geoharvey

Opinion:

¶ “The Totally Insane Carbon Bubble” • Natural gas and the hydrogen made from it are the fossil industry’s last gasp. The industry is begging for a lifeline in order to live in gold-plated castles another generation or so. The US housing bubble? Child’s play. The carbon bubble? This is big, and scary, and ready to take a lot of casualties with it. [CleanTechnica]

Carbon bubble

Science and Technology:

¶ For international experts stationed at a base in Antarctica, the frozen southern continent is a good gauge of climate change. “When I used to come to Antarctica in the 1990s, it never used to rain,” said Rodolfo Sanchez, director of the Argentine Antarctic Institute. “Now it rains regularly – instead of snowing.” [The Guardian]

¶ Nicknamed America’s Alps, Washington State’s North Cascades is an area of soaring beauty. But it is here that you can also see the threats facing the parks in their next 100 years. They are fighting a war on three fronts: severe underfunding, climate change, and a lack of diversity and youth among their visitors. [The Guardian]

Grand Teton National Park (Photo: NPS, Wikimedia Commons)

World:

¶ Representatives of over 150 countries gathered in Abu Dhabi at the 7th Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). “Plummeting costs and rapid innovation have spurred investments that are positioning renewable energy solutions at the centre of energy discussion today,” said IRENA’s Director-General. [gulfnews.com]

¶ The Abu Dhabi Fund for Development signed a $15-million concessionary loan agreement for a project developing an innovative new hybrid solar and wind generation project in the Caribbean state of Antigua and Barbuda. The initial 10-MW project, rising to 25 MW in subsequent phases, will bring clean energy to 90,000 people. [Trade Arabia]

Antigua’s wind power may soon be updated.
(Photo by Ragingwhitebuffalo, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ The Chief Minister of Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province welcomed a Danish government initiative aiming to transfer technology to the province for promotion of agriculture and renewable energy. The chief minister talked with the Danish Ambassador, who met him at Chief Minister Secretariat, in Peshawar. [The Nation]

¶ The South African Renewable Energy Council has accused Eskom, the country’s electric utility, of distorting the facts of renewable power costs and misleading the public to serve its bid for nuclear power. It says government’s decision to invest in a renewable power program will benefit its economy. [South African Broadcasting Corporation]

African wind farm

¶ Apple® today announced a significant commitment by a major Chinese supplier, Lens Technology, to run its Apple operations on entirely renewable energy. This commitment is combined with zero waste compliance from all final assembly sites. Apple is making efforts to help China’s transition to a new green economy. [Satellite PR News]

¶ Hayleys Group PLC and Windforce Pvt Ltd jointly announced commissioning a solar power plant in Sri Lanka. The 10-MW solar plant has a tracking system to ensure a 20% higher yield than a fixed tilt system. The plant could contribute 22,000 MWh to the national grid, enough electricity for roughly 10,000 homes. [The Sunday Times Sri Lanka]

Hayleys 10-MW solar plant

¶ Siemens received an order from the energy provider SWW Wunsiedel GmbH to supply and install a battery storage system, which will have lithium-ion batteries with a capacity of more than 6 MW. It will be connected to the distribution grid, and will enable the company to participate in the primary control reserve market. [Satellite PR News]

¶ In 2016, the cost of imported energy in Jordan was about 10% of the gross domestic product while in 2014 the ratio was close to 18%, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, said. Speaking at IRENA’s meeting in Abu Dhabi, the country’s Energy Minister Ibrahim Saif said renewable energy “is no longer a luxury,” with its lower costs. [Jordan Times]

Tafila Wind Farm (Photo: Makeandtoss, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Siemens has successfully entered the offshore wind market in Belgium with a first order for the 309-MW Rentel wind project, from Rentel NV. Siemens will supply, install, commission and service 42 wind turbines. The output of the wind plant will be sufficient to supply power for about 300,000 average Belgian households. [Satellite PR News]

US:

¶ California’s southeastern desert has an abundance of clean energy boiling just beneath the surface. In it, two start-up firms aim to build the nation’s largest geothermal power plant and a mining operation. The Salton Sea area is one of the world’s largest sources of geothermal energy, but also has abundant lithium carbonate. [Los Angeles Times]

Geothermal energy forms mud mounds near the Salton Sea.
(Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times)

¶ Microsoft Corp announced its largest purchases of wind energy to date, with agreements for 178 MW of wind power from Kansas and 59 MW from Wyoming. In combination, the agreements add 237 MW of wind energy to Microsoft’s investment portfolio for wind energy projects in the US, bringing the total to more than 500 MW. [Satellite PR News]

¶ According to the EIA, in October 2016 residential electricity prices in Hawaii were 27.54¢/kWh, and on the island of Kaua’i, rates are 32.78¢/kWh, starting this year. Hawaii is the first state in the US where rooftop solar has become an almost standard item on homes. They are even put in places unthinkable elsewhere, facing north or in shady areas. [nwitimes.com]

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Opinion:

¶ “Why This Nuclear Engineer Says Every Nuke Plant in the US Should Be Shut Down Yesterday” • The good – the very good – energy news is that the Indian Point nuclear power plants will be closed. But the bad – the very bad – energy news is that there are still many promoters in industry and government still pushing nuclear power. [Common Dreams]

Sunset at Michigan’s defunct Big Rock Point nuclear plant
(Photo by John Hritz, Wikimedia Commons)

Science and Technology:

¶ Ticks are devastating the moose populations in Maine and New Hampshire. They attach themselves to a single moose by the tens of thousands. The adult females can expand to the size of a grape and engorge themselves with up to four milliliters of blood. With warmer winter temperatures, they kill 70% of the states’ moose calves. [The Boston Globe]

¶ More than three million people die from the effects of air pollution every year. But some increasingly high-tech solutions may soon help us all breathe more easily. Various approaches have emerged, ranging range from photo-catalytic converters to low-voltage electrostatic collectors. And pigeons help keep track of pollution levels. [BBC]

Catalytic converter screen (Credit: Elegant Embellishments)

World:

¶ The US EPA said it is investigating diesel emissions software used in 104,000 Jeep Grand Cherokees and Dodge Ram trucks, and the UK Department for Transport asked for details as a matter of urgency. Meanwhile, French investigators plan to probe Renault over suspected cheating in diesel emissions tests. [BBC]

¶ A report from the International Renewable Energy Agency describes the technical renewable energy potential of South East Europe as “vast.” It comes to 740 GW, of which 532 GW is wind and 120 solar. The report also says, “127 GW of this overall renewable energy potential could be implemented in a cost-competitive way today.” [CleanTechnica]

Bulgarian PV (Photo: Edal Anton Lefterov, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ McPhy Energy, which designs, manufactures and integrates hydrogen equipment for the energy and industrial sectors, will support Energiedienst to set up a green hydrogen production facility at the site of its Wyhlen hydroelectric power plant. It will supply the plant with a 1-MW hydrogen generation unit by the end of 2017. [gasworld]

¶ Uzbekenergo JSC, an energy company in Uzbekistan, and China’s Zhuhai Singyes Green Building Technology Co Ltd signed a contract worth $147 million for the design, construction and operation of a solar PV plant with capacity of 100 MW in Samarkand region of Uzbekistan, the country’s energy company told Trend. [Trend News Agency]

More solar power will be installed in Uzbekistan.

¶ In Sri Lanka, the Public Utilities Commission warns that if sufficient rainfall is not received, hydro power can only be generated until the end of February. Due to the dry spell the country is experiencing, 85% of the energy requirement is met through Thermal Power Plants. Hydro power generation has already dropped to 15%. [Newsfirst]

¶ Tata Power Renewable Energy Ltd has commissioned two renewable energy projects in India, a 36 MW of a 100-MW wind farm under construction at Andhra Pradesh and a 49-MW solar plant in Tamil Nadu. The two projects raise the total renewable energy capacity of the company to 1,876 MW. [Energy Live News – Energy Made Easy]

Wind farm in Tamil Nadu (Photo: Raj, Wikimedia Commons)

US:

¶ In his last presidential speech, President Obama urged bolder action on climate change, saying, “We’ve led the world to an agreement that has the promise to save this planet. But without bolder action, our children won’t have time to debate the existence of climate change. They’ll be busy dealing with its effects.” [Biofuels International Magazine]

¶ When SunCommon, based in Waterbury, Vermont, hosted an event in which Governor Phil Scot spoke of Vermont’s energy future, it was showing its Solar Canopy, a timber-frame structure topped with enough solar panels to power a home. Many roofs can’t bear the weight of the panels, and the Solar Canopy offers a solution. [Stowe Today]

Solar canopy (Photo: Mike Polhamus / VTDigger)

¶ New York State is to provide $360 million for eleven new renewable projects. The planned projects include two wind farms, one solar array, seven hydroelectric plants and a fuel
cell facility. Together they will generate around 260 MW of electricity, enough to power more than 110,000 homes. [Energy Live News – Energy Made Easy]

¶ While it may be hard to believe, nine Wyoming lawmakers introduced a bill to forbid utilities from providing any electricity to the state that comes from large-scale wind or solar energy projects by 2019. Allowed resources would be coal, natural gas, hydroelectric, nuclear power, oil, and net-metered individual resources. [Digital Journal]

Wind farm (Photo: Jürgen from Sandesneben,
Germany, Creative Commons – Attribution-NoDerivs)

¶ The Natural Resources Defense Council recently examined the relationship between work, health, climate, climate health, and Latinos. The report informs that Latinos are supportive of the renewable energy transition (just like almost everyone else), and particularly as a means to better employment and improved health conditions. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Arizona State University and PayPal recently joined on a deal to buy renewable energy from the new Red Rock Solar Plant. Both ASU and PayPal look to reduce their carbon footprints. PayPal will be able to become more sustainable, and ASU will expand its solar energy sourcing beyond the solar collectors on campus. [Arizona Business Daily]

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Science and Technology:

¶ In 2017, a high-tech ocean vessel powered by the sun, wind
and sea water will start a 6 year journey, visiting 50 countries. The vessel is powered by 130 square meters of solar panels, two vertical axis wind turbines, two electric motors and equipment for electrolysis, which will use sea water to create hydrogen fuel. [Energy Matters]

Energy Observer (Image: Energy Observer)

¶ According to the climate models used by researchers at UMass Amherst, the 48 contiguous US states are projected to cross the 2° C warming threshold about 10 to 20 years earlier than the global mean annual temperature. The Northeast is projected to warm by 3° C (5.2° F) by the time global warming reaches 2° C (3.6° F). [Fusion]

World:

¶ Senvion has signed a contract with Innogy Renewables UK
Ltd to supply 16 wind turbines from its 2-MW series for the Mynydd y Gwair wind farm in South Wales. The project will have an installed capacity of 32.8 MW, and will generate enough electricity annually to power more than 22,000 average UK households. [Windpower Engineering]

Senvion wind turbine

¶ About 50,000 lives a year could be saved by 2030 if no new coal-fired power plants are built in Southeast Asia, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, according to a study from researchers at Harvard University and Greenpeace International. Some 70,000 deaths could result annually, up from about 20,000 deaths now, Greenpeace said. [Bloomberg]

¶ Two Chinese companies plan to spend $1 billion building a giant solar farm on land contaminated by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in Ukraine, Climate News Network reports. The two companies plan to build a 1-GW solar power plant on 2,500 hectares of land within the exclusion zone to the south of the Chernobyl plant. [The Guardian]

Solar plant in Belarus (Photo: Viktor Drachev / TASS)

¶ Hartek Power has completed solar power projects of 270 MW spread across the Indian states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka in the first three quarters of this fiscal, taking its total solar projects capacity under EPC contracts to 528 MW. As of March 31, 2016, it had completed 258 MW of solar projects. [ETEnergyworld.com]

¶ Wind power delivered a record 2815 MW in Northern Ireland and Ireland on 11 January, providing 60% of all the electricity generated on the island, according to System Operator for Northern Ireland. The previous high was 2683 MW set on 28 January 2016. The system operator is working to gain expertise at this level of integration. [reNews]

Wind turbine (reNews image)

¶ French utility company Engie is partnering with the National Renewable Energies Agency in Senegal to speed up development of renewable energy. Engie will provide professional training to local industries, carry out energy performance assessments for companies, and develop solar electric and hot water projects for individuals. [reNews]

¶ Swiss company New Energy Solutions will begin construction of four solar farms in Iran in March, with a combined capacity of 120 MW, as Iran remains solar’s ultimate unknown quantity. Upon completion of the construction phase, NES will own the projects, which will then be connected to Iran’s national grid by operator Tavanir. [pv magazine]

Tehran Sky (Credit: Hamed Saber via Flickr)

¶ A review into tidal lagoons, commissioned by the government of the UK, has given unequivocal backing to the technology and urges BEIS to agree a Contract for Difference for a 320-MW project at Swansea Bay. A large-scale project would cost around £0.50 per household per year over the first 60 years, the report found. [reNews]

US:

¶ New York Governor Andrew Cuomo’s call for wind farms in Long Island waters earned rave reviews from environmental activists. Leaders from the regional energy and ecology sectors are cheering Cuomo’s call for the Long Island Power Authority to approve what would be the nation’s largest offshore wind farm. [Innovate Long Island]

Offshore wind farm (Deepwater image)

¶ As part of Volkswagen’s plea bargain with the US authorities
on software the company put into its diesel vehicles to cheat on emissions tests, VW signed up to an agreed “Statement of Facts.” Because of this, the Justice Department has a very clear idea not only of what the company did wrong, but what it did to conceal the wrongdoing. [BBC]

¶ Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory will feature a giant 70-MW solar farm on the factory’s roof, the largest solar installation on a single rooftop in the world. Tesla’s goal is that the Gigafactory will be powered entirely with renewable energy. This installation will be more than seven times larger than the world’s next largest rooftop solar farm. [Yahoo News]

Tesla’s Nevada Gigafactory

¶ Bills were introduced in the Minnesota Legislature to allow Xcel Energy to build a big power plant in Sherburne County, a project the Public Utilities Commission put on hold in October. Xcel wants to build a 786-MW natural gas-fired plant to replace some of the power lost when it closes two coal-fired plants there. [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

¶ A New York firm says it can decommission the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant for far less money, and in much less time, than previously projected. But nuclear watchdogs of the Citizens Awareness Network say the “seductive” proposal needs intense scrutiny before regulators allow the deal to proceed. [Vermont Public Radio]

