperovskites, a range of materials thatcan be used to harvest light when turned into a crystalline structure.
The hope is that perovskites, which can be mixed into liquid solutions and deposited on a range of surfaces, could play a crucial role in the expansion of solar energy applications with cells as efficient as those currently made with silicon. One British company aims to have a thin-film perovskite solar cell commercially available by the end of 2018.
Big oil is starting to challenge the biggest utilities in the race to erect wind turbines at sea.
Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Statoil ASA and Eni SpAare moving into multi-billion-dollar offshore wind farms in the North Sea and beyond. They’re starting to score victories against leading power suppliers including Dong Energy A/S and Vattenfall AB in competitive auctions for power purchase contracts, which have developed a specialty inanchoring massive turbines on the seabed.
The oil companies have many reasons to move into the industry. They’ve spent decades building oil projects offshore, and that business is winding down in some areas where older fields have drained. Returns from wind farms are predictable and underpinned by government-regulated electricity prices. And fossil fuel executives want to get a piece of the clean-energy business as forecasts emerge that renewables will eat into their market.
Thesolar industryis one of our most obvious success stories. Our industry directly employs 261,000 people. We generate energy that is both clean and renewable. And we generate this energy at prices that are less than conventional utility power — as low as 6 cents per kwh.
As the power of sensors and processing rise and their costs drop, those of us who study the “greening” of information and communications technology are looking ahead to the challenges posed by artificial intelligence.
Dubai’s government-owned utility completed a 200-MW power plant one month ahead of schedule as part of a plan to build the world’s largest solar energy park by 2030.
Historically, lighting was the driver for electricity systems.Edisonlit upManhattan, New York. But now, with solar panels and a variety of LED fixtures, from nightlights to lawn lights, street lamps to traffic lights to ceilings bulbs (if we may call them that), illumination at night, even for the poor,is largely a solved problem.
Traditionally, solar electricity generation has been driven by feed-in tariffs. Each kilowatt-hour of electricity generated by a solar system has been given a fixed high value independent from the time of the day and location.
A team of scientists at the University of Cambridge has developed a way of using solar power to generate hydrogen from biomass, the U.K. university said last week.
GreenWish Partners, a Paris-based independent power producer, will invest $280 million to buildsolar powerplants inNigeriathat are expected to start producing electricity in the first quarter of next year.
Rancho Santana resort and residential community on the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua is turning to solar and energy storage to alleviate the high cost of peak energy in the region.
Within the past decade or two, thesolar industryhas experienced a great deal of evolution and expansion. In the U.S., one of the largest shakeups was in 2010 when PV panel prices dropped. The inverter market has also been subjected to changes, especially in terms of new topologies and increased functionalities.
According to a recent report "Beyond Four Hours: The Transition to a More Flexible, and Valuable, Long-duration Energy Storage Asset," 80 percent of market participants define long-duration energy storage (LDS) as an asset than can provide at least 3 hours of energy storage. But even that definition of LDS was not the same for everyone, according to Jason Deign, author of the report.
The 94-year-old creator of the lithium-ion battery has invented another breakthroughstorage devicethat’s capturing the attention of industry heavyweights.
Sunrunhas received about 1,000 orders for its recently launched BrightBoxsolarplusenergy storagesolution in California and Hawaii, Sunrun co-founder and CEO Lynn Jurich said during a March 8 4Q16 company earnings call.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include the bankruptcy of Sungevity, the residential solar business model and solar manufacturing in Southeast Asia. Check it out!
Sungevity, which last week laid off more than two-thirds of its Kansas City staff, received only a fraction of the $11.8 million in potential tax breaks that were offered to attract the company here. The solar panel marketing company opened a sales office in downtown Kansas City in early 2015.
Engie SAis considering an offer for German renewable energy utility Innogy SE as its majority owner RWE AG weighs strategic options, people familiar with the matter said.
Throughout the Pacific, island communities are embracing ambitious renewable energy targets, many as high as 100 percent over the next decade or two. This isn't surprising, given that these islands are already experiencing significant climate change impacts, and recognize the environmental benefits of reducing or replacing carbon-intensive diesel power generation.
JinkoSolar Holding Co.has signed a power purchase agreement in conjunction with Marubeni Corp. and Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Co. for theSolarPV Independent Power Project located at Sweihan, Abu Dhabi.
