2014-12-03 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Thursday, November 27:

¶   September and October were the hottest months ever recorded, continuing the record-breaking streak that started in April and almost assuring that 2014 will be the warmest year ever. Canadian ocean surface temperatures for September, shown in the NOAA images, approached 4oC above normal. This is where the entire planet may be headed by the end of the century. [Energy Collective]

¶   Scotland has broken renewable energy generation records, producing 10.3 TWh of electricity in the first half of 2014 and overtaking nuclear as the country’s main source of power. The data also shows that nuclear accounted for 7.8 TWh, coal provided 5.6 TWh and gas-fired electricity generation produced 1.4 TWh during the same period. [edie.net]

¶   A waste to biofuels plant operated by Enerkem in Northern Canada is the first in the world to transform solid waste into biofuels and chemicals. The waste is heated and converted into a gas, then changed into liquid methanol, which is then used in the production of local products, including windshield wiper fluid and gasoline. [OilPrice.com]

Friday, November 28:

¶   Hard on the heels of last week’s historic US-China Joint Announcement on Climate Change, in which China pledged for the first time to cap its CO2 emission by 2030, China’s State Council has just announced a new energy strategy action plan that includes, also for the first time, a cap on national coal consumption by 2020. [Energy Collective]

¶   Oil prices came crashing down Thursday to trade below $70 per barrel after OPEC announced it was leaving oil production levels unchanged. The low price is bad news for certain oil-producing countries like Russia, Nigeria and Venezuela, which depend on prices of at least $90 a barrel. While they last, lower oil prices could also halt the US shale oil boom. [CNN]

¶   The Indian government has received proposals from twelve states for setting up of solar power parks/ultra mega solar power projects with a total capacity of 22,100 MW. The the biggest of these is to be a 7,500 MW park to be set up in Leh and Kargil in Jammu and Kashmir. There have been hundreds of proposals. [I Government]

Saturday, November 29:

¶   “A New Climate? How A Utility, Germany, Elon Musk And Falling Oil Prices Are Conspiring To Fight CO2” By piecing together a series of seemingly unrelated threads, there’s a case to be made that 2014 will be remembered as a critical year in the decarbonization of the global economy. Sound unbelievable? Tie these eight stories together and see. [Forbes]

¶   Coal use in China could peak earlier than previously forecast as slower economic growth cuts power demand and the government clamps down on energy-intensive industries to meet its emissions reduction goals. The Natural Resources Defense Council predicts coal use will peak before 2020, cutting years off earlier forecasts. [Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide]

¶   The world’s largest solar power plant has gone online in California, with enough power to supply 160,000 homes. Spanning a huge 9.5 square miles (25 square km) – a third of the size of Manhattan – the Topaz Solar Farm consists of nine million solar panels and has a capacity of 550 MW. The plant cost $2.5 billion. [Daily Mail]

Sunday, November 30:

¶   The largest pension funds manager in Norway, KLP, is divesting completely from coal energy. The money involved, around $75 million, will instead be invested into renewable energy companies. With assets of around $84 billion, KLP is second in the world only to Norway’s state-owned oil-revenue fund with regard to investment clout. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Energy suppliers in remote areas are turning to renewable-powered microgrids like those on islands. They can operate independently or in conjunction with the area’s main electrical grid. By being able to produce electricity on site, distributed solar and wind systems reduce utility infrastructure requirements, cutting the cost of rural electrification. [CleanTechnica]

Monday, December 1:

¶   EON SE, Germany’s largest utility, will break itself up, spinning off fossil fuel power plants into a separate company so it can focus on renewable energy. EON also announced it will write down the value of assets by €4.5 billion, leading to a substantial full-year loss. Even so, the shares had the largest jump in more than two years on the plan. [Businessweek]

¶   West Australian Energy Minister Mike Nahan has instructed the state-owned utility Horizon Power to investigate renewables-based micro-grids as a means of providing cheaper and more reliable power to regional areas. Nahan had been a fierce critic of renewables, but says the stretched-out grid is too expensive and unreliable. [RenewEconomy]