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Opinion:

¶ “Canada’s Vast Source of Climate Pollution May Go Bust” • The Canadian oil sands are one of the world’s most important sources of climate pollution, and they are America’s biggest source of imported oil. And they may be about to go bust. The reason is that oil prices need to be above $80 per barrel for mining oil sands to be profitable. [Climate Central]

Oil sands processing in Alberta. (Credit: Kris Krug / flickr)

¶ “If Present Trends Continue, China May Become a Sustainable Development Success Story. (Really!)” • This year has already been characterized by global political uncertainty – and waning confidence in US climate policy. Now China is posed to assume the role of world leader in climate diplomacy and clean-energy finance. [UN Dispatch]

¶ “Renewables Are a Rising Global Tide – and the US Better
Pay Attention” • If the US turns away from the rise of renewable energy, it will be fighting a tide on which others will ride high. Leading the surge will be China, which already has a huge advantage because of its current position at the front of the pack. [Triple Pundit]

A coastal wind farm in the Philippines

World:

¶ Canadian utility Algonquin Power & Utilities Corp has found a new location for its 177-MW wind farm in Saskatchewan with the help of the local utility. The wind park will now seek approval to be built in the Blue Hills area in the southwest, Saskatchewan Power Corp said. The in-service date has been moved to 2020.
[SeeNews Renewables]

¶ Renewable energy solutions provider Suzlon Group said it
has won of 226.8 MW wind power project order from a leading independent power producer. The order consists of 108 units of 2.1 MW capacity. The project would be sited in Andhra Pradesh’s Anantapur district, and is to be completed by March of 2017. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Indian wind farm

¶ Canadian Energy announced its most recent innovation in renewable energy technology with the launch its latest release
of the Containerized Universal Battery technology. Designed and manufactured in Canada, CUB 2.0 will serve as a means to give power to isolated communities across the country and around the world. [Military Technologies]

¶ Clean energy investment worldwide fell by 18% to $287.5 billion last year due to sharp falls in renewable technology prices and less spending on projects by large markets China and Japan, a report from Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. Chinese investment in renewable energy was down 26% from its 2015 high. [Thomson Reuters Foundation]

Solar array on a pond in China (Reuters / Stringer)

¶ Unilever has announced a contract to use biomethane for heating five of its sites in the UK and Ireland. With electricity already coming from certified renewable sources, the purchase of a certified supply of biomethane means that Unilever says it has become carbon neutral (from energy sources) at these five sites. [CIWM Journal Online]

¶ Taiwan enacted a revised law to phase out nuclear power generation by 2025 and increase renewables, a considerable challenge for this resource-poor island. Departure from nuclear power was a campaign pledge of the Taiwanese president. The bill met with no strong opposition during deliberations in the Taiwanese parliament. [Asahi Shimbun]

日本語: 台湾第三原子力発電所
(Photo: Toach japan, Wikimedia Commons)

US:

¶ The latest step in Hawaii’s clean energy evolution will be the deployment of a 20-MW, 5-hour duration battery energy storage system paired with 28-MW of solar in Kaua’i to match peak demand. SolarCity and Tesla also have a project uniting solar with storage, a 52-MWh energy storage system at a 12-MW solar farm. [Energy Storage News]

¶ The Energy Information Administration’s Annual Energy Outlook provides projections of domestic energy markets until 2050, and includes cases with different assumptions of macroeconomic growth, world oil prices, technological progress, and energy policies. It shows the US becoming a net exporter of fossil fuels. [Windpower Engineering]
(This shows information being provided to congress, but before you believe it, please compare it with the table and article linked at the December 12 geoharvey post: [Seeking Alpha].)

EIA Annual Energy Outlook Table

¶ A “groundbreaking study” from by the US Retail Industry Leaders Association and the Information Technology Industry Council ranked all 50 US states based on the ease with which some of America’s “most recognizable brands” are able to buy domestic renewable energy. It connects that ability with economic growth. [CleanTechnica]

¶ The Hawaiian Electric Company, Hawaii’s dominant public utility, has a plan in place to achieve 100% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2050. But recently, the company said it foresees getting to that goal five years earlier than expected. In fact, HECO expects to provide 48% renewable power by 2020. [CleanTechnica]

Solar collectors in Hawaii (Photo: Xklaim, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Duke Energy has announced the site of its newest universal solar power plant, with which it will provide cleaner, smarter energy solutions for Florida customers. The new Suwannee Solar Facility will produce 8.8 MW of solar capacity, which is enough to power about 1,700 average homes, at its peak production. [Satellite PR News]

¶ Exxon Mobil has been ordered to hand over documents related to a Massachusetts investigation into whether it misled investors and the public about the impact of fossil fuels on the climate. The decision by a Suffolk Superior Court judge is a win for the state’s Attorney General, who is looking into possible deception on climate change. [News On 6]

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Science and Technology:

¶ Apple Inc is the most environment-friendly company in the world, according to a report from the non-profit Greenpeace Foundation. Apple retained the top spot for the third year in a row. Google and Facebook, Inc, also earned high marks from the non-profit for their efforts to cut down on greenhouse emissions. [Investopedia]

Drawing wind power

World:

¶ Volkswagen has agreed to a draft $4.3 billion settlement with US authorities over the emissions-rigging scandal. The German car maker also said it would plead guilty to breaking certain US laws. VW said it was in advanced discussions with authorities. The agreement has yet to be approved by VW’s management and supervisory board. [BBC]

¶ Solar energy has been identified as a potential low-cost and highly efficient means of providing electricity to those in off-grid remote areas, but a study has concluded that with little access to financial resources, new business models will be needed to make this happen. More than 1.2 billion people still have no access to electricity. [CleanTechnica]

Off-grid solar in Africa

¶ A report from a distinguished energy expert suggests that spending on renewable energy rather than nuclear power would result in around twice as much low carbon electricity being generated in Scotland. The report points out that based on the costs, the Scottish government would do better if it could fund its own renewable energy program. [Offshore Wind Journal]

¶ Imperial College London has partnered with the climate change charity 10:10 to investigate the use of track-side solar panels to power trains, the two organisations announced. The renewable traction power project will see university researchers look at connecting solar panels directly to the lines that provide power to trains. [The Guardian]

Train lines (Photo: Clynt Garnham / Alamy Stock Photo)

¶ A commercial farm in Kenya has become Africa’s first biogas-powered electricity producer to sell its surplus electricity to the national grid. The Gorge Farm Energy Park’s 2 MW of electricity provides the farm with sufficient surplus to meet the power needs of 5,000-6,000 rural homes, along with heat and fertilizer. [The Star, Kenya]

¶ The United Arab Emirates announced plans to invest 600 billion dirhams ($163 billion) in projects to generate almost half the country’s power needs from renewables. The UAE is a top oil exporter but has taken steps to reduce its dependency on fossil fuels to generate power, including building nuclear facilities. [Geo News, Pakistan]

UAE is investing in solar power.

US:

¶ A memo written by president-elect Donald Trump’s transition team entitled ‘What to expect from the Trump Administration’ reveals the future energy plans of the US, which amount to a “fossil fuel industry wish list”, according to industry watchdog the Center of Media and Democracy. The email lists fourteen goals. [PV-Tech]

¶ The Energy Information Administration expects 24 GW of new utility-scale power generation capacity additions for 2016, with renewables accounting for about 63% or 15 GW. Nearly 60% of the new renewables plants were scheduled to come online in the fourth quarter (Q4), including roughly 8.5 GW of wind and solar PVs. [SeeNews Renewables]

Wind farm in Idaho (Author: Blatant Views, CC BY-SA)

¶ Residents of Vermont’s capital city still have time to vote on what they feel would be the best way for their community to go “net zero.” There are five finalists for designs that would enable Montpelier to reduce its energy use through savings and the increased use of renewable sources of power. Voting ends Thursday. [SFGate]

¶ Great River Energy has agreed to buy the output of a new 300-MW wind project of NextEra Energy Resources LLC in North Dakota. The Emmons-Logan wind farm, with 133 GE turbines, will be located in Emmons and Logan counties and is scheduled to start construction in 2019. Completion is expected by the end of that year. [SeeNews Renewables]

GE wind turbine (Source: General Electric, all rights reserved)

¶ EDF Energies Nouvelles has commissioned four wind farms in the US with a combined capacity of 708.6 MW. The projects are the 225-MW Great Western facility in northeast Oklahoma, the 184-MW Kelly Creek scheme in northeast Illinois, the 174-MW Salt Fork and 125.6-MW Tyler Bluff wind farms both in north Texas. [reNews]

¶ At the 2017 State of the State Address, New York governor Andrew Cuomo proposed a commitment to develop up to 2.4 GW of offshore wind power in the Atlantic Ocean by 2030. He said this will prove critical to achieving the goal of meeting 50% of New York’s electricity needs with renewable sources by 2030.
[SeeNews Renewables]

Senvion turbines (Source: Senvion SE 2014, all rights reserved)

¶ A report by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory affirms findings of the 2015 DOE’s report, Wind Vision, which showed that a future in which wind provides 20% of US electricity in 2030 and 35% in 2050 is achievable and would have significant economic, energy security and health benefits for the nation. [Proud Green Building]

¶ The NRC has unveiled a letter showing that 17 of the country’s nuclear reactors have parts from Areva SA’s Le Creusot forge in France, which is under investigation for allegedly falsifying documents on the quality of its parts. The number of reactors was greater than the nine the NRC had previously disclosed. [Daily Mail]

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Opinion:

¶ “Obama warns Trump against quitting Paris climate deal” An article by President Barack Obama appeared in the journal Science. In it, he tells his successor that scrapping the UN’s 2015 climate pact would lead to economic and diplomatic harm, just as carbon emissions lead to environmental damage. Its text appears here. [Climate Home]

President Obama in the Oval Office (Photo: White House / Flickr)

Science and Technology:

¶ Heavy rains hammered Northern California and Nevada over the weekend, causing floods, power outages, and evacuations. Such atmospheric river storms are nothing new. The West Coast gets 30% to 50% of its annual rainfall from them. But California’s atmospheric river storms are expected to get more frequent as the climate warms. [Grist]

World:

¶ The Green Climate Fund approved grants of $17 million to support the Asian Development Bank’s proposed Pacific Islands Renewable Energy Investment Program. The program involves Papua New Guinea, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Marshall Islands, the Cook Islands, Nauru, Samoa, and Tonga. [EMTV Online]

Samoan solar array

¶ Southern Solar Power Ltd, a subsidiary of US-based SunEdison in Bangladesh, will set up a 200-MW solar power plant in the country. The investment is estimated to be $300 million, and it would be the biggest solar generating plant in Bangladesh. The power will be sold to the Bangladesh Power Development Board. [The Daily Star]

¶ Plans for a pioneering tidal power lagoon in Swansea Bay are expected to be supported by a new government-commissioned report, potentially unlocking a multibillion-pound series of projects harnessing electricity from the rise and fall of the tide around the UK. The review had been seen as a way to kill off the project. [The Guardian]

Swansea Bay tidal lagoon (Artwork: Tidal Lagoon Power/PA)

¶ Tokyo-based Japan Asia Investment Co Ltd announced that it competed three solar PV plants with a combined capacity of 4.3 MW in Mie prefecture, Japan. The three plants were developed together with Renewable Japan Co Ltd and had a total cost of ¥1.57 billion ($13.44 million). Chubu Electric Power Co Inc will buy the power. [SeeNews Renewables]

¶ The 165-MW Belwind 2 offshore wind farm off the coast of Belgium has started generating electricity for the first time. Parkwind, one of the investors in developer Nobelwind, said the first of 51 Vestas V112 3.3-MW turbines is producing power. The wind farm is expected to be completed in the first half of this year. [reNews]

Belwind offshore wind farm (Credit: Parkwind)

US:

¶ Governor Andrew Cuomo made it official, saying that the 2,000-MW Indian Point nuclear power plant will close by April 2021. His office said the closure will have “little to no effect on New Yorkers’ electricity bills.” It indicated the plant can be replaced by 1,000 MW of hydropower because demand has declined. [Times Herald-Record]

¶ Pacific Gas and Electric Company is cautioning that flows from the Crane Valley Dam spillway have increased because unusual amounts of rain have fallen in the area. PG&E’s reservoirs tend to be smaller and at much higher elevations than the state and federal multi-year water storage reservoirs, and they can fill in a normal winter. [Sierra News Online]

Bass Lake (photo courtesy Crane Valley Dam)

¶ Vermont’s new Republican governor said Monday he would stick with his Democratic predecessor’s long-term goal of getting 90% of the energy needed in the state from renewable sources by 2050. For several years, Vermont has been working toward some of the most aggressive renewable energy goals in the country. [BurlingtonFreePress.com]

¶ After eight years with Barack Obama in the White House, over a million US rooftops have solar panels installed. Utility scale solar powers more than 2 million homes. Generating low-carbon electricity employs 600,000 people in the United States, and 1.9 million Americans are employed in energy efficiency. [Energy Matters]

Renewables cost reductions (Source: US DOE)

¶ Exxon Mobil Corp promised nine years ago to stop donating
to groups that spread misinformation about climate change. Yet between 2008 and 2015, the oil giant’s charitable arm gave over $6.5 million to groups that deny that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming, a new analysis by NextGen Climate shows. [Huffington Post]

¶ A new dam is being proposed for California’s Bear River as an adaptation to climate change. The Centennial dam project would capture rainfall at lower elevations to make up for declining snowpack at higher elevations. It would be built in a region of the Sierra Nevada where winter rainfall can be heavy but snowfall is light. [KQED]

Bear River (Image: Flickr)

¶ As part of the company’s renewable growth strategy, Southern Co unit Southern Power announced the acquisition of the Bethel Wind Energy Center in Texas from Invenergy Services. The 276-MW wind farm has 120 wind turbines. Construction began in January of 2016 and should be complete in January of 2017. [Electric Light & Power]

¶ Oliver Schmidt, head of VW’s US environmental regulatory compliance office from 2012 until March 2015, was charged with conspiracy in connection with the VW diesel emissions cheating scandal. He has been detained pending a hearing. Court papers say he knew about the emissions cheating, but chose not to tell US regulators. [BBC]

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World:

¶ The insurance industry is concerned about the costs of climate change. Last year, insurers paid out $50 billion in insured losses from natural disasters. There was a dramatic spike in insured flooding costs, which made up 34% of all insured natural disaster losses. And the greater portion of properties is not ensured for flooding. [CleanTechnica]

Paris flood (Biker Normand, via Wikipedia, some rights reserved)

¶ With the renewable energy plan, by 2020 China expects to see a reduction in 120 million tons of coal used for heating. China’s newly released 13th five-year plan has provisions for renewable energy development calling for promoting use of geothermal energy, wind power and solar energy for winter heating in north China. [teleSUR English]

¶ Scotland set two wind power records at the end of December, according to figures from WWF Scotland. The group said that for the first time, wind turbines generated enough power for all the nation’s electricity needs for four straight days, on December 23 through 26. December 24 saw a record of 74,042 MWh from wind. [Herald Scotland]

Two new wind power records for Scotland

¶ GCL System Integration Technology Co, Ltd, one of the largest solar companies in the world, announced it is investing in Vina Cell Technology Co, Ltd, a Vietnamese solar cell manufacturer, in trade for up to 600 MW of production capacity. GCL-SI will provide solar cell production equipment; and Vina is offering plant facilities. [Your Renewable News]

¶ A group led by Atlantis Resources has won a €20.3 million grant from the European Commission to develop the second phase of the MeyGen tidal energy project off Scotland. The 6-MW facility will demonstrate the technical and commercial viability of drilled foundation systems and larger diameter rotors, Atlantis said. [reNews]

Tidal turbine installation (Image: Atlantis Resources)

¶ French naval defence group DCNS has established a subsidiary focused on marine renewables in partnership with the SPI fund, Technip and BNP Paribas Development. DCNS Energies will be involved in development of tidal power systems, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, and offshore wind using semi-submersible floats. [reNews]

¶ Siemens’ new offshore wind power facility in Hull has shipped its first project components. The Sea Challenger, a jack-up ship specially designed for installing offshore wind turbines, set sail from the newly constructed harbor with towers, blades and nacelles for the Dudgeon offshore wind farm off the Norfolk coast. [Bdaily]

The Sea Challenger

¶ South Korea’s largest offshore wind power plant complex, with 28 turbines and a total capacity of 99.2 MW, will be established near the Saemangeum Seawall. The project is valued at 440 billion won ($367.74 million) and will be financed by private capital. Construction will begin in April and complete in the second half of 2018. [BusinessKorea]

US:

¶ After placing a 201-MW wind farm near Avon, South Dakota, on hold last year, investors are now proposing 13 smaller projects in Bon Homme and Charles Mix counties. Prevailing Winds LLC has filed paperwork with a federal agency regarding the new projects, according to the state Public Utilities Commission. [Yankton Daily Press]

Wind power in the Upper Plains (Courtesy Photo: Metro Graphics)

¶ For 2017, the average cost for small solar installations in the US is seen at around $3.78 (€3.59) per watt, before incentives, down by roughly 4% year-on-year, according to Solar Power Rocks. The group also ranked US states based on the their policies and incentives available for small solar. Massachusetts ranked first. [SeeNews Renewables]

¶ Maui Electric Co produced 35.4% of its power from renewable energy in 2015, up slightly from the previous year. Wind farms provided 23.2%, solar’s share was 8.5%, biomass and bagasse produced 2.7%, and 1% was from biofuel. But Maui’s renewable generation was behind that of the Big Island’s, which stood at 48.7%. [Maui News]

Kaheawa Wind Farm (Ryan Oelke, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Innovative Solar Systems, of Asheville, North Carolina, is once again dominating the solar energy market by having the largest pipeline of projects in development in the Texas market. ISS representatives report that the company has over 50 Utility Scale projects in development that range size from 35 MW to over 200 MW. [Your Renewable News]

¶ A Chinese-born US nuclear engineer pled guilty to helping a Chinese nuclear energy company build reactors in that country using US technology. The Department of Justice said 66-year-old Szuhsiung “Allen” Ho pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bypass regulations on production of nuclear materials outside the US. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

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Science and Technology:

¶ Yellow cedar, a type of tree that thrives in soggy soil from Alaska to Northern California and is valued for its commercial and cultural uses could become a noticeable casualty of climate warming, an independent study in the journal Global Change Biology concluded. It cited snow-cover loss that led to colder soil. [The Japan Times]

Yellow cedars grow along a lake in Washington state. | AP

¶ Alaska’s finances are suffering disproportionately from climate change. Its glaciers lose roughly 42 cubic km (10 cubic miles) of ice per year, its sea ice continues to decline, its shorelines may be eroding at an accelerating rate, its permafrost is melting, and it suffers from forest fires at the greatest rate in 10,000 years. [Ars Technica UK]

World:

¶ Officials in Beijing are creating an environmental police force in a step towards tackling the city’s long-standing smog problem, state media say. The new environmental police would crack down on open-air barbecues, garbage incineration and biomass burning, activities previously overlooked by authorities, among other things. [CNN]

Beijing buildings shrouded in smog

¶ For weeks northern China has been covered in a thick toxic smog. It is one of the worst episodes of air pollution the country has seen, affecting 460 million people. Some cities recorded air quality of 1000 PM2.5, and the WHO considers anything over 25 PM2.5 a health hazard. Estimates say coal causes about 40% of the smog in Beijing. [ABC Online]

¶ Rwanda’s Green Fund expects to reach a milestone of creating 100,000 green jobs this year, according to its program manager. He told Sunday Times that in the next 12 months Rwanda’s Green Fund, a ground-breaking environmental and climate change investment fund, is particularly looking forward to boosting Rwanda’s climate resilience. [The New Times]

The Akanyaru Watershed Protection Project, building terraces and
planting trees to prevent soil erosion and landslides (File photo)

¶ In one of India’s largest tenders for the rooftop solar power projects, 91 companies, including sector majors, lined up to bid in a wide range of tariff – from ₹3 per unit (4¢/kWh) to ₹6.9 per unit. The capital expenditure quoted by the companies is in nominal range of ₹59,000 per kWp ($865/kWp) to ₹79,000 per kWp. [Business Standard]

¶ Dutch railway companies teamed up with energy company Eneco in 2015 to cut train ride emissions. Originally, 2018 was set as the target for changing to 100% renewable power sources. The 100% transition was completed one year ahead of schedule, however, and all Dutch trains are now powered by wind energy. [CleanTechnica]

Dutch train (Image by Sludge G, some rights reserved)

¶ India’s Minister of Power, Coal, New and Renewable Energy, and Mines will dedicate the largest Street Lighting National Program in the world, currently running in the South Delhi Municipal Corporation. The Energy Efficiency Services Limited, a joint venture under the Ministry of Power, is implementing the program. [Business Standard]

¶ Chinese state-owned China Three Gorges Group is spending heavily to buy or build hydro, wind and solar. Flush with cash and willing to tolerate risks that put off older rivals, CTG and other state-owned utilities are expanding abroad in search of new revenue sources as economic growth and electricity demand at home cool. [The Japan Times]

The Chavantes hydroelectric plant in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state (AP)

¶ The government of Sri Lanka has given the green light to the Ceylon Electricity Board to go ahead with much debated 375-MW Wind Power Plant Complex in Mannar. The Sunday Leader has reliably learned that the Asian Development Bank has given a grant to do a comprehensive feasibility study of the entire Mannar Island. [Sunday Leader]

US:

¶ Automobiles are undergoing a big transition, increasingly better, smarter and cleaner. Especially exciting is the expanded portfolio of low and zero emissions vehicles that help protect air quality, increase our nation’s energy security, and reduce our reliance on foreign oil, a win for the U.S. economy all-around. [The Detroit News]

Tesla Model S (Photo: Richard Vogel / AP)

¶ After eight years of development, TerraCOH is planning a plant in North Dakota. It would use CO2 in a geothermal energy system to produce low-cost, clean electricity. The company would use its patented technology for a big underground battery, effectively storing renewable energy from the wind and sun. [Minneapolis Star Tribune]

¶ Since news broke Friday afternoon that Governor Andrew Cuomo reached a tentative deal to close Indian Point nuclear power plant within four years, officials and residents across the state have shared mixed opinions about the controversial subject. Safety, jobs, taxes, and carbon emissions are among the issues. [The Journal News | LoHud.com]

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Opinion:

¶ “China is going all in on clean energy while Trump waffles. How is that making America great again?” • China announced that in the next three years it will invest $361 billion in renewable power, creating 13 million jobs. But the Trump administration talks about renewing an outdated love affair with coal and oil. [Environmental Defense Fund]

Wind farm in Guazhou (Photo: Popolon, Wikimedia Commons)

World:

¶ For the first time ever, the UK generated more electricity from wind than coal in a calendar year, and this led carbon emissions from the sector to drop 20%. Wind generated 11.5% of the UK’s electricity last year, whereas coal contributed just 9.2%, down 59% from the year before, an analysis by the Carbon Brief found. [City A.M.]

¶ China has made low-carbon transport a priority in dealing with climate change. As part of their effort to develop low-emission vehicles, the Chinese government has given significant support to national electric car manufacturers. Even so, their sales are dwarfed by those of a pint-sized competitor: the low-speed electric vehicle. [CleanTechnica]

Low-speed electric vehicle (Image: Dennis Zuev)

¶ London breached its annual air pollution limits five days into the new year, its mayor said. An air monitoring site at Brixton Road in south London began recording levels of nitrogen dioxide above the threshold early Thursday and continued to do so beyond the 18-hour legal limit, according to data from King’s College London. [CNN]

¶ The Spanish government has announced plans to hold a new renewable energy project auction with a capacity of up to 3 GW, in 2017. The Energy Minister said the 3-GW auction is needed so Spain can meet its binding EU target for 2020, that 20% of final energy consumption be sourced from renewable sources. [Climate Action Programme]

Wind turbine

¶ Having been slow to encourage solar deployment actively, compared to other major South American markets, Argentina has now declared 2017 as a “Year of Renewable Energy,” under an official decree. The nation is targeting 20% renewables in its energy mix by 31 December 2025. Auctions of last year alone provided 6%. [PV-Tech]

¶ Grafton Asset Management Inc, which had brought foreign investment into Canada’s oil and gas industry, is looking to add alternative energy to its portfolio for the first time, as it positions itself for the decline of fossil fuels. The company’s CEO worries about the industry’s future, saying, “I do look at it as a sun-setting business.” [Financial Post]

Oil pump at sunset (Eric Healey / Postmedia Network)

¶ The shift towards renewable energy in Europe, particularly wind, is gathering momentum and could soon reach a tipping point. The EU, in partnership with both industry and national governments, is looking to scale-up a number of technologies that could lead to the commercial development of very large offshore windfarms. [Power Technology]

US:

¶ The state of Hawaii could derive more than half of all its electricity from geothermal resources, with the most realistic resource potentials on the Big Island of Hawaii and on Maui. Geothermal could fuel the whole demand of the island of Maui, according to the annual report of the state’s Energy Resources Coordinator. [ThinkGeoEnergy]

Honolulu (source: flickr/ snowpeak, creative commons)

¶ The DOE says that the US electricity system “faces imminent danger” from cyber-attacks and warned that a widespread power outage could be caused by a cyber-attack, undermining “critical defense infrastructure” as well as much of the economy and the health of its people. Grid operators say they are already on top of the problem. [Tyler Morning Telegraph]

¶ The aging Indian Point nuclear power plant just north of New York City would close within four years under a deal being made with Governor Andrew Cuomo. Plant owner Entergy Corp would shut both reactors at the Westchester County facility by April 2021, according to a source familiar with the deal’s details. [Albany Times Union]

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Opinion:

¶ “China cementing global dominance of renewable energy
and technology” • China is cementing its global dominance of renewable energy and supporting technologies, aggressively investing in them both at home and around the globe, leaving countries including the US, UK, and Australia at risk of missing the growing market. [The Guardian]

China, leading the world in renewable energy
(Photo: Tyrone Siu / Reuters)

World:

¶ The International Finance Corporation will invest $125 million (€119 million) in Hero Future Energies, an Indian producer of renewable power that aims at adding 1 GW of greenfield solar and wind capacity in the next 12 months. The investment will allow Hero Future Energies to expand its portfolio and create jobs. [SeeNews Renewables]

¶ Following an earlier decision by the South Korean government to ban the sale of some Volkswagen models (following emissions testing irregularities), authorities in the country have now gone on to ban sales of 10 more models offered by BMW, Nissan, and Porsche, because they also “fabricated documents related to emission tests.” [CleanTechnica]

South Korean skyline (Image by Closenoble, CC BY-SA)

¶ Wind energy company Suzlon said it has won a 105-MW wind power project from Axis Energy Group, based in Hyderabad, India. The project will consist of 50 units of S111 90m tubular tower with rated capacity of 2.1 MW. A Special Purpose Vehicle, Axis Wind Farms Pvt Ltd is undertaking the project, which is to be completed in June. [ETEnergyworld.com]

¶ Australian engineering and infrastructure firm RCR Tomlinson Ltd has won a deal worth over A$155 million (US$113 million) to build a solar park in Northern Queensland, at Sun Metals Corp’s zinc operations. The solar power facility at Townsville will have an initial capacity of 98.5 MW, though this may be expanded. [SeeNews Renewables]

Solar park (Author: Chris Baird, CC BY-SA)

¶ Cleaner, greener energy could mean millions of dollars in savings for Nunavut communities and more self-reliance from the South, according to a study by researchers at the University of Waterloo. The study says some communities could eliminate up to 74% of their greenhouse gas emissions and save as much as C$29.7 million. [Nunatsiaq News]

¶ A proposal to extend the UK offshore wind farm in Thanet by 50% could see cable routes installed at Sandwich Bay. Swedish power company Vattenfall is developing a scheme that will bring the existing and operational wind farm at Margate closer to the coast by 4 km. The development would consist of up to 34 new turbines. [Kent Online]

Thanet Offshore Wind Farm off the coast of Kent

¶ TEPCO has been trying to reactivate the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant, the largest nuclear plant in the world. However, restarting the plant will likely take “several years,” according to the governor of Niigata Prefecture, highlighting difficulties with nuclear disaster reviews sparked by the triple core meltdown of March 2011. [The Japan Times]

US:

¶ Many Louisianans may have been shocked by the grimmer forecasts in the latest edition of the state’s 50-year plan to protect its coast: There is no longer any hope that more land can be built than the Gulf takes each year. Even if the plan works perfectly, the state could lose another 2,800 square miles of its land along the Gulf Coast. [The Lens]

Coast of Louisiana (Photo: Dr Terry McTigue,
NOAA, public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Before becoming Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, currently CEO of ExxonMobil, will be deposed by attorneys representing Our Children’s Trust. The lawyers want to learn what he knew about effects of carbon emissions from fossil fuels and when did he learn it. The young plaintiffs claim their constitutional rights are being violated. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Virginia is seeing its second and third microgrids start up. Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg and the US Defense Logistics Agency at the Fort Belvoir Army base are the latest organizations to embrace the benefits of generating, if needed, all of their power needs independent of the local utility. [Southeast Energy News]

A 104-kW solar array in Eastern Mennonite University’s microgrid

¶ As the president-elect puts together an administration focused on fossil fuels, the investment community is moving full speed in the opposite direction, instead putting their bets on emissions reductions and support for clean energy. Investors holding trillions of dollars in assets dropping fossil fuels in favor of renewables. [Environmental Defense Fund]

¶ Hawaii regulators rejected a plan presented by Hawaiian Electric Co and AES Hawaii to expand the state’s only coal-burning electric generating plant. The commission noted that the proposal was at odds with the state’s renewable energy goals and increasing coal-fired generation is inconsistent with its renewable energy plan. [Pacific Business News]

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Science and Technology:

¶ 2016 was the hottest year on record globally. While the world
is still waiting for confirmation of just how high the record was, there’s a lot of data to digest from the US. Nearly every square inch of the country was dramatically warmer than normal, and 85% of extreme temperature records set in 2016 were record highs. [CleanTechnica]

Percentages of temperature records set that were for hot weather

¶ Evidence the earth experienced a slowdown in global warming over the past couple of decades has been further eroded with a new US study confirming climate change continues unabated. NOAA found the oceans had warmed at the rate of 0.12° per decade since 2000, or nearly twice the previous estimate. [The Sydney Morning Herald]

¶ One of the world’s largest ocean circulation systems may not be as stable as believed, according to a study in the journal Science Advances. In fact, changes in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation – the same deep-water ocean current featured in the movie “The Day After Tomorrow” – could occur quite abruptly. [Science Daily]

A failing Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation would turn the Northern Atlantic Ocean colder. (Credit: © Mats / Fotolia)

World:

¶ India will spend $10 billion annually on power transmission lines to satisfy growing demand in under-served areas, according to the country’s largest private power-grid operator. Its chief executive officer said the central government may spend about $6 billion annually, with the rest coming from the nation’s states. [Times of Oman]

¶ UK wind energy set records for half-hourly, daily and weekly supply during Christmas week, Renewable UK said. National Grid figures show wind supplied 41% of the UK’s electricity needs in a half-hour period on Christmas Day;the previous record was 34%. At that same time, 47% of the UK’s electricity came from renewable sources. [reNews]

London array (Image: reNews)

¶ Iberdrola has completed the excavation of a diversion tunnel
to feed the 118-MW Daivões hydro power station, which is part of the Tâmega project in Portugal. The 400-meter tunnel took less than 100 days to excavate and shore up. Daivões will consist of two turbines with combined power of 114 MW and a 4 MW machine. [reNews]

¶ China will invest ¥2.5 trillion ($361 billion) in renewable power by 2020 as the world’s largest energy market continues to shift away from dirty coal power and towards cleaner fuels, according to the country’s energy agency. The investment will create over 13 million jobs in the sector, the National Energy Administration said. [Huffington Post]

Power plant in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region
(China Stringer Network / Reuters)

¶ Azure Power has commissioned a 150-MW solar plant in the state of Punjab in India. The project, which covers 713 acres of land, was commissioned ahead of schedule and will supply power to Punjab State Power Corp for 25 years. The company said the plant will help electrify the nearby areas leading to an estimated 1000 jobs. [reNews]

¶ Despite its sunny climate, Israel is behind much of the world on development of solar power. The country’s goal is to generate 10% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, up from the current 2.5%. Now, its solar industry is trying to make a leap forward with a large-scale project boasting the world’s tallest solar tower. [CTV News]

Solar tower in the Negev desert (AP / Oded Balilty)

¶ More Australian businesses are investing in solar power than ever before. According to data from the solar consultancy firm Sunwiz, December 2016 was a record investment month, as Australian businesses invested a total of AUS$33 million (US$24 million). Households invested AUS$70 million in December, as well. [ABC Online]

¶ Del Monte Philippines Inc partnered with Global Water Engineering to turn pineapple waste water into renewable energy at its Cagayan de Oro canning plant in the Philippines. The wastewater treatment plant has achieved removal of 93% of organic pollution in its anaerobic reactors, which also power two 1.4-MW generators. [Fresh Fruit Portal]

Green Energy Generator

¶ A government-led rescue of French nuclear group Areva and the wider atomic-energy industry may cost the state as much as €10 billion, but political support is almost certain, regardless of who wins the presidential election in May. Areva supplies three quarters of France’s electricity and employs 220,000 people. [The Globe and Mail]

US:

¶ Enel Green Power North America, Inc, will begin 2017 with
the start of operations at the largest wind project in its portfolio, Cimarron Bend wind farm in Clark County, Kansas. When the 400-MW wind farm is fully operational, the company will manage 1,100 MW of renewable energy capacity in the state. [Renewable Energy Magazine]

Cimarron Bend wind farm

¶ ExxonMobil agreed to provide an investment package worth about $180 million to Rex Tillerson, letting him cash in on benefits that he would have been required to give up in order to serve as President-elect Trump’s top diplomat. The deal includes benefits that ExxonMobil has no legal obligation to provide. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Tesla has begun mass production of lithium-ion battery cells at the Gigafactory. The company said the cost of battery cells will significantly decline due to a number of inherent optimizations and economies of scale. These will enhance yield, lowering the capital investment per Wh of production. The Gigafactory is 35% complete. [CleanTechnica]

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Opinion:

¶ “Trump’s climate-policy rollback may not be easy” • The US treasury is being offered millions in wind energy project bids. The wind industry creates huge numbers of jobs, and wind-farm technician is America’s fastest-growing occupation. The US President-elect’s promise of a rollback on climate-change policy may not come easy. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Wind farm

Science and Technology:

¶ Renewable energy is on the rise, with the biggest development being the Paris Climate Agreement that all UN members signed. However, a study by researchers at Duke University indicates that green technology proliferation needs to increase by a factor of ten in order to have any lasting effect on reducing greenhouse gasses. [EconoTimes]

¶ Blooming rhododendrons, with their conspicuous displays of deep red or pale pink flowers, have always heralded the arrival of spring in the Himalayas. Now, however, this has undergone a dramatic change, as peak flowering season is early February to mid-March, instead of the spring months from March to May. [eco-business.com]

Rhododendrons in Nepal (By Andrew Miller, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

World:

¶ China has slapped millions of dollars worth of fines on alleged offenders for violating anti-pollution rules, according to state media. The Ministry of Environmental Protection has punished more than 500 Chinese companies and around 10,000 car-owners for alleged violations, levying about $35 million worth of fines. [CNN]

¶ Ethiopia has enjoyed a decade of strong growth, and to sustain the momentum, its government is pressing ahead with ambitious development plans. Clean energy is core to the mission. Ethiopia was among the most daring signatories to the Paris Agreement on climate change, committing to cut carbon emissions by 64% by 2030. [CNN]

Ethiopian wind farm

¶ Around half of the electricity generated in the UK during the months of July 2016 through September 2016 came from “low carbon electricity” installations, including wind energy, solar energy, biomass, and nuclear energy, according to recent reports. Coal’s share of generation dropped to just 3.6% in Q3 2016, down from 16.7% in Q3 2015. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Investments in renewables are starting to pay off in Morocco.
A new report published by the Mediterranean Forum of Institute of Economic Sciences claims that the renewable energy sector could create between 270,000 and 500,000 jobs for the country in two decades. Scarcity of water is also seen as a major, related economic issue. [ZME Science]

Solar panels in Morocco (Image: Isofoton / Wiki Commons)

¶ Bangladesh has been a pioneer of both micro finance and micro solar. Natural complements, their combination has led to a boom in what’s being called “swarm electrification,” development of local nanogrids and microgrids that allow solar homeowners to sell surplus electrical power directly each other via peer-to-peer networks. [Microgrid Media]

¶ Wind turbine blade manufacturer LM Wind Power (Kolding, Denmark) plans to be carbon neutral by 2018. The company will begin by sourcing 100% of its electricity from renewable energy sources during 2017. LM Wind Power looks to set new standards to accelerate the de-carbonization of the wind industry’s own supply chain. [CompositesWorld]

LM supplies blades for turbines.

¶ The Japanese government is struggling to decide the future of Tepco’s Fukushima Daini (No 2) nuclear power plant, which has been suspended since the March 2011 disaster. There have been increasing calls for decommissioning the power plant, which is located just a few kilometers south of the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi. [The Japan Times]

¶ Renewable power generation in Portugal, not including large hydro, surged to 120.1 GWh on January 2. Wind power output for the day reached 96.7 GWh. Portugal’s wind power generation represents around 25% of national consumption. In the first nine months of 2016, renewables supplied 61% of the country’s demand. [SeeNews Renewables]

Portuguese wind farm (Image: Suzlon Group, All Rights Reserved)

US:

¶ Allete Clean Energy announced plans to work with Montana-Dakota Utilities to expand the Thunder Spirit wind farm in North Dakota. They aim to reach the full 150-MW permitted capacity of the facility, partly developed in 2014 and 2015. Major construction on the $85 million project expected to start in May 2018. [Windpower Engineering]

¶ 2016 is shaping up to be a milestone year for energy, and when the final accounting is done, one of the biggest winners is likely to be solar power. For the first time, more electricity-generating capacity from solar power plants is expected to have been built in the US than from natural gas and wind, data from the DOE show. [AlterNet]

A solar power plant in San Antonio (Credit: Duke Energy / flickr)

¶ Ohio Governor John Kasich is not known as a champion of the environment, but apparently he knows a good deal when he sees one. The Republican governor vetoed a bill that would have undercut Ohio’s goals for renewable energy, explaining the veto by noting the importance of renewables to the state’s economy. [CleanTechnica]

¶ NorthWestern Energy entered into an agreement with WKN Montana II to purchase the energy, capacity, and environmental attributes from the 80-MW Vivaldi Springtime Wind project. The project is to be developed in south-central Montana. The price agreed to be paid for the wind farm’s power is $37.63 per MWh. [Windpower Engineering]

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Science and Technology:

¶ Cruise lines are exploring alternative fuels, which, in addition to LNG, include battery power and fuel cells. Battery technology has been advancing rapidly over the last few years, and having improved storage capacity, such batteries could be practical for marine applications, pending the operating profile of a vessel. [Cruise Industry News]

The Viking Lady of Eidesvik Shipping has run a
testing program using a molten carbonate fuel cell.

¶ The field of “attribution science” has made immense progress in the last five years. Researchers can now tell people how climate change impacts them, and not in 50 or 100 years, but today. Scientific American interviewed Friederike Otto, deputy director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. [PBS NewsHour]

¶ By century’s end, the number of summer storms that produce extreme downpours could increase by 200% to 400% across parts of the US, a peer-reviewed study says. The study, published in Nature Climate Change, also finds that the intensity of individual extreme rainstorms could increase by as much as 70% in some areas. [Daily Comet]

(Image: National Center for Atmospheric Research)

¶ Widespread local plant and animal species extinctions are already occurring as a result of anthropogenic climate change, research from the University of Arizona has found. It showed that local extinctions have now already occurred in 47% of the 976 species analyzed in the study, as a result of climate change caused by human activity. [CleanTechnica]

World:

¶ Almost all Costa Rica’s electricity was produced by renewable energy in 2016. The Costa Rican Electricity Institute said that around 98.1% of the country’s electricity came from numerous renewable resources. These included large hydropower facilities, geothermal plants, wind turbines, solar panels, and biomass plants. [The Independent]

Reventazon River dam (Ezequiel Becerra / AFP / Getty)

¶ A solar farm scheme in Soham, a small town in the English county of Cambridgeshire, is generating power and more than a £1 million a year for County Council, once the financing is paid off. From last week the Council’s 60 acre site near Triangle Farm began producing enough energy to power around 3,500 homes. [Cambridge News]

¶ According to preliminary figures from the Power Trading Chamber, Brazil’s December wind power output rose by 30.5% on the year to 3,904 average megawatts (MWa). Among other renewable sources, hydro and solar power generation showed growth in the period also, reaching 48,018 MWa and 3 MWa, respectively. [SeeNews Renewables]

Wind turbines in Brazil (Author: josep, Creative
Commons, Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic)

¶ More than 50,000 solar power systems have been installed in Scotland. At least 49,000 homes and 1,000 business premises in Scotland now have solar panels; one, Mackies Of Scotland’s solar farm, is 1.8-MW. And there are about 200 community-led solar PV schemes, with a combined installed capacity of 2 MW. [Energy Matters]

¶ Two world-leading clean energy projects have opened in the south Indian state of Tamil Nadu. An industrial plant is capturing the CO2 emissions from a coal boiler and using it as a chemical for making baking powder. And just 100 km away is the world’s biggest solar farm, making power for 150,000 homes on a 10 sq km site. [BBC]

The world’s largest solar farm at Kamuthi in southern India

¶ India has a pipeline of around 14 GW of utility scale solar projects, about 7.7 GW is expected to be commissioned in the year. This would represent growth of around 90% over 2016. Combined with 1.1 GW of expected rooftop solar capacity, India should add a total of 8.8 GW in 2017, ranking it behind only China and the USA. [EnergyInfraPost]

¶ Swedish tidal kite developer Minesto has procured subsystems for its 500-kW Deep Green commercial device to be installed off the North Wales coast later this year. The components include the so-called microgrid system buoy, rear nacelle, tether rope and fairing. The Deep Green device is scheduled to be deployed by autumn. [reNews]

Deep Green (Image: Minesto)

US:

¶ Looking back on 2016 for the US solar industry, though final data is not yet in, 2016 was clearly boom time. While the market has grown every year in the 21st century, when final numbers are published the volume of the US market is expected nearly to have doubled, from just over 7 GW in 2015, to 13-14 GW in 2016. [pv magazine USA]

¶ New England policymakers hope to reach agreement in 2017 on revised market rules for state clean energy policies. With looming threats to federal carbon emissions action, New England is moving ahead with its plans to decarbonize through power purchase agreements and other means under the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. [RTO Insider]

Daniel-Johnson Dam and Manic-5
Generating Station(Photo: Hydro-Québec)

¶ Coastal Carolina officials may not be willing to prepare for climate change until it’s too late, a new study says. A researcher from NC State University surveyed local officials in 20 coastal counties and found that knowledge of the science behind climate change didn’t make officials more willing to prepare for impacts like sea-level rise. [WUNC]

¶ This year continued the acceleration of the permanent shutdowns of US nuclear plants. Fort Calhoun closed down in 2016. Entergy announced Palisades would close in 2018. Both reactors at Diablo Canyon will close by 2025. Five reactors in Illinois and New York threatened to shut down unless they got bailouts. [OB Rag]
(Closing dates in 2019 for Pilgrim and Oyster creek had already been announced as 2016 began.)