Elon Musk’s brave bet to fix Australia’s energy crisis — or hand the money back — landed the tech entrepreneur an hour-longphone call with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and quickly threw him into a debate over whether battery technology is the solution for a nation still wedded to coal for much of its power.
For companies, future planning is simply good business. This is why many in Corporate America — having long accepted that climate change is real — are continuing to transition towards low-carbon energy options and to work with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
Subsidies plummeted in the first of six tender rounds for large-scale ground-based solar power in France, results published by the energy ministry on Thursday showed. This is likely to squeeze profits for other sources of electricity as the cost of generation from ground-based solar comes close to parity with combined-cycle gas turbines (CCGTs).
Tesla Inc. has completed a solar project in Hawaii that incorporates batteries to sell power in the evening, part of a push by the electric car maker to provide more green power to the grid.
Santa Monica, Calif.-basedSolarReservethis week said it has received environmental approval from the Chilean government to build the Tamarugal concentrating solar powerproject in the Tarapacá region ofChile.
Nigeria, Africa’s biggest oil exporter, may be about to turn sunward to generate more of its power. Senators in the capital of Abuja are debating allocation of $30 million tosolar projects in this year’s budget, according to the Renewable Energy Association of Nigeria.
Please Listen Up to this week’s Energy Show as Tom Kimbis, the Executive Vice President of the Solar Energy Industries Association, talks about SEIA’s Consumer Protection and Ethics Committees, as well as SEIA’s “Consumer Guide to Solar Power” and Residential Disclosure Forms.
Distributed energy resources are fast becoming cost competitive with traditionally generated electricity.According toRocky Mountain Institute, grid-connected solar-plus-batterysystems will reach economic parity with grid electricity within the next 10-15 years. Despite near-term technical and financial challenges, more and more business will adopt on- and off-site generation, storage, community and wholesale projects.
On Tuesday morning, Standard Solar announced that it is being acquired by Gaz Metro, a Canadian diversified energy company that also owns Green Mountain Power (GMP) – the distribution utility for the majority of Vermont.
Together the companies will now be able to offer stable financing for the commercial and industrial solar sector, one that Scott Wiater, CEO of Standard Solar views as the next hot solar market.
“Having a Canadian company invest in a U.S. company [that is active] in a certain market segment is going to send signals that —and it’s been talked about quite a bit — the non-residential DG space is the next hot space for the market,” he said in an interview.
Canadian Solar Inc. today said that it raised US$20 million to support the development of eligible projects inBrazil, including the 191-MW Pirapora I project in the state of Minas Gerais.
Solar industry stakeholders in Arizona have reached an agreement with the state’s largest utility that improves ona decision made last yearby state regulators that would have ended the existing net metering program for newsolarowners.
Supercritical carbon dioxide power cycles have the potential to reduce the cost ofconcentrating solar power by substantially improving the efficiency of converting high temperature solar heat into electricity. Through threeSunShot Initiative-funded projects and six years of steady progress, GE Global Research and Southwest Research Institute have taken major steps toward commercializing the technology.
Alberta’s residentialsolarindustry has chugged along for decades without governmentsupport. That dry spell finally drew to a close on Monday, when the provincial NDP government announced a two-year, $36 million rebate program to help bring down the costs for residents, business and nonprofits who want to install solarprojects.
Update: On March 2, 2017, U.S. Senators confirmed Rick Perry as the new Secretary of Energy of the United States. The vote was 62-37 with nine democratic senators casting "yes" votes.
Today’s topics include how utilities are crying foul about the price of PPAs - is this the beginning of a big backlash against solar? In addition, we'll discuss blockchain technology and diversity in the solar industry. Check it out!
A group of energy executives actively involved in solar C&I development in the Middle East and Africa talked at a Solarplaza conference...
Sizable reductions in the cost of solar equipment have created countless opportunities for developers operating in the Middle East and Africa to enter into power purchase agreements with commercial and industrial enterprises and to provide electricity at a lower rate than the local utility.
Japan’s scaling back of a program encouraging residential solar hasPanasonic Corp.hopeful the market for homeenergy storagesystems is about to receive a boost.
The current installation of the so far largest solar power plant in Zimbabwe, with a total capacity of 216 kWp, marks a major turning point in the history of energy supply in Zimbabwe.
What would a world powered by clean, low-water energy look like? If you visit Israel’s southern region, you don’t have to imagine.