¶   National Grid has filed comments on the EPA’s Clean Energy Power Plan and issued a statement supporting the proposed regulations, which aim to reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from existing power plants. National Grid US president Tom King. says expanding access to energy efficiency was an especially exciting aspect of the plan. [PennEnergy]

¶   A competitive lease sale of 742,000 acres off the coast of Massachusetts will be offered for commercial wind energy development on January 29, 2015. According to the US DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the area could provide up to 5 GW, enough electricity to power over 1.4 million homes, or half the homes in Massachusetts. [Oliver Reports]

Tuesday, December 2:

¶   The amount of electricity generated by US utility-scale solar PV power plants is up more than 100% in 2014 over the same period in 2013, thanks to big projects, many of them highly productive, that have been coming online. A number of major factors made this possible, including the steep decline in the price of PVs. [Breaking Energy]

¶   About $1 billion in loans, under a UN initiative for poor countries to tackle global warming, is going toward the construction of power plants fired by coal. Japan gave the money to help its companies build three such plants in Indonesia, saying they burn coal more efficiently and are therefore cleaner than old coal plants. [The Philadelphia Tribune]

¶    Green Mountain Power is the world’s first utility to become a certified B Corp, or benefit corporation. The state’s largest electric utility has joined nearly two dozen other Vermont companies that have met a high standard for social and environmental consciousness, joining the ranks of such companies as Ben & Jerry’s. [vtdigger.org]

Wednesday, December 3:

¶   SunCommon, a 2012 spinoff of the advocacy group VPIRG, has made its 1000th solar installation in Vermont. SunCommon regularly works with 100 other Vermont companies and says it has created 100 jobs in the state. It also says that the solar installations it has done have saved customers $14 million. [vtdigger.org]

¶   Citigroup says the impact of the China-US climate deal signed earlier this month could total $3.9 trillion. That’s the loss in revenue for Big Oil and Big Coal over the next 15 years from the joint undertaking on greenhouse gas emissions by the world’s two biggest economies. Citigroup analysts suggest thermal coal is on a permanent decline. [CleanTechnica]

¶   One in five Australian households has installed domestic solar energy systems, data released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics shows. Solar Citizens national director Claire O’Rourke said most of the households were on lower and middle incomes, and that they were using solar as a way to reduce power costs. [eco-business.com]

 

2014-11-27 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, November 21:

¶   UK farms offer 10 GW of untapped renewable energy potential, according to a report commissioned by the Farm Power coalition.The bulk of the power – three times that of the planned Hinkley Point nuclear plant – would be from ground-based solar and wind, with a smaller proportion from anaerobic digestion. [edie.net]

¶   China’s commitment on carbon-free energy could be met by roughly 1,000 nuclear reactors, or by 500,000 wind turbines or by 50,000 solar farms. The cost will run to almost $2 trillion, holding out the potential of vast riches for nuclear, solar and wind companies that get in on the action. [Bloomberg]

¶   Southern California utility customers will pay $3.3 billion in costs associated with the early shutdown of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, under a settlement approved Thursday by the California Public Utilities Commission. The deal resolves who pays, consumers or stockholders. [U-T San Diego]

¶   Texas transmission and distribution company Oncor is proposing installing energy storage on the Texas grid, with thousands of battery systems ranging from the size of a fridge to a dumpster around the state, having a combined power capacity of 5,000 MW and a combined energy storage capacity of 15,000 MWh. [Scientific American]

Saturday, November 22:

¶   Sir David King, former chief scientist and champion of the nuclear newbuild, says Britain might be able to do without atomic power altogether, and that the real priority should be on developing ways of storing electricity so as to be able to depend on famously intermittent sun and wind. [Telegraph.co.uk]

¶   Walmart has been showing off its green credentials lately. But look a little closer and this emperor’s outfit isn’t all that it appears to be. Only 3% of Walmart’s US power is supplied by its renewable energy projects and special green power purchases, according to data the company submits to the EPA’s Green Power Partnership. [Grist]

¶   The weather may be cold across most of North America this week, but back in October, temperatures were soaring around the world, in some places, reaching record levels over what is normally seen during the month. With the trends seen so far in 2014, this year may take the top spot as the hottest year ever recorded. [The Weather Network]

