Science and Technology:
¶ Dong Energy is to collaborate with the UK Carbon Trust to produce a full-scale demonstration of a suction bucket jacket foundation for offshore wind turbines. If the demo is successful it could feature in commercial projects from 2017. [reNews]
World:
¶ The UK’s Community Energy Strategy outlines an intention to encourage non-conventional forms of finance to fund a huge expansion in community energy projects, ranging from green electricity and heating schemes to energy-efficiency initiatives. [Business Green]
¶ First Solar has commenced construction of a 102 MW solar plant on a 250 hectare property in Nyngan, New South Wales. The cadmium telluride AGL project in NSW will be Australia’s largest utility-scale solar power plant. [Compound Semiconductor]
¶ German utility RWE AG said Tuesday its 2013 earnings would be hit by a €3.3 billion ($4.5 billion) impairment charge, reflecting the pressure that subsidized renewable energies continue to put on the company’s fleet of coal- and gas-fired power plants. [Wall Street Journal]
¶ Vestas has achieved first power from its prototype V164 8-MW offshore wind turbine. The turbine was installed at the Danish National Test Centre for Large Wind Turbines in Østerild, and will be monitored over the coming months for testing. [reNews]
¶ A group of Indian parliamentarians Monday submitted a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to implement a slew of environment-friendly measures for the development of renewable energy in the country. [Authint Mail]
¶ Renewable energy investment is set to grow this year with sales of green bonds rising to a record, according to the head of Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Spending on onshore wind and solar power may drive investment to about $300 billion. [eco-business.com]
¶ Kazakhstan plans to commission more than 30 renewable energy facilities with a total capacity of 1,850 MW by 2020. Several hydro, wind, solar and biogas power plants with total capacity of 16.5 MW have already been commissioned since 2011. [AzerNews]
¶ Nova Scotia’s Minister of Energy says the province is on track to exceed its renewable energy goal, passed in 2010, requiring 25% of the province’s power to come from renewables — like wind and hydro — by 2015. [Globalnews.ca]
¶ Russia aims to build 28 new nuclear power units with high safety standards before 2030. Disclosing this, Russia’s President Putin told university students at a meeting in Moscow that “in Russia’s energy mix, the share of nuclear power is not big, just 16%”. [Jagran Post]
US:
¶ Installed solar power capacity in the U.S. grew by 42.8% in 2013, with the country adding 2.9 GW of large-scale solar energy to the grid, according to the latest Energy Infrastructure Update report from FERC’s Office of Energy Projects. [pv magazine]
¶ In North Carolina, Duke Energy is attempting to reduce the amount it pays homeowners almost in half, from 10 – 11 cents (the amount households currently pay for electricity) to 5 to 7 cents per kilowatt-hour. [Natural Resources Defense Council]
¶ A new analysis explores the technical, environmental, and economic implications of raising California’s Renewables Portfolio Standard from 33% by 2020 to 50% by 2030. Although the study shows challenges, it says it is technically possible. [The Equation: Blog of the Union of Concerned Scientists]
¶ The number of jobs in the US solar sector grew by 19.9% to 142,698 in 2013, according to a study by The Solar Foundation. Solar employment grew 10 times faster than the national average employment growth rate of 1.9% in the same period. [reNews]
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