Opinion:
¶ “As subsidies wane, market forces drive the growth of renewables” • For twenty years, Germany had a subsidy scheme for renewables. As that was replaced by an auction system, the market has proceeded along a bumpy road. Now, the declining costs of wind and solar power are increasingly competing on their own merits. [GreenBiz]
Path in an Indian national park (Don Mammoser | Shutterstock)
¶ “An Open Letter To California Energy Commissioners On The Rooftop Solar Mandate” • The conventional wisdom in electricity generation is that scale matters. But this outdated notion rests on the assumption that electricity generators compete only in the wholesale market. California’s nearly 1 million solar roofs debunk this myth. [CleanTechnica]
Science and Technology:
¶ A thought experiment published by London-based climate charity 10:10 Climate Action raises the question of whether the many lost rivers of London, now running through tunnels, could again become the lifeblood of one of the world’s great cities by using heat pumps to provide low cost, low carbon heating and cooling. [CleanTechnica]
London
World:
¶ Renewable energy developer KP Energy announced it has signed an agreement with GE India to set up a 300-MW wind power project at Kutch in Gujarat. The project would use 120 wind turbine generators of 2.5-MW capacity each and is likely to be connected to the power grid and commissioned in September of next year. [ETEnergyworld.com]
¶ JA Solar, by some accounts the world’s third-largest solar PV module supplier, announced securing loans in connection with a 1.5-MW PV cell manufacturing plant it is building in Vietnam. The plant will further the company’s ability to ship products from countries other than China, which has been the target of trade barriers for several years, [CleanTechnica]
Solar cell manufacture
¶ China and the EU reaffirmed their commitments to the Paris climate pact and called other signatories to do the same, saying action against global warming is increasingly important. After President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the US from the agreement, China and the EU have emerged as world leaders on climate change. [ETEnergyworld.com]
¶ Seeking a competitive edge in the world’s renewable energy auctions, manufacturers of both onshore and offshore wind turbines are having to increase the pace of innovation. This is driving “unprecedented growth” of the next-generation of onshore and offshore wind turbine sizes, according to research from MAKE Consulting. [CleanTechnica]
GE Renewable Energy’s 12 MW Haliade-X offshore wind turbine
¶ The Danish Energy Agency developed a sophisticated modelling tool to calculate the levelized costs of energy. It provides costs of €30/MWh for electricity from onshore wind and €40/MWh for solar power. The cost of electric power from Danish offshore wind projects is €46/MWh, and this makes offshore windpower cheaper than nuclear power. [Business Insider Nordic]
¶ A UK rail freight company said all its sites and offices will be powered by 100% renewable electricity. DB Cargo UK signed a three-year agreement with SSE Business Energy to supply its sites with green power. This is estimated to help reduce 5,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year and equivalent to powering almost 4,000 homes. [Energy Live News]
UK rail transit (Image: DB Cargo UK)
¶ The global power sector is witnessing a gradual transition from conventional thermal power generating sources toward clean energy technologies. The renewables share was 8.6% in the global energy mix in 2010 and is expected to increase to 22.5% in 2020 as per a recent thematic research report Renewable Energy by GlobalData. [Power Technology]
¶ Despite the spin the government put on the Australian Energy Market Operator’s Integrated System Plan, its supporting data shows that the National Energy Market could be almost 85% renewable by 2040, with only 7.25 GW of coal power left in the country by then. Coal’s current 40% share of capacity could drop to just 6%. [RenewEconomy]
Hazelton Power Station (CSIRO, Wikimedia Commons)
¶ Ontario’s Energy Minister is refusing to say how much it will cost taxpayers to cancel 758 renewable energy contracts in an effort to save $790 million, as opposition parties accuse him of leaving Ontarians in the dark. “It’s still money out the door. The people deserve to know that,” said a Green Party Leader. “It’s very disturbing.” [Toronto Star]
US:
¶ The Missouri Public Service Commission is supporting a 600-MW wind project filed by The Empire District Electric Company. It found that the company had presented credible and persuasive evidence that the Customer Savings Plan, if implemented as designed, would generate customer savings of about $295 million over 30 years. [Windpower Engineering]
Midwest wind farm
¶ A study released by the Smart Electric Power Alliance says Massachusetts needs to upgrade its infrastructure to take the next steps in clean energy. While the state is a leader in clean energy and the reduction of greenhouse gases, it is behind some other states in upgrading infrastructure and optimizing distributed energy resources. [Daily Energy Insider]
¶ A garbage-to-energy plant in Elk River, Minnesota, could be going out of business, a victim of falling prices for electricity. Officials of the Elk River Resource Recovery Project announced it would shut the plant down in March 2019, if it could not find a buyer. The project removes recyclable metals from garbage and burns it to generate power. [TwinCities.com]
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