¶   The market research firm IHS has just projected that the home energy storage market will grow 10 times over from 2014 to 2018, going from 90 MW in 2014 to 900 MW in 2018. Areas of growth are expected to include Germany, Australia, Italy, the UK, California and Hawaii. [CleanTechnica]

Sunday, November 23:

¶   Australian energy provider AGL Energy gave some insight into how it was preparing for solar and storage. AGL plans to launch its own power purchase agreement model early next year that will allow solar and storage to be installed in homes at zero upfront cost. It says it aims to have one million “distributed” customers by 2020. [CleanTechnica]

¶   India’s recently announced target to install 100 GW solar power capacity by 2022 could make it one of the largest solar power markets in the world and put it in direct competition with China. Essentially, India wants to do in five years what China plans to do in 10 years! [CleanTechnica]

¶   Germany is arguably the leading renewable energy market in the world. It’s big in wind energy, biomass energy, and of course solar energy. Professor Doctor Bruno Burger of the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE has released a series of charts on the Germany renewable energy market. [CleanTechnica]

Monday, November 24:

¶   The cost of electricity from wind and solar has plummeted over the last five years, so much so that in some markets renewable generation is now cheaper than coal or natural gas. The trend has accelerated this year, with several companies signing power purchase agreements for solar or wind at prices below that of natural gas. [Boston Globe]

¶   A recent study on critical resources for renewable power was performed by the Wuppertal Institute. The conclusion is that the problem of mineral availability for renewable energy technologies is not critical if we choose the right technologies and we are careful to recycle the materials used as much as possible. [Resilience]

¶   A Power-to-Liquids demonstration rig which is the first of its kind in the world was officially inaugurated by Dresden-based sunfire GmbH. The new rig uses sunfire’s PtL technology to transform water and CO2 to high-purity synthetic fuels (petrol, diesel, kerosene) with the aid of renewable electricity. [RenewEconomy]

Tuesday, November 25:

¶   A UK’s long-delayed final decision on whether the French electricity utility company EDF will build two 1.6-GW nuclear reactors at Hinkley Point in Somerset was due in the new year. Projected costs have risen to  £25 billion ($39.4 billion), leaving the British government considering whether it is a just white elephant. [eco-business.com]

¶   The federal government said Monday that it will hold its largest-ever competitive lease sale for offshore wind development early next year. The area is more than 742,000 acres off the coast of Massachusetts. If fully developed, the area could support as much as 5 GW of commercial wind generation, enough to power more than 1.4 million homes. [Houston Chronicle]

¶   The World Bank will invest heavily in clean energy and only fund coal projects in “circumstances of extreme need” because climate change will undermine efforts to eliminate extreme poverty, says its president Jim Yong Kim. He was alarmed by World Bank-commissioned research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany. [Business Green]

Wednesday, November 26:

¶   “Google engineers say renewable energy won’t solve climate change” Can climate change be solved with technologies like wind and solar energy? No, it can’t, according to a new report by two Google engineers. [Fox News] (You should be aware of this very widely published story. It is about a project Google terminated years ago. The data in it are comically out of date. It is misleading. But they call it “news.”)

¶   NRG Energy, the second-largest conventional power generation company in the US, has broken ground on corporate headquarters touted as not just “green,” but “ultra-green,” and grid-resilient. NRG’s green, co-generation and solar-powered headquarters will showcase the ability of businesses to foster sustainability while reducing grid dependence. [Fierce Energy]

¶   The Vermont Department of Public Service and its Clean Energy Development Fund are seeking proposals from qualified financial institutions with a physical presence in Windham County, Vermont that offer loans to residential customers interested in development of the Windham County Solar Finance Program. [Commons]

2014-11-20 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, November 14:

¶   A cool summer and increased levels of hydro generation has resulted in a significant reduction in coal-generation in China over recent months, with coal consumption in August down by 11%. A large impact, has been on coal imports, which have fallen by half, with heavy impact on Australia. [CleanTechnica]

¶   A landmark lawsuit that challenges the lax regulation of hydraulic fracturing in Canada has just scored a major victory. An Alberta Chief Justice dismissed all key arguments made by the government of Alberta against the lawsuit, including the fear of a flood of lawsuits against a government dependent on hydrocarbon revenue. [Resilience]