The new year marked big changes for U.S. solar and not just because the new President of the United States is less enthusiastic about renewable energy than the previous President was. No, in addition to that big change, Abby Hopper took the helm of the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA), bringing with her a fresh perspective on how to support growth of solar in the country. Her goals for the industry range from the top of heap – maintaining support at the federal level – and run all the way down the end-user of solar, the rooftop solar customer.
India’s electricity access challenge is formidable. About 300 million people lack electricity, while an additional 100 million have less than four hours of electricity per day, and possibly several million more suffer from unreliable supply. Population growth and an increase in electricity demand each year could further strain the grid.
A funny thing happened recently: Wewrote an articlesuggesting that a lower cost of capital, driven by increased debt in project finance transactions, would help to mitigate some of the new risk the solar industry faces in 2017. We didn’t anticipate that this would be a particularly controversial viewpoint. After all, paying a lower cost of capital is like paying off old credit card debt. Who could disagree with that?
It’s Engineers Week, and DiscoverE — formerly the National Engineers Week Foundation — is celebrating women in engineering today with Girl Day 2017, a campaign to introduce girls to the world of engineering.
Blockchain technology—the technology underpinning the Bitcoinvirtual currency—is being discussed as one of the most potentially disruptive technologies since the Internet. Blockchains are a combination of information technology, cryptography, and governance principles that
California SB 584 would require 100 percent of all electricity sold in California at retail to be generated by eligible renewable energy resources by December 31, 2045.
National business groups, citing government statistics, say jobs providing cleaner energy options equal those in retail stores, twice those in building construction Washington, D.C., Feb.
Incorporating drones into daily operations could turn out to be one of the most beneficial decisions a solar firm can make in 2017.
Blue Pillar announced its new Aurora® Energy Network-as-a-Service (ENaaS) offering to advance the company's mission to simplify access to behind-the-meter data and control from any type of distributed energy resource that generates, stores, switches, consumes or measures energy.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, is relaunching itsrenewable energy program. Recent government communications suggest a determination to press ahead rapidly.
Record low Indian solar tariffs tendered at a groundbreaking auction may catalyze green investments and help tip the balance of new power to renewables and away from fossil fuels.
Oregon State University on Monday said its scientists have developed a new type of battery that uses only hydronium ions as the charge carrier.
The Technical University of Madrid last week said that it will work with seven European R&D institutions to develop a new generation of ultra-compact energy storage devices based in molten silicon and solid state heat-to-power converters.
Sonnen GmbH, a German manufacturerof batteries for residential and commercial energy storage, plans to combine research and manufacturing at a new facility in Atlanta as part of a U.S. expansion.
The U.S. Senate today approved Scott Pruitt as administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
A U.K. energy-storage startup is aiming to take onTesla Inc.in the competition to outfit homes with affordablebackup battery power.
We’re in the middle of winter — and there’s some serious precipitation. It’s snowing in much of the country, and California is finally getting a lot of rain. Although these storms are good for replenishing our water supplies, wind, rain and snow are the biggest causes of power failures.
In the modern age of solar 4.5 MW is not a big power plant, generally occupying less than 50 acres of land. But from the perspective of a field technician, size is all relative.
Jenn Runyon, Chief Editor of Renewable Energy World and Paula Mints, Chief Market Research Analyst with SPV Market Research discuss three hot topics in the global solar industry for three minutes each. Today’s topics include the official numbers for China's annual installed capacity for 2016, how the solar industry deceives itself with "alternative facts," and some of the changes already underway with the new U.S. government in place. Check it out.
SunPower CEO Thomas Werner yesterday said that while long-term growth prospects for thesolar power industryare compelling, the near-term conditions “remain challenging.”
Siemens’ Energy Management Division and Bentley Systems have announced an agreement to jointly develop solutions to accelerate digitalization of planning, design, and operations for power utilities and industrial power customers.
Each year solar analysts take stock of the industry's accomplishments with the annual Solar Market Insight Report (SMI) and each time the performance numbers impress. This year, however, is jaw-dropping. TerraSmart is passionate about all things solar, and we couldn't wait to share the latest insights with this SMI preview.
The Cleantech Forum, organized by the Cleantech Group, took place on January 23-25. President Trump’s inauguration provided the backdrop for entrepreneurs, investors and experts to emphasize the need for technological solutions that can accelerate the transition towards a low-carbon economy.