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Opinion:

¶ “Climate change in 2016: the good, the bad, and the ugly”
This past year had so many stories involving human-caused climate change. Here is a summary of some of the high points, from my perspective. By “high points” I don’t necessarily mean good. Some of these high points are bad and some are downright ugly. [The Guardian]

California wildfire made worse by drought
(Photograph: Noah Berger/AP)

¶ “Failed energy?” • In 1973, President Richard Nixon pledged to make the US energy-independent by building 1,000 nuclear power plants – touted by proponents as a source of inexpensive clean energy – by the year 2000. Opposition leaders, such as Paul Gunter, mobilized organizations opposed to nuclear power. [Fairport-E.Rochester Post]

Science and Technology:

¶ Such extreme weather events as droughts, wildfires, heat waves, and intense rainstorms, all occur naturally. But climate change is now increasing their frequency and magnitude. Flooding in Paris and the Arctic heat wave are just two instances of the events of 2016 for which climate change contributed to extreme weather. [Scientific American]

Flood in Paris (Credit: Getty Images)

¶ Despite the hype, batteries aren’t the cheapest way to store energy on the grid. Lithium-ion batteries are attractive as they operate effectively at small scales, are lightweight and have good round-trip efficiency, but they are still expensive per unit of storage capacity. We should include pumped hydro in our considerations. [Cosmos]

World:

¶ India will generate as much as 56.5% of its electricity from non-fossil fuel sources by 2027, the government has estimated in a draft energy plan. Besides the coal-fired plants that are already being built, the country does not need to build new ones, it said. This puts India far ahead of its Paris commitment of 40% by 2030. [India Climate Dialogue]

Fast progress in India (Photo by Thomas Kohler)

¶ In Allahabad, a city in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, the district’s reserve police lines will run on solar power following a state government nod to the ‘Green Police Line’ project of the city police. The objective behind this initiative is to harness solar power and reduce the electricity bills. A total of 130 kW will be installed. [NYOOOZ]

¶ The fight for basic energy in Australia has taken a new twist with news from Scotland that they’ve increased local renewable power owned by communities, and they’ve already exceeded their 2020 target, too. In Australia, however, there is resistance based on a shiftless, outdated mindset, and some pretty lousy economics. [Digital Journal]

A wee bit of renewable power in Scotland
(Photo: paul birrell, CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons)

US:

¶ The Brookings Institution reported that between 2000 and 2014, 33 states and the District of Columbia cut carbon emissions while expanding their economies. Some of the states are run by Republican legislatures, including Alaska, Georgia, Tennessee and West Virginia. The states may lead the country on climate change. [Ledger Independent]

¶ A solar farm that is slated to generate about 5% of the energy for the Hawaiian island of Kauai is set to power up early this year, according to representatives from the Kauai Island Utility Cooperative. The solar farm, consisting of 55,000 solar panels, will have the capacity to generate up to 22,000 MWh of power. [Thegardenisland.com]

Solar farm in Koloa (Courtesy of SolarCity)

¶ The TVA has two programs to provide customers with clean power through sale of green power or renewable energy credits. The Green Power Switch program is designed primarily for residential customers. The Southeastern Renewable Energy Credit program is better suited for commercial and industrial customers. [Knoxville News Sentinel]

¶ A report from E2 says clean energy can be a huge economic opportunity for Nevada in 2017 if lawmakers make the sector a priority. Analysts from the nonpartisan business group, which supports the green economy, found that clean energy supports 2.5 million jobs nationwide, including many offered by Nevada employers. [Public News Service]

15,000 Nevadans work in clean energy. (MT Aero)

¶ Vega Biofuels, Inc, announced that following the successful evaluation of the company’s Bio-Coal product, completed by Western Research Institute, the Company has received requests for samples from power companies all over the world interested in performing their own independent testing prior to placing orders. [Military Technologies]

¶ Federal regulators are questioning elements of NextEra Energy Seabrook nuclear power plant’s plan for monitoring the concrete degradation condition known as alkali-silica reaction. The NRC’s approval of the monitoring program is part of the commission’s acceptance of NextEra’s aging management program at Seabrook Station. [Eagle-Tribune]

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Opinion:

¶ “For China, Climate Change Is No Hoax – It’s a Business and Political Opportunity” • Chinese leaders are taking aggressive action to cut carbon emissions. Reasons go past air quality in their nation’s cities and include market share in promising export markets for green technologies and “soft power” in international relations. [DeSmog]

Shanxi wind farm (credit Hahaheditor12667, creative commons)

¶ “Leveraging Technology To Settle The Climate Change Debate” • The great irony of the climate change challenge is that the solutions humanity needs to leverage to reduce emissions at a rate necessary to avert catastrophic climate change already exist. Not only that, many of these technologies can compete on the basis of cost alone. [CleanTechnica]

Science and Technology:

¶ University of Delaware oceanographer Andreas Muenchow stood before Congress in 2010 and balked on climate change. He said he wasn’t sure. He needed more evidence. But he recently decided to see what was happening in Greenland for himself, in a project to study the ice shelf intensively. He has returned, no longer a skeptic. [NOLA.com]

Water rushes through a deep gully into a river on Petermann Glacier. (Must Credit: Washington Post photo by Whitney Shefte)

World:

¶ If the broad policy commitments of various countries are implemented, coal will lose its rank as the dominant fuel for power generation to renewables by 2040, the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook forecasts. It says plainly, “[T]he boom is over: global coal demand declined in 2015 for the first time since the late 1990s.” [POWER magazine]

¶ Deforestation and climate change have decimated the available supply of wood that is used for traditional roof construction in the Sahel region of West Africa. One creative enterprise based on an architectural technique from the ancient Nubia is bringing latter-day Sub-Saharan Africa an offer of superior homes at very low cost. [CNN]

The Nubian vault program aims to stimulate the local economy.
It has trained over 500 masons and generated over $2 million.

¶ According to meteorological reports, rainfall in Sri Lanka declined declined drastically in 2016 compared to previous years. As a result, meteorologists have warned that the country may face a severe drought in 2017. This could have a serious impact on the country’s electricity generation, agriculture and other areas. [Sunday Leader]

¶ Egypt’s Ministry of Electricity and Renewable Energy has a plan to boost the country’s use of renewable energies. Their plan is to hit a benchmark of 20% by 2022 for domestic power use. Recent events, however, tell a complex story of the country’s struggle to make progress in the face of financial headwinds. [Gulf News Journal]

US:

¶ An electric utility in Vermont says it has found malware code allegedly used by Russian hackers on one of its company laptops. The Burlington Electric Department said it had taken “immediate action to isolate” the computer, which was not connected to the electrical grid. The government had alerted them to the “Grizzly Steppe” code. [BBC]

¶ New York City now has a continuous 9-mile, northbound bikeway from downtown Brooklyn up into the Bronx – running across the Manhattan Bridge, up through First Avenue, and then over the Willis Avenue Bridge. “Bikeway” apparently means protected bike lanes – not just the common, one-white-stripe variety. [CleanTechnica]

New York City bikeway (Photo: David Meyer | Streetsblog NYC)

¶ It looks like the US is about to get much more serious about developing its vast wave energy potential. In the past, researchers have worked at several relatively modest sites in Hawaii and the Pacific Northwest, but now the DOE is funding for a new, $40 million utility scale test site in the waters off the coast of Oregon. [CleanTechnica]

¶ The risk of flooding in the US is changing regionally, according to University of Iowa engineers. They determined that the threat of flooding is generally growing in the northern half of the US and declining in the southern half, as regional climates change. The American Southwest and West, meanwhile, are experiencing decreasing flood risk. [ScienceBlog.com]

Regional flood risks – please click on the image to enlarge it.

¶ The Washington Electric Cooperative, based in Marietta, Ohio, partnered with generation and transmission provider Buckeye Power, to install a 50-kW solar array for the co-op’s members through a Buckeye Power community solar program called OurSolar. The program aims to install a total of 2.1 MW with Ohio co-ops. [Parkersburg News]

¶ Utility regulators in New York this week signaled continued support for a “clean energy” plan that would subsidize three nuclear power plants for twelve years as a “bridge to renewables.” The New York Public Service Commission rejected or delayed 17 petitions to reconsider aspects of its Clean Energy Standard. [MassLive.com]

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Science and Technology:

¶ The World Meteorological Organization is expected to declare 2016 the hottest year in recorded history next month, just as the United States prepares to inaugurate a president who questions if climate change is even real. While the election of Donald Trump has stunned the world, record warmth no longer feels surprising. [The Recorder]

Traffic on the 101 Freeway in Los Angeles
(Photo: Al Seib / Los Angeles Times / TNS)

¶ Siberian permafrost is one of the things being hardest hit by climate change. Now, in addition to the melting permafrost causing mass die-offs of reindeer and resurrecting long-dead strains of “zombie anthrax”, it appears the very cities built on it are also in imminent danger, according to new Russian-US research. [IFLScience]

World:

¶ Vestas secured two orders for turbines totaling 74.15 MW for wind farms in China. The state-owned power company China Huadian Corp ordered seven V117 3.45-MW machines for a project in Fujian province. Vestas also won a turbine supply contract for a total of 50 MW of V110 2.2-MW models with an unnamed company. [reNews]

Vestas V117 3.3-MW wind turbines (credit: Vestas)

¶ Knapton Green Energy submitted plans for a renewable energy center to North Yorkshire County Council. The company wants to build the it on 10-acres of a landfill, saying it would generate enough electricity to power 16,000 homes by using advanced technology to create energy from waste biomass that cannot be recycled. [Darlington and Stockton Times]

¶ The Energy Agency of Italy, Gestore dei Servizi Energetici released a list of projects that won offtake contracts in an auction for up to 870 MW of power renewable generation capacity. The auction was launched in June 2016. Enel Green Power won the geothermal bid for a 20-MW geothermal project in Tuscany. [ThinkGeoEnergy]

Bagnore 3 plant, Tuscany, Italy (source: Enel Green Power)

¶ North Queensland is becoming a leader in renewable energy development with construction of three of its biggest solar farms due to start next year. They include the $155 million Sun Metals solar farm, ESCO Pacific’s 135-MW solar farm in the Upper Ross, and the Clare Solar Farm, which will supply enough power for 42,000 homes. [Townsville Bulletin]

¶ China plans to spend 3.5 trillion yuan ($503 billion) by 2020, expanding its high-speed railway system. The expansion will see the network grow to 30,000 km (18,650 miles), according to recent reports that followed a State Council Information Office briefing in Beijing. The network would connect 80% of major Chinese cities. [CleanTechnica]

High-speed rail map of China

¶ In a statement at a gathering of scientists, the Pope said, “there has never been such a clear need for science” to inform political decisions. The Pontiff’s message seemed directed at president-elect Donald Trump, who has signaled that the United States will no longer play a leadership role on the issue of climate change. [The Alternative Daily]

US:

¶ A way to incentivize the use of clean energy like solar after dark, instead of gas peakers, to cover peak loads was proposed in a white paper commissioned by Arizona’s Residential Utility Consumer Office. It suggests revision of state Renewable Energy Standards aimed at using energy storage to match grid demand better after dark. [CleanTechnica]

Crescent Dunes via Wikimedia

¶ Electricity prices from Boston to Dallas plunged this year as cheap natural gas cut fuel costs, and wind and solar alternatives came online. Consumers also used less electricity for the second straight year, despite a summer heat wave, amid an industrial slowdown and growing awareness of ways to boost energy efficiency. [Bloomberg]

¶ Enel Green Power has been working to make its geothermal resources in Fallon, Nevada, and Cove Fort, Utah, more efficient by combining them with other renewable power sources. In its most recent endeavor in Cove Fort, Enel cleverly combines hydroelectric power with geothermal power for the first time in North America. [Ars Technica]

Enel Green Power’s Cove Fort plant (Image: Enel Green Power)

¶ Southern Co, a unit of Southern Power, announced entering an agreement with Renewable Energy Systems Americas to develop jointly about 3,000 MW across 10 projects. The projects will have commercial operation dates in 2018 through 2020. Southern Co also agreed to purchase wind turbines from Siemens and Vestas. [PennEnergy]

¶ Despite the Obama administration’s commitment to curb CO2 emissions, nuclear plants have been retiring. Now the Nuclear Energy Institute, is asking the incoming Trump administration to take steps both to improve the economic prospects of existing plants and to improve the chances for new nuclear reactors. [Electric Light & Power]

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Opinion:

¶ “Transforming the Future of Energy” • These are extraordinary times for renewable energy. Records are broken, commitments are made, and setbacks occur almost on a weekly basis. The ‘big picture’ trend is for sharp falls in the unit cost of solar. Solar energy is becoming more attractive, and this is driving adoption rates. [Blue & Green Tomorrow]

Tourists visiting the Tauern wind park in Austria
(Photo by  Kwerdenker, CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ “Solar Power Is Not Merely Least Expensive” • We’ve seen a lot of commentary on the fact that utility-scale solar power has become the least expensive source of electricity in many places. There is more than that to be found in LCOE analysis, however, and it implies that solar and wind power have greater value than cost data shows. [CleanTechnica]

World:

¶ The government of Argentina’s Mendoza province will invest over $230 million (€221 million) in 11 renewable energy projects with contracts secured in the RenovAr auctions, national news agency Telam said. About 160 MW of capacity will be built by local companies partnering with the province’s energy company Emesa. [SeeNews Renewables]

Power lines in Argentina

¶ Albuquerque-based Rio Grande Renewables has completed what is being called the largest microgrid in Central America, a project with a capacity of 276 kW/500 kW PV+storage in Costa Rica. The system provides peak demand reduction by smoothing out variability and offers critical system back-up power in the event of an outage. [pv magazine USA]

¶ Conservationists teamed up with the green energy industry to demand that the Scottish Government sets a new target to ensure half the country’s power comes from renewables by 2030. Trade body Scottish Renewables and WWF Scotland have made the call following what they call a “landmark” year for renewable energy in Scotland. [Energy Voice]

Tidal turbine (Copyright Nova Innovation Ltd)

¶ Christmas Day of 2016 was the greenest on record for energy generation, according to the power group Drax. The company said more than 40% of the electricity generated on the day came from renewable sources, the highest ever; 75% of that was wind power. It compared with 25% on Christmas Day in 2015, and 12% in 2012. [The Guardian]

¶ About 300,000 Scottish homes are powered with 595 MW of clean energy thanks to the government’s support of community and locally-owned renewable projects, a government report says. That is a 17% increase from the last report, in September 2015, when the renewable operating capacity was estimated to be 508 MW. [EcoWatch]

PVs on a church (Photo credit: Eco-Congregation Scotland)

¶ Toshiba shares has fallen over three straight days of heavy losses. The company has now had more than 40% of its value wiped off since 26 December. It comes after the firm’s chairman apologized and warned that its US nuclear business, which brings in about a third of its revenue, may be worth less than previously thought. [BBC]

US:

¶ Two weeks after officials in two dozen states asked Donald Trump to kill the Clean Power Plan, another group of state officials is urging him to save it. Democratic attorneys general in 14 states sent a letter to Trump asking him to preserve Obama’s Clean Power Plan, New York’s Attorney General announced. [NWAOnline]

Air pollution

¶ The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources removed language from its public website that acknowledged the scientific consensus that human activity is the main cause of climate change. Republicans, who control the state government, had previously limited their attacks on renewable power to what they claim is high cost. [Reedsburg Times Press]

¶ A group that studied Maine’s biomass industry recommended that lawmakers extend the state renewable energy purchasing requirements and that policymakers take a broad view of the state’s forest economy. They recommend permitting electric lines “for persons other than transmission and distribution utilities.” [Bangor Daily News]

Unloading wood chips from a truck (Gabor Degre / BDN)

¶ The New York Power Authority, the nation’s largest state public power organization, says it has completed work at the Franklin County substation that connects 77.7 MW from the Jericho Rise Wind farm to the New York power grid. The wind farm, located in the towns of Chateaugay and Belmont, has 37 wind turbines. [North American Windpower]

¶ US energy-related CO2 emissions totaled 2,530 million metric tons in the first six months of 2016. This is the lowest emissions level for the first six months of any year since 1991, as mild weather and changes in the fuels used to generate electricity contributed to the overall decline in energy-related emissions. [PennEnergy]

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

¶ The Davis-Besse Nuclear Power Station in Ottawa County, Ohio could soon be closed. Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp, which owns the plant, is planning to sell or close it and several others in 2017 or early 2018 unless state officials change energy regulations that would make it financially feasible to keep the plants running. [WKYC-TV]

¶ The company that is looking to buy the closed Vermont Yankee nuclear plant says it hopes to demolish it and clean up the site more than 30 years sooner than its current owner had planned. NorthStar Group Services Inc told state regulators it hopes to finish the job by 2026, more than 30 years sooner than Entergy Corp planned. [Electric Light & Power]

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Opinion:

¶ “Solar is Clean, Popular and Under Attack” • Let’s start with the good news. Solar energy is growing and more popular than ever. … Now here’s the bad news. As solar power has grown, it has increasingly been attacked by entrenched energy interests who see rooftop solar as an existential threat to their bottom line. [Gotham Gazette]

Solar panel installation (SolarCity)

¶ “The French nuclear outages of 2016: the backstory” • While nuclear power is often presented as the only reliable and stable low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels, the technology can also be subject to long periods of uncertainty. This year, 22 French nuclear reactors were taken offline unexpectedly due to a single common safety issue. [ICIS]

Science and Technology:

¶ Momentum for the climate is building in more ways than one. Earth’s climate flashed red alert several times this year with symptoms of dis-ease. But at the same time it can be argued an inflection point has been breached in both human resolve and the energy economy needed to slow and eventually reverse Climate Change. [WPEC]

800 thousand years of CO2

World:

¶ The global market for boilers, turbines, and generators may decrease from a cumulative $318 billion during the 2010-2015 period to $241 billion between now and 2020, according to a report from GlobalData. The report says an increased focus on renewable energy sources and environmental issues will drive the decrease. [PennEnergy]

¶ Mexico’s installed clean power capacity reached 20,160 MW at the end of June 2016, and the country is preparing for solid growth in solar and onshore wind power over the coming years. Clean power plants produced 30.6 TWh in the 12 months under review, accounting for 19.68% of the country’s total generation. [SeeNews Renewables]

Solar park in Mexico (Author:
Presidencia de la República Mexicana, CC BY-SA)

¶ The number of renewable energy projects in Morocco grew by 40% over the first ten months of 2016, data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance shows. Partly due to this growth, electric generation in the country rose 2.3% year-on-year from January till October, with independent power generation rising by 3.6% on the year. [SeeNews Renewables]

¶ By all yardsticks, 2016 was a watershed year for India, when solar tariff slumped to ₹4 per unit (6¢/kWh) and wind projects received a major push. The government is set to switch gears in 2017 to make India a hub for one of the largest installations of clean energy sources, as prepares to achieve 175 GW of clean energy by 2022. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Wind turbines at sunset

¶ The head of research, technology and innovation for Engie
SA thinks the cost of solar power will drop below $10/MWh (1¢/kWh) before 2025 in the world’s sunniest places. An Engie study of the Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur region showed it could run entirely on renewable energy for about 20% less than the price of electricity today. [Gas 2.0]

US:

¶ The Amazon Wind Farm US East, located on 22,000 acres of farmland near Elizabeth City, North Carolina, is the first utility-scale wind farm in the state and maybe the Southeast US. By the start of the New Year, it will be churning out electricity. The wind farm’s 104 turbines sit on land leased from 60 local landowners. [Digital Journal]

Wind power may be the future for Southeastern US.

¶ Tesla and Panasonic have revealed their plans to start making PV cells and modules in Buffalo, New York. The new factory is already under development by none other but SolarCity Corporation, which was recently acquired by Tesla. Tesla and Panasonic are also working together in the battery megafactory. [The Green Optimistic]

¶ Eversource Energy invested $940 million in 2016 to improve and maintain the Massachusetts power grid, the company announced this week. The stated goal of the grid modernization effort is to increase the “efficiency, reliability and resiliency” of the electric system and make it less vulnerable to weather-related outages. [MassLive.com]

Power grid maintenance and upgrades (Republican File)

¶ Connecticut regulators gave the final permit it needs to a proposed 63.3-MW energy generation complex powered by fuel-cells, the project’s manager said. The state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection issued an air permit for the construction and operation of the Beacon Falls Energy Park. [Torrington Register Citizen]

¶ DTE Energy, a Detroit-based diversified energy company, says that its Pinnebog Wind Park in Huron County, Michigan, has now begun commercial operation. The wind project features 30 turbines and has the ability to produce 50 MW of renewable energy – enough to power more than 22,000 homes. [North American Windpower]

Wind turbines (Photo by NOAA Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory, public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Acciona Energy announced that its 93-MW San Roman Wind Farm had begun commercial operation. The facility is able to power more than 30,000 Texas homes. The project is expected also to generate $30 million in tax revenues during its 25-year lifespan in addition to $25 million-plus in lease payments to landowners. [Brownsville Herald]

¶ As he prepares to leave office, Governor Peter Shumlin of Vermont says he is confident that the regional and state economy is headed in the right direction even without Vermont Yankee’s 600-plus jobs in the mix. He says the state is better off without 605 MW of nuclear power production, because of renewables and efficiency. [Commons]

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Opinion:

¶ “The Arctic Year in Review” • Rising temperatures, dropping oil prices, and tightening ties between the United States and Canada all helped create some of the Arctic’s most noteworthy happenings in 2016. At the start of the year, the world had just gone through a record-breaking year for heat. But things just go hotter. Here’s a recap. [News Deeply]

Ulukhaktok, Northwest Territories (Photo by Elaine Anselmi)

World:

¶ Sweden has generated more energy from wind power than
it ever has before. Nearly 5.7 million kWh of wind power was generated as the country harvested the effects of “Storm Urd” and intense weather across the southern parts of the country. It smashed through the previous record, beating it by more than half a million kWh. [The Independent]

¶ Work on 22 wind power projects is underway at Gharo-Keti Bandar and Hyderabad in Sindh, in Pakistan. The projects are in a wind corridor and have a production capacity of 1,530 MW of electricity. According to media reports, nine wind projects are in the final stages of development and another nine are currently under construction. [Daily Times]

Wind power in Pakistan

¶ In France, Bureau Veritas has published a set of guidelines, NI 631 Certification Scheme for Marine Renewable Energy Technologies. It covers floating offshore wind turbines; current and tidal turbines, including sea and river turbines; wave energy converters; and ocean thermal energy converters. [Cruise Industry News]

¶ Indian firm Suzlon Energy Ltd agreed to sell AMP Solar a 49% stake in a company that would execute a 15-MW solar PV project in Telangana state. Under a 25-year power purchase agreement, the solar park will sell its power output to the Telangana State Southern Power Distribution Company Ltd for ₹5.599/kWh (8.2¢/kWh). [SeeNews Renewables]

Solar PV park (Author: mdreyno, CC BY-SA)

¶ Pure & Better Energy, a Danish renewable energy project developer, recently secured 20 MW of solar PV capacity at the inaugural Denmark-Germany cross-border auction. The cost, considered a record low for Europe, is set at a premium of DKK 12.89/MWh ($1.81/MWh) over the Danish market spot power price. [pv magazine]

¶ Wind power generation in Estonia reached a peak of 255.84 MW on December 26, enough to meet 27.9% of current demand. Total wind output for the day stood at 5,046.66 MWh, surpassing the national transmission operator’s forecast for 4,478.9 MWh. Estonia has long surpassed its 2020 target for renewable energy. [SeeNews Renewables]

Wind turbines in Estonia (Author: Alejandro Erickson, CC BY-SA)

¶ Toshiba Corp may have to write off “several billion” dollars because of Westinghouse Electric Company’s purchase a year ago of CB&I Stone & Webster, a US construction firm that specializes in nuclear power projects. Westinghouse had assumed full responsibility for all AP1000 projects under the purchase agreement. [World Nuclear News]

¶ Italy’s energy agency Gestore dei Servizi Energetici released the list of projects, 869.8 MW of capacity, that won the right to sign offtake contracts in a renewable energy auction. The auction, launched in June, includes a 30-MW offshore wind farm, Italy’s first, planned for an area off the coast of Taranto. [SeeNews Renewables]

Wind turbines (Author: Staffan Enbom, CC BY-SA)

US:

¶ Norwegian oil and gas company Statoil has won the offshore wind lease to 79,350 acres off the coast of New York. The winning bid was $42.5 million. The lease gives Statoil the potential to develop up to 1 GW of offshore wind, though 400 to 600 MW is a more likely goal, 14 to 30 miles off the coast of western Long Island. [CleanTechnica]

¶ A report by the Edison Electric Institute found transmission investment by EEI members reached a spending record of $20.1 billion. Investor-owned electric companies are investing to meet the challenges of changing energy needs brought about by such factors as increasing integration of renewable power sources. [Daily Energy Insider]

Transmission lines

¶ US independent power producer EDF Renewable Energy said the 184-MW Kelly Creek wind farm in Illinois has commenced commercial operation. The wind park is about 60 miles (96.6 km) southwest of Chicago. It consists of 92 units of Vestas’ V100 wind turbines, all components for which were made in Colorado. [SeeNews Renewables]

¶ Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School, a public vocational-technical high school in Bourne, Massachusetts, partnered with two Massachusetts companies, Solect Energy of Hopkinton and Green Seal Environmental of Sagamore Beach, to install a 663 kW solar canopy in the school’s existing parking lot. [Solar Novus Today]

Solar canopy at Upper Cape Cod Regional Technical High School

¶ Hawaii’s electric vehicle fleet was up 27.8% in November from a year earlier, with 5,009 total registered EVs, according to a report from the state Department of Business, Economic Development and Tourism. EV proponents are working to ramp up the growth by adding charging stations and investing in increased public education. [Government Technology]

¶ Ohio Gov John Kasich vetoed a bill that would have made compliance with the state’s renewable energy mandates optional for the next three years. Barring a potential legislative override, the Republican governor’s action will resume benchmarks for increasing electric utilities’ use of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power. [WFMJ]

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Opinion:

¶ “Changing landscape for renewable energy” • Energy experts say that, although a Trump administration could slow progress, states have actually been at the forefront in pushing for cleaner, renewable power generation, with private sector funding far outstripping federal investments over the past five years. [Nantucket Island Inquirer]

Offshore wind farm (Photo: DONG Energy A/S)

¶ “It’s time for states to lead on climate change – and on justice, too” • With the new administration in Washington, climate activists will have a lot to defend in the next four years, but defense is not enough. We don’t have time to waste in fighting climate change. We must make up the ground we are likely to lose at the federal level. [Grist]

Science and Technology:

¶ Canadian archeologists are in a race against time. They have been collecting, studying and preserving ancient artifacts – darts, bows and arrows – lost or misplaced by prehistoric hunters and protected by a covering of snow over millennia. Climate change is melting the snow now, exposing the artifacts to decay. [Radio Canada International]

NWT ice patch landscape (Photo Credit: T. Andrews / GNWT)

World:

¶ Vestas won an order from Korea Electric Power Corp to build an 89-MW wind farm in Jordan. Vestas said it will install 27 V126-3.3MW turbines at the new Fujeij wind farm in Al Shobak in the Ma’an area. Wind turbine delivery will start in the fourth quarter of next year and commissioning is expected for the third quarter of 2018. [reNews]

¶ The cost of electricity from solar and wind power has fallen
to be the same as or cheaper than fossil fuels in over 30 nations, according to a World Economic Forum report. Green energy advocates hope business and investors across the globe could shift their attention and dollars away from fossil fuel production. [Christian Science Monitor]

Wind turbines in Washington (Photo by Rick Bowmer, AP / File)

¶ China will reduce the guaranteed prices paid for electricity supplied to its national grid by newly built large-scale solar power plants and onshore wind turbines starting January 1, the National Development and Reform Commission said. The cut was due to the decreasing cost of production in the renewable energy industry. [ETEnergyworld.com]

¶ Cornwall’s Wave Hub has been called “world class” by wave energy experts. The Wave Hub, which lies on the sea bed 16 km off the coast near Hayle, and which was built with support from the European Regional Development Fund, has placed Cornwall at the cutting edge of testing renewable wave energy technology. [Falmouth Packet]

Wave Hub projects (Please click on the image to enlarge it.)