¶   The Ginna Nuclear Power Plant is losing money to the tune of $100 million over the past three years. A decade-long power purchase agreement between Ginna’s ower, Exelon and Constellation Energy and RG&E expired last month. The future of the plant seems uncertain. [WROC-TV]

Saturday, November 15:

¶   The first article in a new series in The Guardian about individuals helping to make cities more resilient: There are many lessons to be learned from Alex Wilson’s farm in Vermont. Building durable, well-insulated buildings with simple, redundant systems out of easy-to-fix local, renewable materials in strong, caring communities makes sense just about anywhere. [The Guardian]

¶   Republicans in the US approved legislation, 252-161, for the ninth time to authorize construction of the Keystone XL oil pipeline. The Senate is expected to vote Tuesday on the bill. If it overcomes a 60-vote threshold it will head to President Barack Obama’s desk where he will either sign it into law or veto it. [Great Falls Tribune]

¶   The much-maligned Department of Energy loan guarantee program that funded solar manufacturer Solyndra and electric vehicle maker Fisker Automotive is now making money for U.S. taxpayers. Further losses are not expected, and interest on the loans will ultimately net up to $6 billion for taxpayers. [Utility Dive]

Sunday, November 16:

¶   Solid-state batteries capable of delivering on a 400+ mile range per single charge are a real possibility and possess “great potential” according to Volkswagen’s Chairman of the Board Dr Martin Winterkorn. If such a battery can be economically manufactured, then that would more-or-less turn the industry upside-down. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott may have thought he left global climate change off the agenda for the G20 summit in Brisbane, but US President Obama and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it in the spotlight through a series of actions in the past few days. Obama ensured climate change was front and center before he even got to Australia. [Mashable]

¶   The Oak Ridge National Laboratory’s microgrid project, the “Complete System-Level Efficient and Interoperable Solution for Microgrid Integrated Controls,” aims to standardize the toolkit for managing and controlling an effective, reliable, and safe microgrid. It is now two years in, and the fruits of the labor are starting to show. [CleanTechnica]

Monday, November 17:

¶   In Australia, the Victorian Labor Party is underlining its renewable energy credentials by vowing to help the town of Newstead, near Bendigo, to become 100% renewable energy by 2017, making it the state’s first “solar town”. The effort will focus primarily on solar power and battery storage for reliable 100% renewable power. [RenewEconomy]

¶   The region Australians call New England may become the first region in the country to be powered 100% from renewable energy sources. The Northern Tablelands Greens candidate Mercurius Goldstein says this would provide energy security while keeping the region free from Coal Seam Gas mining. [The Inverell Times]

¶   Electric cooperatives are facing a new challenge that centers on how today’s members view renewable energy. “For the first time, we see cooperative members who want to talk about and want to see renewables and clean power, and they see that as more important than reliability and cost. And that’s a major change.” [Electric Co-op Today]

Tuesday, November 18:

¶   The Leader of the US Senate says that under the China-US climate deal, China can “do nothing at all for 16 years.” That turns out to be the very reverse of the truth. China is already leading the world in greening its energy supply, and has committed to add a massive 1.3 GW of renewable power capacity every week for 15 years. [The Ecologist]

¶   “The U.S. Government Has Invested $34 Billion in Renewable Energy – and It’s Making a Profit” The United States government a savvier investor in green technology than Silicon Valley’s masters of the universe? It sure looks like it. A report shows that the DOE has far fewer failures than a typical venture capital firm, and is earning money for taxpayers. [TakePart]

¶   As critics of the Energiewende like to point out, in 2013, Germany’s emissions rose to 952 million tonnes. Nevertheless, while that is an increase, it is actually 23% lower than its figure for 1990, which is the baseline year adopted by nations who signed the Kyoto Accord. By comparison, the world’s emissions are now 61% higher than 1990 levels. [CleanTechnica]

¶   SunEdison can continue its growth even without the support of tax credits in the US, the company said on Monday, as it agreed to a $2.4 billion deal for privately owned First Wind that will make it the world’s largest developer of wind and solar power. First Wind has wind farms several states, including Maine, New York, and Vermont. [Financial Times]

