2015-03-05 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Thursday, February 26:

• The UK’s Department of Energy & Climate Change awarded contracts worth more than £315 million to 27 projects. ScottishPower got one to build a 714-MW offshore wind farm, RWE Innogy GmbH won for three onshore wind projects totaling 166 MW, and Lightsource will build a 14.67-MW solar facility. [Bloomberg]
• SunEdison, the world’s largest renewable energy development company, is planning to supply electricity to 20 million unserved people around the world. The initiative will be led by a company group focused on developing sustainable business models and technologies for renewable energy in rural areas. [AltEnergyMag]
• Under a new plan by governors of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island, electric distribution companies will collaborate with state agencies on a bidding process for proposals for clean energy resources including wind, solar, small hydro, biomass, fuel cells and other low-carbon sources. [Lexington Herald Leader]

Friday, February 27:

• “We Could Be Turning the Corner on Climate Change” – Efforts to reduce carbon emissions appear to be starting to work, and the link between economic growth and energy consumption is breaking. For example, last year, coal consumption fell for the first time in China, by 2.9% from 2013. [SustainableBusiness.com]
• The Vermont House has advanced a wide-ranging bill on a Renewable Energy Standard and Energy Transformation program, or RESET. The requirement would be that utilities get 55% of their power from renewable sources by 2017, ramping up to 75% by 2032. Some have met or exceeded those goals already. [Valley News]
• Massachusetts utility companies are preparing to buy enough renewable energy to power 136,000 homes under the major initiative announced for Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island on Tuesday. The companies may buy up to 817 GWh of electricity per year under a request for proposals. [Boston Globe]

Saturday, February 28:

• “We Could Be Turning the Corner on Climate Change” – Efforts to reduce carbon emissions appear to be starting to work, and the link between economic growth and energy consumption is breaking. For example, last year, coal consumption fell for the first time in China, by 2.9% from 2013. [SustainableBusiness.com]
• A redox flow battery designed at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory more than doubles the amount of energy this type of cell can pack in a given volume, allowing it to rival lithium-ion batteries. If the device reaches mass production, it could find use in fast-charging transportation and grid storage. [Gizmag]
• A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency published in January confirms that onshore wind-generation costs are competitive with those of the fossil-fuel sources. The latter are in the $45-140/MWh range, wind comes in at an average $55/MWh. Irena also confirms that costs are falling. [Windpower Monthly]
• The Vermont House has advanced a wide-ranging bill on a Renewable Energy Standard and Energy Transformation program, or RESET. The requirement would be that utilities get 55% of their power from renewable sources by 2017, ramping up to 75% by 2032. Some have met or exceeded those goals already. [Valley News]

Sunday, March 1:

• Water is eating away at the Antarctic ice, melting it where it hits the oceans. As the ice sheets slowly thaw, water pours into the sea — 130 billion tons of ice (118 billion metric tons) per year for the past decade, according to NASA satellite calculations. That’s the weight of more than 356,000 Empire State Buildings. [Huffington Post]
• The UK’s Liberal Democrats set out plans to double the UK’s production of renewable electricity by the end of the next parliament and make Britain zero carbon by 2050. They say they have already created a low-carbon, pro-renewable, and more energy secure nation less reliant on unstable regimes for energy. [Liberal Democrats]

Monday, March 2:

• Spain’s renewable energy plants produced 48% of the country’s power in February. Wind power generation produced 27.6% of the total Spanish electricity production for the month. Hydroelectric produced 15.7%. Solar PV and concentrated solar power accounted for 2.2% and 0.9%, respectively. [SeeNews Renewables]
• National Bank of Abu Dhabi, one of the biggest banks in the oil-rich Gulf countries, says fossil fuels can no longer compete with solar technologies on price. The NBAD report says the most recent solar tender showed even at $10/barrel for oil, and $5/mmbtu for gas, solar is still a cheaper option. [RenewEconomy]
• According to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, new funds invested into clean energy gained 16% in 2014 to reach $310 billion. The record is still $318 billion, set in 2011, but there was a significant upward trend last year. Overall, the world added about 100 gigawatts of solar- and wind-power capacity in 2014. [Investing.com]