¶ French company Bardot Group has won an order to supply buoyancy modules for the power cables of Statoil’s 30-MW Hywind Scotland floating wind demonstration project, off the northeast coast of Scotland. Buoyancy modules assist flotation in the dynamic sections of power cables. The project will have five 6-MW Siemens turbines. [reNews]

¶ Renewable energy is an area that is expected to take off in India, thanks to the ambitious mission stated by the Ministry
of New and Renewable energy. It has a goal of “24×7 affordable environment friendly power for all by 2019.” The government also plans to generate around 40% of its power from non-fossil fuels by 2030. [Firstpost]

Renewable energy in India

¶ Three geothermal generating units of Pertamina Geothermal Energy are being commissioned on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Each of the three units has a capacity of 20 MW. The state-owned energy company Pertamina, the parent company of PGE, said the project is valued at approximately $282 million (Rp3.3 trillion). [ANTARA]

US:

¶ To remain competitive in a changing power market, North Dakota’s largest power plant is making operational changes so production can ramp up and down quicker. Now, all generation resources need to be supplemental to wind. Great River Energy is adapting operations at Coal Creek Station to run at either 1146 MW or 300 MW. [Bismarck Tribune]

Coal Creek Station (Submitted photo)

¶ As of last month, there were 1.1 million residential rooftop solar power systems in the US, keeping the televisions, refrigerators, computers, stoves, and lights on throughout the country. Two US senators introduced a resolution in the Senate earlier this month, calling for the entire country to be 100% powered by renewables by 2050. [Daily Kos]

¶ Since 2012, five nuclear power plants around the country have shut down prematurely as they became uneconomical to run. Now, to prevent the two operating reactors at Millstone from the same fate, Dominion, the plant’s owner, is urging Connecticut’s state lawmakers to approve legislation to secure the plant’s survival. [theday.com]

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Opinion and Reviews:

¶ “Mothers unleash their organizing power on climate” • Taking their place in a tradition as political and social activists, groups
of activist mothers attract constituencies that are politically and racially diverse. They are hellbent on doing everything they can to un-screw-up the world, and the recent US election has only strengthened that resolve. [Grist]

Moms clean air force

¶ Review: “A chilling tale of lies, tragedy” • Voices From Chernobyl by Svetlana Alexievich is a powerful read. The author speaks with those impacted directly by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear reactor meltdown in the Soviet Union. She gets testimony first hand from many people impacted by the event and presents it
in startling detail. [Glens Falls Post-Star]

¶ “Low Costs of Solar Power & Wind Power Crush Coal, Crush Nuclear, & Beat Natural Gas” • Here are 5 messages for all those who want a better economy, want local energy independence, want to advance the most cost-effective choices for electricity generation, or just want to make logical decisions about energy. [CleanTechnica]

Please click on the image to enlarge it.

World:

¶ Canberra’s renewable energy generation increased from an 18.8% share in 2014-15 to 20.2% in 2015-16 according to the ACT’s annual Feed-in Tariff report. The ACT’s small and medium FiT scheme had 34,910 MWh come from 10,304 solar power systems, and the large-scale FiT generated 57,423 MWh, up 72% from 2014-15. [Energy Matters]

¶ A residential building has become the first in the Ghatkopar neighborhood of East Mumbai to use solar energy to meet its electricity needs. The 15-story Shivshakti Heights has a 9.135-kW peak power rooftop solar system installed, which lights the lifts and the building’s common areas. The building is home to 76 families. [Hindustan Times]

Residents and solar panels of Shivshakti Heights (HT Photo)

¶ If countries abide by the Paris Agreement’s global warming target of 1.5° C, fish catches could increase by six million metric tonnes per year, a study says. Researchers also found that some oceans are more sensitive to changes in temperature, and they will have substantially larger gains from achieving the Paris Agreement. [Zee News]

US:

¶ Wind generation accounts for about one-third of Iowa’s power generation, with more than 6,300 MW of installed wind capacity. On the solar front, Iowa’s solar tax credit program has resulted in nearly $85 million in solar project investments since 2012. But Iowa ranks 32nd among the states for installed solar capacity. [KMAland]

Iowa wind turbines (Photo by Pixabay)

¶ If you’re a large buyer of electricity, one would think that you could buy electricity from renewable energy from your utility if you so desired. Apparently, that’s not the case in many US states. However, in a slight majority of states, there is at least some way to achieve this. There is an interactive map on precisely this topic. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Borrego Springs, California has a solar-storage microgrid that is an example of an “unbundled utility microgrid.” The model is one in which distribution assets are owned by a utility while at least some of the distributed power generation assets are owned by customers, the Berkeley Labs’ Microgrids-Grid Integration Group says. [Microgrid Media]

Solar array at Borego Springs

¶ The Sunnyvale, California city council voted 6-0 to use the GreenPrime service offered through the Silicon Valley Clean Energy Authority. The move means 100% of the city’s energy will come from renewable, carbon-free energy sources come April. Residents will automatically be enrolled in the program’s GreenStart option. [Milpitas Post]

¶ In Traverse City, Michigan, government buildings, streetlights, water plants, and more could be powered by green energy within the next five years. City commissioners unanimously adopted a resolution committing the city to source all of the energy for its operations from wind, solar, geothermal and landfill gas by 2020. [The Detroit News]

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Science and Technology:

¶ By studying the chemistry of growth rings in quahog shells, experts from the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences pieced together the history of the North Atlantic Ocean over the past 1000 years. The shells showed growth correlated to natural cycles until 1800, after which it became more related to carbon dioxide emissions. [Knowridge Science Report]

Quahog shells

World:

¶ A group of alumni from Ateneo de Manila University banded together to form a company that aims to deliver electricity from the sun to remote communities in the Philippines. Solar Sari Sari Store will provide electric power to people in distant off-grid communities such as secluded mountain villages and remote islands. [The Standard]

¶ In 2016, renewable energy surpassed coal as the largest source of installed power capacity. China’s carbon emissions peaked. The German upper house voted to ban gasoline-powered cars by 2030. Vancouver chose to ban natural gas in new buildings, also by 2030. And Canada is well on its way to a renewable future. [The Globe and Mail]

Alberta wind farm (Canadian Wind Energy Association photo)

¶ The government of Pakistan is working on 78 renewable energy projects that are expected to be completed by 2020, including solar, wind, and biomass. They have a total capacity of 2,796 MW. Fourteen wind, solar, and bagasse co-generation projects with a total capacity of 853.3 MW have been completed since March 2013. [Business Recorder]

¶ Atlantis Resources announced it has switched on of its first 1.5-MW tidal stream turbines in the Inner Sound of Scotland’s Pentland Firth. Four turbines are scheduled to be installed, but Atlantis wants to grow the project eventually to include dozens of turbines generating up to 400 MW of electricity through tidal power. [Interesting Engineering]

Tidal turbine (Atlantis Resources image)

US:

¶ The Hawaiian Electric Companies outlined a plan that aims
at using renewable resources to meet 100% of Hawaii’s power generation needs by 2045. The companies forecast they will greatly exceed the state’s renewable energy milestones. They expect to be 48% renewably powered by 2020, where 30% is mandated. [Satellite PR News]

¶ The Kidder Hill Wind project gave a 45-day notice of intent to file a permit with the Vermont PSB for two wind turbines up to 499 feet tall. The turbines would be in Irasburg or Lowell. Kidder Hill is expected to contribute about $40,000 in local community payments and $40,000 to the statewide Education Fund each year. [The Newport Daily Express]

Turbines of Vermont’s Georgia Wind project

¶ The 21-acre Heller Industrial Park in Edison, New Jersey had been a landfill. It will soon power 1,200 homes, turning a chunk of unusable property into a renewable energy site. With 24,000 solar panels, it will be the 10th solar farm built as part of Public Service Electric and Gas’s $500-million investment into its Solar 4 All program. [NJ.com]

¶ The Ithaca College solar farm, which the college said will cover 10% of the its energy needs, became officially operational and producing energy on December 22. The array is in the town of Seneca and includes 9,000 solar panels. It cost $6.4 million to construct, which was funded through grants from the state of New York. [The Ithacan]

Solar Array providing 10% of Ithaca College’s needs
(Photo courtesy of Ithaca College)

¶ The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada voted 3-0 to allow a Switch data center to leave as a retail customer of NV Energy if it pays a $27 million exit fee. The fee would soften the blow of its departure to the broader customer base by covering the cost of investments NV Energy made assuming that Switch would continue as a customer. [CBS Local]

¶ Georgia’s Public Service Commission voted unanimously to give Georgia Power one of the most expensive yuletide gifts ever. They let Georgia Power almost completely off the hook for cost overruns running into billions of dollars on two nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle. The costs will be passed on to Georgia Power’s customers. [Columbia County News Times]

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Science and Technology:

¶ In what may be a record-breaking heat wave, temperatures at the North Pole may rise up to 20° C higher than average on Christmas Eve. Unseasonably warm weather patterns in the Arctic region are directly linked to man-made climate change, scientists said. November and December temperatures have averaged 5° C above average. [NDTV]

A warmer arctic (Credit istockphoto.com / ekvals)

World:

¶ Government projections imply that India may see no new thermal power plants installed after 2022. Between 2022 and 2027, the power ministry plans to add 12,000 MW of large hydro capacity, 4,800 MW of nuclear power capacity, around 100,000 MW of renewable energy capacity, but ZERO of thermal power capacity. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Boralex commissioned the first 12-MW phase of the Plateau
de Savernat wind farm, which is in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France. The project currently consists of six turbines, but a further two machines will be installed by April 2017 to bring total capacity to 16 MW. It has a 15-year power purchase agreement with EDF. [reNews]

Wind turbine (Boralex image)

¶ World demand for coal will slow over the next five years as renewables and energy efficiency gain traction, the International Energy Agency has projected. But much of Asia will continue using coal which, while polluting, is also still seen as affordable and widely available, according to a report from the Paris-based body. [Manila Bulletin]

¶ India’s largest subway system is set up fully switch to solar power from next year with an aim to reduce its growing carbon footprint. Delhi Metro Rail Corporation chief Mangu Singh told reporters that the subway system shall fully shift to solar power to run trains and support infrastructure, like lighting at stations, from next year. [CleanTechnica]

Delhi Metro Rail Track in Sunset (Photo by Rameshng,
released into the public domain, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ A study from researchers at Lappeenranta University of Technology shows that South America could transition to fully renewable electricity by 2030. The study, by LUT and VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland Ltd, also shows a 100% renewable system is the least costly option and would need little energy storage. [Renewable Energy Focus]

¶ The women of Sudan’s North Kordofan state used to be famed for their war songs urging men to defend their meager desert assets of cattle, bush and watering holes. Now, in villages like Albaida, surrounded by deep orange sand dunes, women chant odes to protect their environment from a new enemy: climate change. [Saudi Gazette]

Women pick pumpkins in Albaida village in Sudan.

¶ A government-owned Canadian electricity exporter is making a C$350 million ($262 million) bet that the movement for “clean” power in the US will outlast the imminent pro-fossil fuels regime change. Manitoba Hydro applied for a construction permit for a 213-km (128-mile) transmission line from Winnipeg to the US border. [Natural Gas Intelligence]

¶ State-run Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd set up a 3.5-MW solar energy project to power its airport in an eastern suburb of Bangalore. Spread over 23 acres, with 12,985 solar modules, the single-axis tracker based project is the first at an airport in the country. It will reduce emissions of about 166,256 tonnes of CO2 each year. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Solar system at HAL airport

US:

¶ Nordex received two orders for wind turbine components in the US worth almost €62 million ($64.81 million). The German manufacturer will supply components for its Delta turbines to a US independent power producer and parts of its AW125/3000 machines for a European utility, it said, without giving more details. [reNews]

¶ The South this year was the nation’s biggest producer of wood pellets, accounting for about 75% of the 3.1 million tons of pellets that are made from scraps from sawmills, logging operations, and other wood product manufacturing, according to the DOE. Nearly all wood pellets produced in the region are exported overseas. [Houston Chronicle]

Logs arriving at a pellet facility
(Must Credit: Washington Post photo by Joby Warrick)

¶ Georgia utility Southern Power has acquired two wind farms
in Texas with a combined capacity of 300 MW from EDF. The utility has bought the 174-MW Salt Fork wind farm in Donley and Gray Counties, as well as the 126-MW Tyler Bluff facility in Cooke County for an undisclosed amount. Both began operating this month. [reNews]

¶ In California, the fight is on between the old guard electric utilities and renewable energy advocates. All across California, cities and counties have been moving to implement Community Choice programs because they provide cheaper, cleaner, locally generated electricity. But the utilities hope you never hear about them. [OB Rag]

Community Choice Energy delivery model

¶ The DOE will provide $40 million in funding to build the US’ first open-ocean, power grid-connected wave energy test facility off the Oregon coast. A partnership of several renewable energy innovators and three universities in Washington, Oregon, and Alaska applied for the federal funding earlier this year. [Daily Energy Insider]

¶ In a dispute involving an ill-fated plan to build nuclear reactors in Levy County, Florida, Westinghouse Electric Co sued Duke Energy, initially for $512.6 million, for terminating a contract. US District Judge Max Cogburn Jr ruled that Duke is only required to pay a $30 million termination fee and about $4.25 million in interest. [News Chief]