Wednesday, November 19:

¶   The Senate blocked a measure Tuesday that would have authorized construction of the Keystone XL pipeline as Democrats chose their pro-environment base over an old friend, embattled Louisiana Senator Mary Landrieu. Republicans will be ready to try again, with much better odds of success, once they take control of the Senate next January. [CNN]

¶  “How To Profit From Solar & Storage” When there is a sudden surge in demand, the electric grid needs to deploy additional power immediately and ramp up and down to provide a stable power supply. Batteries are able to provide an instantaneous response (within 4 seconds or less), which is known as frequency regulation. [CleanTechnica]

¶   “Reclaim the power! Democratic energy must replace corporate capture” Democratising energy would not only save thousands of lives a year but would be a big step forward in saving the planet. Could Eigg in Scotland, an island owned collectively by its inhabitants and supplied by renewable electricity, be the model for a transformation of energy? [The Ecologist]

¶   The massive task of refurbishing 10 nuclear reactors – at a cost of $25 billion, is the crucial issue for keeping electricity rates under control in Ontario, says a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce investment banker. He illustrated by running through a list of projects that have missed deadlines and gone hugely over budget. [Cambridge Times]

Thursday, November 20:

¶   The future of the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant in the UK is under a cloud amid a financial crisis at Areva, a shareholder in the project and the designer of the proposed reactors. Power plants in both Finland and France are massively over-budget and behind schedule, forcing Areva to consider whether it needs an injection of new cash to survive. [The Guardian]

¶   There has been a lot of controversy around the Ivanpah concentrating solar power plant. Charges range from the idea that it is killing thousands of birds to the idea that it is producing only a fraction of the power it was designed to make. One thing to remember is that you should not believe everything you read in the media. [CleanTechnica]

¶   AES is building a 100 MW, 400 MWh lithium-ion battery for Southern California Edison as an alternative to gas peaker plants. The president of AES Energy Storage called it “the new state of the art.” He added, “This contract marks the emergence of energy storage as a cost-effective alternative to peaking power plants for local power capacity and reliability.” [Energy Collective]

2014-11-13 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Friday, November 7:

¶   Projections for a “death spiral” in the utility sector are premature, according to Moody’s Investors Service. The industry is being transformed by widespread adoption of distributed generation, but utilities, state lawmakers, and regulators are acting to refine utility cost-recovery models, decreasing the threat of disruption. [Platts]

¶   There is more than enough geothermal energy in British Columbia to power the province’s grid, yet not one site has been developed. Geothermal energy has never been invited to bid on calls for power. In fact, with 150 known hot springs in western Canada, there isn’t a single developed geothermal site in the country. [CleanTechnica]

¶   Ice Energy today announced it has been awarded sixteen contracts from Southern California Edison to provide 25.6 MW of behind-the-meter thermal energy storage. Ice Energy’s proprietary Ice Bear system uses electricity at low-demand times to freeze water, which provides cooling during high demand periods. [Rock Hill Herald]

Saturday, November 8:

¶   A small German town in southern Bavaria is participating in an interesting experiment proving that a high-renewables future is viable. Wildpoldsried (pop. 2,600) currently produces 500% more energy than it needs through renewable energy systems, and sells the surplus power back to the grid. [RenewEconomy]

¶   A 231-MW solar power plant broke ground in Okayama prefecture, western Japan. It is expected to be Japan’s largest solar power plant. The plant is located in a disused salt pan. It is scheduled to begin operation in the first half of 2019 with 920,000 solar panels installed. The project will cost $950 million. [Daily Times]

¶   The man responsible for maintaining India’s power supply says he wants the country’s coal production to double within the next five years. The Minister of State for Power, Coal, New and Renewable energy, says India needs to dig twice as much coal as it does today if it is to meet its soaring energy demand. [Truthdig]

Sunday, November 9:

¶    A report from the Institute of Self-Reliance says locally owned renewable energy projects create more economic benefits than absentee-owned projects, and they are less likely to encounter community opposition. By enacting policies to support local renewable power, states stand to gain thousands of jobs and millions of dollars. [San Diego Free Press]