Tuesday, March 3:

• “Renewable energy is conquering quirky nature of Britain’s climate” – Clever engineering is smoothing out the peaks and troughs of renewable power in Britain and having a positive effect on the power supply. It looks like this is making the nuclear industry redundant before a new station can be built. [The Guardian]
• A documentary examining the deadly effects of smog on China’s population gripped the country after its release online this weekend. The 104-minute film, Under the Dome, explores how China’s noxious smog problem is harming urban residents. It has already been viewed tens of millions of times online. [Mashable]
• Good news! Not only did China’s coal consumption fall by 2.9% in 2014, Glen Peters of the Global Carbon Project calculates that China’s CO2 emissions have also fallen, by 0.7%. So it’s clear that China’s efforts to cut its coal consumption and carbon emissions are not only real, but are already producing results. [Energy Collective]
• Economist Jeremy Rifkin says a Digital Europe transition will revolutionize every commercial sector, disrupt workings of virtually every industry, bring unprecedented new economic opportunities, put millions back to work, and create a more sustainable post-carbon society, mitigating climate change. [Materials Handling World Magazine]

Wednesday, March 4:

• Given the extreme hype over shale oil and fracking, one would expect the enthusiasm to translate into above average share performance for shale operators. This has not been the case. Share performance has actually been at best quite mediocre and in most cases just downright poor. [Energy Collective]
• The town of Scituate, Massachusetts, has made more than a half-million dollars in less than three years through its agreement with Scituate Wind LLC, owner of a local wind turbine. The town has collected more than $500,000 since the 390-foot-tall wind turbine went online in April of 2012. [The Patriot Ledger]

2015-2-26 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Thursday, February 19:

• An NRG Energy subsidiary, NRG Renew, will join Kaiser Permanente, a major US health provider serving over 9 million people, in creating one of the top three on-site commercial solar portfolios among all US companies. The California project will also be one of the world’s largest vehicle-parking solar projects. [CleanTechnica]
• Last week, Rolling Stone published a blockbuster climate change article complete with the incendiary title, “The Pentagon & Climate Change: How Deniers Put National Security at Risk.” Now, the US Navy has posted a response with a forceful declaration of support for the Rolling Stone article. [CleanTechnica]
• Green Mountain Power announced that for a third year, thanks to power generation at its Kingdom Community Wind Farm, five Northeast Kingdom Towns will receive Good Neighbor Fund payments. This year, GMP will distribute more than $188,000, an increase of $62,000 over last year. [vtdigger.org]

Friday, February 20:

• No matter how fast the cost of oil drops, it just can’t keep up with the pace of improvements in electric vehicle batteries. In the latest development, a team of researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has come up with a paper-like material that could bring in a new generation of high-range batteries.[CleanTechnica]
• Pumped storage has been around a long time, much longer than renewables’ intermittent nature required it. In July 1930, the magazine Popular Science ran an article announcing start of operations at the first US “ten-mile storage battery,” or pumped-hydro energy storage plant, in Connecticut. [Scientific American]
• Citigroup Inc said it would set aside $100 billion to fund environmental projects over the next decade, doubling the amount it had earmarked for such projects in 2007. Citigroup said it would fund projects related to renewable energy, greenhouse gas reductions and sustainable transportation. [eco-business.com]

Saturday, February 21:

