Finance:
¶ Developers have begun to spin off their renewable energy assets into investment vehicles called YieldCos. These attract low-cost capital by appealing to institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, who together manage more than $71 trillion in assets. [Business Green]
¶ A new handbook shows how forward-looking communities around the world are already moving away from reliance on fossil fuels and generating their own power with 100% renewables − while also becoming more prosperous and creating jobs. [eco-business.com]
Science and Technology:
¶ MasseReaction Inc. says its World Patented ViPARtm technology (Vertically integrated Photo Array Reactor) is the first industrial scale algae carbon capture technology that is sustainable on both environmental and financial levels. [PR.com]
¶ Dashing hopes and trashing projections, a new study shows global carbon dioxide emissions not only rose again last year, but are also on track to reach a new high this year, pushing the planet further toward irreversible climate change. [NEWS.GNOM.ES]
¶ In the past few years, to the surprise of many, both China and the US have taken major steps away from coal. This opens up a crucial window of opportunity to achieve what many thought was a lost cause – a peak in global emissions of heat-trapping gases well before 2020. [RenewEconomy]
World:
¶ Yorkshire Water has invested £56 million to increase the renewable energy being generated by the firm by nearly 80%. The investment is helping the company to generate an expected 75 gigawatt hours this year, enough energy to make over three billion cups of tea. [bdaily]
¶ Slowing demand for coal in China is a major financial risk for coal industry investors. Demand for coal in China could peak as early as 2016, as the country brings in measures to tackle air pollution and boosts its use of renewables, gas, nuclear power and energy efficiency. [Energy Voice]
¶ Saudi Arabia has announced it will build solar power stations in five regions by the end 2015. The solar power stations would be built by King Abdullah City for Atomic and Renewable Energy, based in Jeddah, where there also are plans to generate power from landfill. [ArabianBusiness.com]
¶ Enough electricity for almost 5,000 homes could soon be generated in a mammoth solar power farm situated on Green Belt land less than one mile from Upminster, northeast of London. The solar plant will have 60,100 solar panels. [Brentwood Gazette]
¶ German wind turbine manufacturer Nordex has received its largest individual order in its home market to date, from developer PNE Wind for the 57.6 MW Chransdorf wind farm in eastern Germany. [Recharge]
¶ On Sunday, Japan’s new trade minister said the country would find it difficult to formulate an energy policy without nuclear power, given its lack of energy resources and the high cost of utilities for companies and households. [Daily Times]
US:
¶ A state group aims to form a new electric cooperative in Arkansas, a cooperative that relies on solely on solar energy. The cooperative aims to create group negotiating power for the purchase of solar energy systems. [KATV]
¶ With the UN Climate Summit coming up, major companies, including Big Oil, will make pledges to help fight global warming by cutting their heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions, protecting the world’s forests and reducing methane leakage from fossil fuel production. [Pensacola News Journal]
¶ Green Mountain Power is biting back after the Federal Trade Commission got a complaint asking that GMP’s claims and practices marketing renewable energy be investigated. GMP’s CEO points out that renewable power in Vermont grew from 10 MW to 150 MW in five years. [Fierce Energy]
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