¶   Inspired by bamboo’s adaptation to wind, University of Vermont engineers developed a low cost micro-wind turbine. The small bamboo vertical axis wind turbine is combined with a solar panel. Bamboo has a tensile strength similar to steel, but without the weight, and it is grown rather than mined. [Energy Matters]

¶   For millions of Americans, and many more worldwide, rooftop solar is already cheaper than electricity from the grid, but until recently, utility-scale solar projects weren’t cheaper than other types of power plants (ignoring externalities, which we shouldn’t really do but we do). That has been changing. [Treehugger]

Monday, November 10:

¶   The Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology recently announced it has made white solar PV modules to use in buildings, offering applications in several consumer-centered sectors. The technology can be used to modify any crystalline solar PV module to produce white or coloured modules.  [CleanTechnica]

¶   New renewable energy projects create 10 times more green jobs than similar-sized fossil fuel investments, new research has found. A study by the UK Energy Research Center taking data from the US, Europe, and China, suggests green energy provide a boost to employment, short term construction jobs and lifetime plant jobs. [Business Green]

Tuesday, November 11:

¶   Grid operators may be able to use buildings to help regulate grid frequency as they integrate more renewable energy sources. Variable-speed drives used to run heating and cooling systems can be rapidly modulated by grid operators to keep the frequency of electricity on the grid within necessary tolerances. [Energy Collective]

¶   The Kenya Electricity Generating Company decided to capitalize on their geothermal resources by adding 280 MW of geothermal energy to the national grid, and the power started feeding into the national grid in July. Kenya saved $100 million in the first three months of operation. [ESI Africa]

¶   Denmark’s government plans to have the country completely off of fossil fuels by 2050, including cars. One problem with this is that energy production from wind and solar plants cost very little to run, so the more they appear, the less energy will cost. This means energy companies will struggle to make any profit. [UPI.com]

¶   Massachusetts is currently considering extending its net-metering qualification guidelines to include small hydroelectric projects over 60 kW in capacity, in addition to those under 60 kW. This would put hydroelectric on level ground with solar energy, wind energy, and anaerobic digestion systems in the state. [CleanTechnica]

Wednesday, November 12:

¶   US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced both countries will curb greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades. The US would cut its 2005 level of carbon emissions by 26-28% before 2025. China would peak its carbon emissions and get 20% of its energy from zero-carbon sources by 2030. [CNN]

¶   The prime ministers of Pakistan and China are reported to have witnessed the signing of 19 agreements and memorandums mostly focused on the energy sector. China has pledged $42 billion funds of which $31 billions are dedicated to projects in the energy sector. Coal accounts for 80% of the new power. [Business Recorder]

¶   Despite pledging in 2009 to phase out the use of fossil fuels, G20 countries are spending $88 billion a year in taxpayer money to discover new reserves around the world, according to a new report published Tuesday by the Overseas Development Institute and Oil Change International. [eNews Park Forest]

¶   Six years ago, Wisconsin’s Gundersen Health System, which makes up a network of hospitals, medical clinics, nursing homes and other health facilities,  set a goal to reduce energy consumption. It has more than reached that goal. Every day since October 14, it has produced more energy than it consumed. [ThinkProgress]

Thursday, November 13:

¶   Fossil fuels see about $550 billion a year in subsidies, dampening investment in cleaner forms of energy, the International Energy Agency said. Crude oil, coal and natural gas received more than four times the $120 billion paid out in subsidies for renewables, according to the annual World Energy Outlook. [Live Trading News]

¶   Renewable energy technologies are set to gain ground on fossil fuels rapidly as they are helped by falling costs and subsidies, according to World Energy Outlook 2014. It suggests that by 2040 world energy supply will be divided into four almost equal parts: low-carbon sources (nuclear and renewables), oil, natural gas and coal. [reNews]

¶   Such developing countries as China and India will lead a projected 60% increase in worldwide nuclear power generation capacity through 2040, while costs to decommission aging reactors in advanced nations will soar, the International Energy Agency said Wednesday in its World Energy Outlook report. [Nikkei Asian Review]