Sandia National Laboratories last week said that its researchers are studying corrosion on solar panels to help industry develop long-lasting PV panels and increase PV system reliability.
Tiny metallic-gold particles are being used to convert sunlight into fuel. The technology is being developed in South Australia to store solar energy as an alternative tobattery storage.
2016 was the year that the U.S. installed its millionthsolararray;storagestarted to become a game changer; and the Supreme Court ruled on the FERC 745 case, confirming distributed energy resources are integral to our power system.
The solar industry is growing fast. In 2016, solar energy was the largest source of new generating capacity in the United States. With more than 1 million U.S. solar projects now operating, the country has more than 35 gigawatts of total solar installed capacity—enough to power the equivalent of 6.5 million average American homes.
A South African bank has become the go-tofunding source for the U.S. rooftop solar industry just two years after entering the market.
German’s electricity grid regulator approved bids to build what will be the first offshore wind farms that depend entirely on market prices instead of government support and subsidy.
Massachusetts is drawing closer to its first solicitation for wind energy in state waters, with a call for bids due in June. The first solicitation of the 1,600 MW mandated in state legislation could be anywhere from 200 MW to 800 MW, according to Bill White, senior director, offshore wind development, for the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC).
E.ON is strengthening its position as a frontrunner and early adopter in airborne wind energy, an emerging sector developing game changing technologies for renewable energy production.
A U.K. power utility is in talks with two local partners of Brazil’s state-run utility Eletrobras to acquire minority stakes in about 640 MW of operating wind farms. The U.K. company has signed memorandums of understanding to invest in the local operators, in exchange for the right to make a first offer on the wind assets when Eletrobras officially puts its holdings up for sale, according to Paulo Dalla Nora, a partner at FIR Capital, a Brazilian venture capital company that’s structuring the deals.
India is expected to install recordwindcapacity for a third consecutive year, according toturbine maker Suzlon Energy Ltd. New installations will hit 6 GW in the fiscal year ending in March 2018, Suzlon founder Tulsi Tanti said in an emailed statement. The country added 5.4 GW capacity in fiscal 2017 and 3.4 GW the year before.
Xcel Energysaid it will invest in 11 new wind farms in seven states, bringing about 3,380 MW of newwindgeneration to its system by 2021. The investment will bring the total amount of wind power in Xcel’s energy mix to 35 percent, the utility said.
The European Commission on March 28 determined that its support of the 600-MW Kriegers Flak offshorewind farmin Danish territorial waters is in line with EU state aid rules. The commission said the project will helpDenmarkreduce CO2 emissions, in line with EU energy and climate goals, without unduly distorting competition.
The user selection board of the €11 million (US$11.8 million) Funding Ocean Renewable Energy through Strategic European Action (FORESEA) project has awarded “Recommendations for Support” to 15 offshore renewable energy technologies, according to an announcement today from FORESEA.
Plans to installturbines on platforms that floatin the sea are gathering pace as renewable energy developers seek new areas to harvest wind power.
Organizations are collecting more information than they ever have in the past, and energy companies are no exception. One estimate puts the amount of data collected on an offshore oil rig at 2 terabytes per day. More and more, these companies are turning to analytics service providers to make sense of their data within their business processes.
Sweden's state-owned utilityVattenfallwill use 1,000 lithium ion batteries supplied by BMW Group to provideenergy storageat some of the power company's wind power facilities.
Siemens'new direct-drive lowwind turbinehas reached the prototype testing stage. The onshore model SWT-3.15-142, with a rotor diameter of 142 meters passed prototype approval and was erected at the Drantum wind test site in Jutland, Denmark.
The Oklahoma House of Representatives on March 9 passed by a vote of 74-24 a bill that would reduce the time frame in which wind power projects can qualify for the state’s clean energy tax credit.
This is the first event focused exclusively on bringing the well-established U.S. oil and gas industry together with the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry.
The Massachusetts Clean Energy Center (MassCEC), a ratepayer funded research organization that works to accelerate the success of clean energy technologies, companies and projects in the state, last week announced plans to conduct a study of potential offshore wind construction facilities in Massachusetts. The Offshore Wind Ports & Infrastructure Assessment will review underdeveloped waterfront sites in Massachusetts that could potentially be acquired and developed through private investment to support both near-term and long-term offshore wind activities.