• “We Don’t Need New Energy Storage Innovations” – There’s been a lot of talk about energy storage being a “holy grail” for solving the problems of deeper renewables saturation in the US power grid. But it’s time to start pushing back on the rhetoric. The solutions we have now for storage are sufficient to the task. [Greentech Media]
• It’s been frigid in much of the US this week, and in New England for weeks on end. But nationally, the country has been going through a surprisingly warm winter. According to the National Climatic Data Center, the December 2014 to January 2015 period has been the sixth warmest on record in the contiguous US. [Huffington Post]
• The US Navy Task Force Energy is now drawing our attention to an op-ed by a former Navy commander outlining the risks of continued oil dependency. Like another recent one, it pulls no punches, drawing attention to the thousands of American deaths attributed to petroleum transportation in Iraq and Afghanistan. [CleanTechnica]

Sunday, February 22:

• Electric car sales (including plug-in hybrid electric cars) in the UK surged over 300% in 2014, as compared year-on-year against 2013, according to the most recent figures from the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. EV sales in the UK rose from just 3,833 units in 2013 to 15,361 units in 2014. [CleanTechnica]
• The oil and gas industry sponsors and spins research to shape the scientific debate over horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. That’s the conclusion of analysis by the non-partisan group, Public Accountability Initiative, of more than 130 documents distributed to policymakers by industry representatives. [Huffington Post]
• A broad political coalition, from liberal environmentalists to tea-party conservatives, has banded together in Florida to press for something that ironically is in short supply in the Sunshine State: solar power. The group launched a campaign to place a pro-solar initiative on the state’s 2016 ballot. [Fox News]

Monday, February 23:

• Wei-Hock “Willie” Soon, a prominent climate change denier and researcher, quietly took more than $1.2 million in payouts from the energy industry, including the Koch brothers and other oil lobbyists, for the past 14 years, newly released documents obtained by Greenpeace have shown. [eNews Park Forest]
• Apple plans on investing €1.7 billion (£1.3 billion) into Europe, which is the biggest investment the American company has ever made on European soil. The plan is to create two new data centres in County Galway, Ireland, and Denmark’s central Jutland. The facilities will run on 100% renewable energy. [ITProPortal]
• Engineers in Norway and Sweden, two of the countries trying hardest to develop wave power technology, have announced “breakthroughs” in their methods, which the inventors believe will make wave power competitive. The latest Norwegian experiment has been installed in a redundant fishing vessel. [eco-business.com]

Tuesday, February 24:

• New Coal Plants in China: A (Carbon) Bubble Waiting to Burst” – China’s coal consumption growth has slowed down and fell in 2014. At the same time, coal-fired power generating capacity is growing rapidly. This represents an investment bubble that will burst as overcapacity becomes too large to ignore. [Energy Collective]
• The government of the Australian state of Victoria has made good on a pre-election promise to support the state’s first solar-powered town. Energy audits and retrofits to reduce consumption have already begun in Newstead as the first step towards a community micro-grid using 100% renewable power. [The Fifth Estate]
• Senvion is delivering 18 wind turbines for the Nordergründe offshore wind farm in the German North Sea. Each turbine has a rated power of 6.15 MW, enabling it to supply about 4,000 households with energy. The Nordergründe offshore wind farm will be completed in the fall of 2016. [Renewable Energy Magazine]

Wednesday, February 25:

• President Barack Obama, exercising his veto power for the first time in five years, rejected on Tuesday a measure green-lighting the construction of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. It is unlikely GOP lawmakers will be able to reverse Obama’s veto, as that would require a two-thirds vote in each chamber. [CNN]
• As part of its first major retrofit in 30 years, two custom-designed wind turbines have started generating power for the Eiffel Tower. Located above the World Heritage Site’s second level, about 400 feet off the ground, the sculptural wind turbines are now producing 10,000 kWh of electricity annually. [ThinkProgress]
• SunEdison Inc, a US solar panel maker and project developer, expects its annual installations to more than double this year. The company intends to complete solar and wind power facilities with 2,100 to 2,300 MW of capacity during 2015. Last year it completed 1,048 megawatts of solar farms. [Bloomberg]

2015-2-19 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Thursday, February 12:

• Apple Inc will buy about $850 million of power from a new California solar farm to cut its energy bill. The First Solar Inc plant, with the capacity to power the equivalent of 60,000 homes, will be used to supply electricity for Apple’s new campus in Silicon Valley and all offices and stores in the state. [Christian Science Monitor]
• New York is looking at new energy laws, and might consider emulating Vermont’s Cow Power program. The manure from half the cows in New York could power about 45,000 homes. Capturing and utilizing this methane is equivalent to eliminating the carbon dioxide emissions from about 120,000 cars. [Albany Times Union]
• Gulf Power filed a petition asking the Florida Public Service Commission to approve an agreement that would make the utility a leading purchaser of wind generation among Florida utilities. The project, called Kingfisher Wind, would be sited in Oklahoma, where conditions are favorable for wind energy. [NorthEscambia.com]

Friday, February 13:

• Google is partnering with NextEra Energy to power its Googleplex headquarters in Mountain View at California. Beginning from 2016, Google will receive approximately 43 MW of wind energy from plants at Altamont Pass. As part of the deal, 370 old turbines will be replaced with 24 advanced ones. [Greentech Lead]
• European utilities shut more coal and natural gas power plants in 2014 than in any year since at least 2009 amid falling demand for electricity and tougher pollution curbs. European Union power companies turned off 63% more coal- and gas-fed generation than they started; net decommissioning was 5 GW. [Hellenic Shipping News Worldwide]
• Tesla’s crusade against fossil fuels could soon hit home with a battery-powered energy pack. The company plans to start producing a home battery within six months, Bloomberg reports, and will reveal more details in the next month or two. Backup power is one application, but there are a number of others. [TechHive]

Saturday, February 14:

• Leaders of the UK’s three main political parties pledged a cross-party fight against climate change. David Cameron of the Conservatives, Ed Miliband of Labour and Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats agreed to “seek a fair, strong, legally-binding global climate deal which limits temperature rises to below two degrees celsius”. [reNews]
• Inverter load rejection overvoltage tests completed by the US DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory as part of a cooperative research agreement with SolarCity have proven so successful that a testing partner, Hawaiian Electric Companies, has proposed to double its hosting capacity for solar energy. [Phys.Org]
• New York ratepayers will subsidize operation of the Ginna nuclear facility near Rochester, under terms of an agreement with the plant’s operators, Exelon. The Ginna Nuclear Generating Station will be allowed to charge customers above-market rates until 2018, because the plant has been losing money. [Capital New York]

Sunday, February 15:

• “Arthur Berman: Why Today’s Shale Era Is The Retirement Party For Oil Production” – Podcast guest Arthur Berman, a geological consultant with 34 years of experience in petroleum exploration and production, sees the recent US oil production boost from shale drilling as short-lived and somewhat desperate. [peakprosperity.com]
• Indian prime minister Modi inaugurated the first Renewable Energy Global Investors Meet. On the first day of the three-day event, 293 companies committed to set up plants to generate 266 GW of renewable energy in 5 years, while banking major SBI said it will finance 15,000 MW renewable energy. [India.com]
• The White House has backed solar and wind power projects and touted the benefits of the country’s surging production of natural gas, which burns about 50% cleaner than coal, still the largest source of electricity in the US. It had backed clean coal, but now, the US DOE is beginning to withdraw that support. [Bloomberg]
• One thing energy companies leave out of their talking points for expanding pipelines in New England is an effort to deliver natural gas to Canada for export. Developers are already moving to send natural gas through Massachusetts to Nova Scotia, where it would be converted to liquefied natural gas and exported. [ecoRI news]

Monday, February 16:

• China raised its total grid-connected solar power capacity to 28.05 GW in 2014, up 60% on the year, and aims to raise the total by more than half this year. The figure is equivalent to about 2.1% of China’s total power capacity of 1,360 GW at end 2014, while wind power is about 7% of the total. [Business Recorder]
• India is all set to have world’s largest solar power plant in Rewa district of Madhya Pradesh. It will be completed next year on Independence Day. The 750 MW will be constructed and operated as a joint venture of the state government and Solar Energy Corporation of India. It will occupy 1,500 hectares of land. [indiatvnews.com]