The U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management on March 10 said that two developers submitted unsolicited lease requests for offshore wind farm developments off the coast of New York and Massachusetts.
E.ON North America will co-locate its Texas Waves energy storage projects with the company’s existing Pyron and Inadale wind farms in West Texas.
Siemens is collaborating with U.S.-based SkySpecs to deploy automateddronetechnology foronshore and offshore wind turbineinspections.
On wind-swept ridgelines, surrounded by pine-beetle ravaged forests, the massive turbines at British Columbia’s largestwind powerproject have startedturning. The Meikle Wind project, built by Pattern Development, will increase wind power capacity in the province by more than one third
SgurrEnergy today said that it has introducedunmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs) to its existing inspection service offering.
Corporations are making major investments inwind power. In February, North Carolina commissioned its first commercial-scale wind farm. TheAmazon Wind Farm U.S. Eastis made up of 104 wind turbines that can produce enough energyfor 61,000 homes annually. The siteis usingthispower to run itsdata centers and will help thecompany move closer toward itsgoal of achieving 50 percent renewable energy use by 2018.
Advancements in drone technology are turning cumbersome wind turbine maintenance into a safer and more streamlined data collection process.
Siemens Wind Power will, for the first time, provide complete offshore wind power plant solutions including foundations for the EnBW Hohe See offshore wind project.
JDR, a leading supplier of subsea power cables and umbilicals to the global offshore energy industry, has been selected by US Wind Inc., as the preferred cable partner for its first offshore wind project.
Jeff Grybowski is CEO of Deepwater Wind, the company that built the first offshore wind farm in the United States, currently generating energy off the coast of Rhode Island. He’s not at all concerned about finding the supply chain to construct his next project, the 90-MW Deepwater ONE South Fork wind farm, which was approved last month by the Long Island Power Authority (LIPA).
“No, I’m not worried about it at all,” he said in an interview last fall at the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Offshore Wind Conference.
China installed almost three times more wind power than the U.S. last year, continuing its clean-energy investment blitz to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase air quality.
Up to 6,000 homes in the U.K. are now receiving electricity from the first producing wind turbine onDudgeon Offshore Wind Farm. When fully operational later in 2017 the offshorewind powerfarm will provide electricity to over 400,000 homes.
As India’s summer intensifies, many states are already in the midst of a drought—and the hottest days have yet to arrive. At the same time, water-intensive agriculture, rapid urban expansion, increases in industrial activity and growing energy production are driving the country’s water demand upward. More than half of India is now considered severely water stressed.
Part of the problem is that India still manages its water as an infinite resource on a linear model of withdrawal, consumption and disposal. But a more efficient management model is to look at water from a “circular economy” perspective. Water’s usability doesn’t need to end once it washes down the drain. Rather, we can see industrial and domestic wastewater as a valuable resource from which usable water, nutrients and even renewable energy can be extracted.
No country will ever get to 100 percent renewable energy without using geothermal, biomass, hydropower or a combination of the three. These technologies are able to provide energy around the clock, (baseload) and do not depend on the sun shining or the wind blowing.
Finland-based clean energy firm Fortum last week said that it has formed a joint venture with Lietuvos Energija to build awaste-to-energycombined heat and power plant in Kaunas, Lithuania.
Local officials in China's Jiangsu Province will help expand waste-to-energy capacity in the region with an investment in a new facility with a processing capacity of 900 metric tons.
A report commissioned by the UK Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has found that using biomass instead of coal is playing a positive part in decarbonizing the power sector.
Dynagreen Environmental Protection Group will build nine newwaste-to-energy(WTE) plants in China by 2018 with the support of new funding from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
University of Iowa (UI) President Bruce Harreld said this week that the UI campus will be coal-free by 2025, andbiomasswill be at the heart of the transition to increased renewable energy use.
Subsidiaries of a company owned by President Donald Trump’s regulatory czar, billionaire investor Carl Icahn, urged a federal appeals court to review the Environmental Protection Agency’s 2017 biofuel mandate.
When you picture farmland, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Many of us see long rows of crops like corn. However, for many farmers across the U.S., this picture is starting to change.
Power Africa and Trade Africa Coordinator, Andrew Herscowitz, announced on Feb. 14 during the Abuja Electricity Distribution Co.’s two-day Distribution Company Workshop in Abuja, Nigeria, that the U.S. will invest US$1billion in the country through the U.S. Trade and Development Agency (USTDA).
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