Tuesday, February 17:

• In Geneva, Switzerland just three weeks after the US Senate’s 98-1 vote that climate change is not a hoax, the first round of the 2015 United Nations talks among 194 nations produced the first-ever universally agreed negotiating text on how to limit global warming to 2°C (3.6°F) above preindustrial temperatures. [CleanTechnica]
• To store power from Washington State solar and wind generators, the Klickitat PUD has begun applying for a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to pursue a pumped storage project, which will cost an estimated $2.5 billion. When completed, the project would have a capacity of 1200 MW. [Yakima Herald-Republic]
• Solar power brought 3,500 new jobs to Nevada in 2014, a 146% increase over 2013 that pushed the state to number 1 in the nation in solar jobs per capita, according to a report released Thursday by the Solar Foundation. It ranked Nevada seventh nationally with 5,900 total jobs in the solar industry. [Las Vegas Review-Journal]

Wednesday, February 18:

• The three-day ‘First Renewable Energy Global Investors Meet and Expo (Re-Invest)’ concluded in India on Tuesday with commitments of 266,000 MW of renewable power, including 10,000 MW from state-run NTPC. This makes it the “take off” conference towards revolutionising India’s energy sector. [Web India]
• Fires continued to burn for hours Tuesday after a train carrying 109 tankers of crude oil derailed in a snowstorm alongside a West Virginia creek, threatening the nearby water supply. Cars carrying volatile Bakken crude from North Dakota’s shale fields had left the tracks Monday afternoon, and 19 caught fire. [AOL]
• In Vermont, after three weeks of deliberation, the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee voted 10-1 to pass H.40, a bill requiring utilities to sell renewable power. According to the bill, 55% of a utility’s electricity must come from renewables such as wind, solar or hydro power by 2017, and 75% by 2032. [vtdigger.org]

2015-2-12 Energy Week

Please note that this post is being developed.

Thursday, February 5:

• Energy use in federal post offices, court houses and military bases has dropped to its lowest level on record. The sharp decline is largely thanks to a Bush-era push to slash electricity and fuel consumption in thousands of facilities and vehicles. The total was the lowest since record keeping began in 1975. [Investing.com]
• The electric power industry is turning away from coal, and clean energy is growing again in the US as investments in renewables increased in 2014 after a three-year decline. The 2015 Sustainable Energy in America Factbook report says US as second in the world behind China for clean energy investments. [Climate Central]
• In the current legislative session, Republicans who control the Washington state senate jumped into the discussion of how to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases. Senators from both parties outlined a plan for promoting such “carbon reduction investments” as electric-vehicle chargers and efficiency. [Bellingham Herald]

Friday, February 6:

• On Wednesday new figures showing the “incredible strength” of Scotland’s renewable energy industry were announced by World Wildlife Fund Scotland. In January 2015, wind turbines alone produced enough average daily electricity to meet the needs of 146% of Scottish households, a 27% increase from 2014. [Blouin News Blogs]
• The governor of West Virginia has approved a law repealing the state’s controversial 2009 Alternative and Renewable Energy Portfolio Act, which required the state to generate 25% of its electricity from renewables or alternative energy sources (including some coal-based technologies) by 2025. [World Coal]
• An investment management firm, InfraRed, has announced its agreement to invest in the £1 billion Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon in Wales. The project is designed to generate around 500 GWh of electricity every year for 120 years, enough to provide nearly all of the domestic electricity for the Swansea region. [ITV News]

Saturday, February 7:

• An engineer has devised a system to convert the power of the wind directly into heat in an invention which could rid Scottish roads of frost in the winter and allow certain crops to be grown for 365 days a year. He believes one of the systems could heat up to 250 acres of farmland and also generate electricity. [Herald Scotland]
• Northern Ireland has one of the best wind resources in Europe. Nevertheless, until now they haven’t been able to make full use of them. That’s all about to change with AES’ plans to install Europe’s biggest electricity storage battery, a 10-MW lithium-ion battery array, at a site next to Kilroot power station. [Belfast Telegraph]
• The National Hockey League today announced that it is ranked Number 17 on the US EPA’s National Top 100 list of the largest users of green power, making it the first professional sports league ever to achieve the distinction. The league has a number of significant green power achievements that it can point to. [NHL.com]

Sunday, February 8:

• The Columbia, Missouri Water and Light Department generated 7.22% of its energy for utility customers using renewable sources, exceeding the 5% goal for 2014 and nearly halfway to the 15% objective by 2018. At the end of 2014, the city had spent $1.12 million of the $3.29 million allotted for renewable energy. [Columbus Telegram]
• New York state is encouraging community-based microgrids through NY Prize, a $40 million first-of-its-kind competition announced by Governor Andrew Cuomo. The competition was discussed before an audience of a hundred at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering at SUNY Poly last week. [Troy Record]
• “Nuclear Energy Renaissance Takes Another Blow and May Never Recover” – Setbacks like the Vogtle Nuclear Plant faced this week have become all too predictable in the nuclear industry, and they’re the reason a nuclear renaissance is unlikely in the US. Costs are simply too high, and competition too strong. [Motley Fool]

Monday, February 9:

• After decades of studies and field surveys, India has finally decided to focus on tapping clean and renewable geothermal energy. The Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has drafted a national policy, which would make India a global leader in the sector, generating 1,000 MW in phase one, by 2022. [Daily News & Analysis]
• A report by international energy research company Wood Mackenzie says solar PV has the capacity to disrupt the US energy landscape with speed and tumult similar to the shale industry. It may even directly impact natural gas markets in the near future, as it has already begun to in California. [pv magazine]
• India has resolved US concerns about its existing nuclear liability regime, setting the stage for commercial negotiations to generate atomic power. However, the foreign ministry categorically stated that India’s nuclear liability law and its associated rules would not be changed, maintaining liability for reactor builders. [Economic Times]

Tuesday, February 10:

• The European wind sector installed more new capacity than gas and coal combined in 2014. The industry connected a total of 11,791 MW to the grid while coal and gas added 3305 MW and 2338 MW respectively. The coal and gas industries retired more capacity than they commissioned last year. [reNews]
• Firms in Norway and Germany on Tuesday signed an agreement to build an over 600-km long power cable linking the electricity networks of the two countries, with 500 km under water. The Nordlink project is estimated to cost up to €2 billion ($2.2 billion) and is expected to go online in 2020. [Europe Online Magazine]
• Desert Sunlight Solar Farm, a 550-MW farm that is the largest on public lands managed by the federal Bureau of Land Management, has begun operating and will provide enough energy to power more than 160,000 average California homes annually, according to the CEO of the farm’s developer. [Los Angeles Times]

Wednesday, February 11:

•  In Australia, the Bulli Creek solar project received approval from the Toowoomba Regional Council for building up to 2,000 MW over the next eight years across 13,000 acres of cattle grazing land. It has the option of building out the site in manageable stages of 100 MW to 500 MW or more per stage. [Renew Economy]
• New figures released by the Global Wind Energy Council show that the global wind industry grew by 44% in 2014, installing over 51 GW. The figure indicates a “solid sign of the recovery of the industry after a rough patch in the past few years.” The cumulative total worldwide was about 369,500 GW at year’s end. [CleanTechnica]
• Vermont Gas Systems has abandoned its plan to bring natural gas under Lake Champlain to a New York paper mill after the plant withdrew its financial support. The pipeline, proposed to go from Middlebury under the lake to the International Paper facility in Ticonderoga, New York, proved too expensive. [vtdigger.org]