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World:

¶ Installation of the 18 turbines of the 110.7-MW Nordergruende offshore wind project in the German North Sea has concluded, MPI Offshore Ltd said, as the wind turbine installation vessel MPI Enterprise has finished its work. The wind park is will produce enough power to provide the annual needs of over 70,000 homes. [SeeNews Renewables]

Nordergünde turbine installation (Image by WPD AG)

¶ In West Bengal, rooftop solar units installed on industrial and corporate establishments by third parties are offering power 30-40% below the rates offered by the state’s power distribution companies. This gap is expected to widen further as thermal power costs will likely rise and solar modules prices fall further. [ETEnergyworld.com]

¶ France has opened what it claims to be the world’s first solar panel road, in a Normandy village. A 1-km (0.6-mile) route in the small village of Tourouvre-au-Perche covered with 2,800 sq m of electricity-generating panels. It cost €5m (£4.2m) to construct and will be used by about 2,000 motorists a day during a two-year test. [The Guardian]

Solar panel road (Photo: Christophe Petit Tesson / EPA)

¶ Construction of a ­massive solar scheme that will power 26,000 homes is set to begin next month in Queensland after the State Government guaranteed its financial security. The $126 million, 50-MW Kidston solar facility will go ahead with $9 million in federal funding and a funding guarantee from Queensland. [Gold Coast Bulletin]

¶ A patch of land in the shadow of Mount Fuji is becoming a testing ground for energy storage, with some of Japan’s leading companies trying to develop technologies such as spinning flywheels and fuel cells. Yamanashi Prefecture’s government is hoping to make the prefecture a center for development of energy storage. [TODAYonline]

Solar panels in Yamanashi prefecture (Photo: Bloomberg)

¶ A rule change means consumers in Alberta can have more flexibility when it comes to generating their own electric power, the government said. Amended regulations on low-carbon power sources allow for more flexibility in grid connectivity and power limits, increasing micro-generation size limits from 1 MW to 5 MW. [UPI.com]

¶ Scottish renewable sources delivered the equivalent of 59.4% of the country’s gross electricity consumption in 2015 – up from 49.9% in 2014. This means that the 2015 50% renewable electricity target has been met and exceeded. Scotland exported 29% of the electricity it generated in 2015 and accounted for 26% of the UK renewable output. [Milngavie Herald]

Renewable energy in Scotland

¶ The Indian government predicted it will exceed the renewable energy target set in Paris last year by nearly half and it also predicted that it will be three years ahead of schedule. This forecast also reflects that the investment by private sectors in Indian renewable energy project has also increased in the past few years. [ScrollToday News]

¶ Half of the UK’s electricity came from wind turbines, solar panels, wood burning and nuclear reactors between July and September. Official figures show low carbon power, supported by the government to meet climate change targets, accounted for 50% of electricity generation in the UK in the third quarter. [The Guardian]

A boat visiting a turbine in the London Array
(Photo: Bloomberg / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

US:

¶ 8minutenergy Renewables claims to have “the first operational solar PV installation to beat fossil fuel prices in California.” The 155-MW Springbok 2 Solar Farm in Kern County will provide electricity to the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at $35 to $38 per MWh (adjusted for inflation) over the PPA term. [Greentech Media]

¶ A Montana company has been granted a license to build a $1 billion, 400-MW power storage project in the central part of the stat. The Gordon Butte Pumped Storage Project would use excess power produced by wind farms or other sources to pump water uphill to a 3,000-foot long reservoir, according to the license. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Wind turbines reflected on the water

¶ Fortune 500 companies have waked up to the potential of low-cost, reliable renewable energy in the last four years. Recently, there has been a flood of announcements. Eighty-three of the largest companies including GM, along with Amazon, Microsoft, Mars, and others have committed to go 100% renewable. [Windpower Engineering]

¶ The Metropolitan Council of Shakopee, Minnesota, together with several partners, is giving a major boost to the Community Solar Garden capacity in the state. In the past several days, CSGs began commercial operations at two of the council’s wastewater treatment plants. One has a capacity of 5 MW, and the other of 3 MW. [SW News Media]

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Science and Technology:

¶ A study published in the journal Nature Climate Change said seasonal storms could increase by a factor of five within this century. Climate Central also noted that the study concluded intense rainfalls could create 70% more rain. For example, 2 inches of rainfall now would equate to 3.5 inches by the end of this century. [CleanTechnica]

Flooded Baton Rouge (US Department of
Agriculture, via Wikipedia, some rights reserved)

Opinion:

¶ “Big Utility Sees Pathway to $10 Oil” • The oil industry must brace for five energy “tsunamis” that threaten to drag prices as low as $10 a barrel in less than a decade, according to Engie SA’s innovation chief. Solar power, battery storage, electric vehicles, “smart” buildings, and cheap hydrogen will all weigh on the price of crude, he said. [info-europa]

World:

¶ Taiwan Power Co is to pour NT$200 billion ($6.24 billion) in solar and wind energy projects in Changhua County, including over 1 GW of offshore wind. Its memorandum of understanding with Changhua also mentions 16 MW of onshore wind and 100 MW of solar station at the Changhua Coastal Industrial Park. [SeeNews Renewables]

Offshore wind park (Author: Tim Collins, CC BY-SA)

¶ New wind energy is now being contracted for prices as low as 6.45¢/kWh in Ontario, well below the average cost for electricity generation of 11.14 cents as of May 1, 2016. Forecasters expect costs for wind power to continue declining. At the same time, costs for other forms of new or refurbished generation are increasing. [Your Renewable News]

¶ Sri Lanka’s first 10-MW grid connected solar power project implemented by the private sector has been commissioned, with DFCC Bank acting as lead financiers to the project. Promoted by Sagasolar Power (Pvt) Ltd, the utility-scale power project is expected to add 19 GWh of clean energy to the national grid annually. [Lanka Business Online]

Solar farm in Sri Lanka

¶ NTPC, India’s largest electricity producer, plans to phase out some of its less-efficient, coal-based power plants that are more than 25 years old, as Asia’s third-largest economy steps up efforts to curb emissions amid growing demand for clean energy. Coal provides for nearly three-fourth of India’s power generation. [Nikkei Asian Review]

¶ Macquarie Group struck a £1.6 billion ($2.7 billion) deal with Denmark’s DONG Energy to buy half of a huge offshore wind farm in the UK. Macquarie’s European Infrastructure Fund 5 and Macquarie Capital will each take a 25% share of Race Bank, a 573-MW wind farm being built off the North Norfolk coast. [The Australian Financial Review]

DONG Energy’s ventures include the
London Array. (photo by Simon Dawson)

US:

¶ Wind generation has grown by more than 11 million MWh in just a year in the huge ERCOT market of Texas. A similar shift happened in the area served by the Southwest Power Pool, which includes all or most of Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, South Dakota, North Dakota, and significant parts of several other states. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Project Icebreaker, a six-turbine demonstration of offshore wind in Lake Erie, is to be located eight to 10 miles off the coast at Cleveland. It could become the country’s second offshore wind farm; the first just started operating in Rhode Island’s waters. Utilities and Cuyahoga County have already pledged to buy power from the turbines. [WBFO]

Soil sampling for Project Icebreaker (Photo by Elizabeth Miller)

¶ Iowa’s Lieutenant Governor released the broad energy report that looks at Iowa’s energy needs over the next decade. The new energy strategy envisions electric car-charging stations across the state, anaerobic digesters that turn animal waste to energy, and top researchers finding ways to store wind and solar energy. [DesMoinesRegister.com]

¶ sPower announced that it has put online two new solar PV plants totaling 60 MW. The plants are located in Lancaster, California, and will supply power to Palo Alto’s municipal utility through a 25-year power purchase agreement. A third of Palo Alto’s electricity is now supplied by the sun. The city has been carbon-neutral since 2013. [pv magazine USA]

sPower solar project (sPower image)

¶ Allianz Global Investors has made, on behalf of clients, an investment of more than $400 million (€384 million) in a 400-MW wind project in Nebraska owned by Warren Buffett. Work started in 2015 and the park will be completed very soon. It has a power purchase agreement with Omaha Public Power District. [SeeNews Renewables]

¶ The Kit Carson Electric Cooperative, based in Taos, New Mexico, is blazing new trails by committing to produce 100% of its electricity from solar facilities during its summer-peak season by 2023. Though the commitment itself may be remarkable, it is more remarkable that KCEC could make this commitment at all. [pv magazine USA]

Kit Carson

¶ Florida Power & Light Company announced plans to retire the Cedar Bay Generating Plant, a 250-MW coal-fired facility located in Jacksonville, this month. FPL purchased the plant in 2015 with the intention of phasing it out of service in this time frame. The move is expected to save FPL customers more than $70 million. [Satellite PR News]

¶ The NRC awarded Duke Energy licenses to build two nuclear power reactors in South Carolina, a decade after the project was originally announced. Duke has already spent $495 of the $11 billion the plant is expected to cost, but the Charlotte Observer reports that it is unclear whether the utility will ever finish it. [Fairfield Citizen]

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Science and Technology:

¶ Warm water flowing through a deep channel under East Antarctica’s largest glacier is driving rapid melting, a study published in the journal Science Advances says. It says that if the thinning continues and the massive shelf gives way, enough ice would slide into the sea to raise global levels by over 11 feet. [Wunderground.com]

The Totten ice shelf (Esmee van Wijke/ACE CRC)

¶ 2016 will be the hottest year in more than 120 years of record keeping by US agencies. It will be the third record-setting year in a row. Of of the 17 hottest years, 16 have been this century. The world is already more than halfway down the road to 2°C (3.6°F). The Paris climate goal was to limit temperatures to that amount by 2100. [AlterNet]

World:

¶ Ethiopia inaugurated one of Africa’s largest wind farms in 2013, the $290 million, 120-MW Ashedoga plant. This was followed by the even larger 153-MW Adama II facility in 2015. Now, the government has plans for at least five more wind farms, and possibly many more, aiming to deliver up to 5,200 MW within four years. [CNN]

Ashegoda wind farm in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region.

¶ Renewable energy is expected to account for 32% of Germany’s electricity consumption in 2016 on track for the government’s target of 35% by 2020, according to new research. The analysts expect that there will have been 191 billion kWh of green power produced by the end of the year. This is up from 187 billion kWh in 2015. [reNews]

¶ Provisional figures show that the share of renewable energy sources in mainland Spain’s power mix in 2016 grew to 41.1% from 36.9% a year earlier. The number-one source with a share of 22%, was nuclear power. But this was followed by wind with 19.2% and hydro with 14.1%, grid operator Red Electrica de Espana said. [SeeNews Renewables]

Solar PVs in Spain (Author: Jordi Domènech i Arnau, CC BY-SA)

¶ Siemens confirmed that it has been awarded a contract to provide 42 turbines for the Rentel offshore windfarm in Belgium. The customer is Rentel NV, which is part of the Otary partnership, a conglomerate of leading specialists from the Belgian renewable energy industry including investment and development. [Offshore Wind Journal]

¶ The first of over 1100 wind farms in Britain started generating electricity in Cornwall exactly 25 years ago, marking the start of the industry. The 10 turbines of the 4-MW Delabole wind farm, which is now owned by Good Energy, were switched on 21 December 1991. Wind power now generates about 12% of the UK’s electricity. [reNews]

Delabole wind farm (Good Energy image)

US:

¶ In Nevada, all Las Vegas city facilities are now running entirely on renewable energy, city officials announced. “We can brag that the city, this city of Las Vegas, is one of the few cities in the entire world that can boast using all of its power from a green source,” Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said in a news conference. [Long Beach City College Viking]

¶ President Barack Obama designated the bulk of US waters in the Arctic Ocean, and also certain areas in the Atlantic Ocean, as indefinitely off-limits to future oil and gas leasing. The White House said the wording of the statute allowing the ban provides no authority for subsequent presidents to undo permanent withdrawals. [STLtoday.com]

Polar Pioneer drilling rig being towed

¶ Colorado-based Carbon Cycle Energy broke ground last week on a $100 million, swine waste-to-renewable natural gas project near the town of Warsaw in southeastern North Carolina. Duke Energy indicated that it will be using the renewable natural gas produced at four of its generating facilities under a 15-year contract. [Biomass Magazine]

¶ Meriden, Connecticut has made history as the first city in the US to install an Archimedes screw turbine to generate power at a dam. The 20-ton, 35-foot-long steel screw lifted by crane into the Hanover Pond dam will generate about 900,000 kWh of electricity annually and is expected to save the city $20,000 a year. [Meriden Record-Journal]

Archimedes screw being installed (Dave Zajac, Record-Journal)

¶ A solar power project officials say is the largest for the military in the Northeast is moving forward. The project will be put on a capped landfill on Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, about 18 miles southeast of Trenton, New Jersey. It will have more than 50,000 solar panels that will produce 16.5 MW, enough to power 2,500 homes. [Stars and Stripes]

¶ Michigan lawmakers worked through the night to produce a new renewable portfolio standard. It took over 20 hours for them to agree on energy law changes. Notably, the bill raises the state’s renewable energy standard from 10% to 15% by 2022. The bill now goes to the governor, who is expected to sign it into law. [Into the Wind – The AWEA Blog]

More renewable energy is coming to Michiganders.

¶ Exelon Corporation, which owns and operates 23 nuclear reactors, including the Clinton and Quad Cities nuclear power plants in Illinois, said the Future Energy Jobs Bill signed into law by Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner in early December is already delivering new jobs and other economic benefits to the region. [Nuclear Street]

¶ EDF Renewable Energy has struck a deal to sell electricity from its 150-MW Desert Harvest solar project to Marin Clean Energy. The San Diego-based developer can now start construction on the long-awaited project, which will be built on 1,200 acres of federal land just south of Joshua Tree National Park, near an existing solar farm. [The Desert Sun]

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Opinion:

¶ “Energy Efficiency Is Growing Jobs & Fueling The Economy” 2016 marks another year in a long string of significant gains for energy efficiency, making efficiency not only the most cost-effective way to meet our energy needs, avoid use of dirty power plants, and cut utility bills, but also to grow our economy and create jobs. [CleanTechnica]

Please click on the image for a larger view.

¶ “From Climate Change to Coal Mining, Donald Trump’s Reality Is Pure Science Fiction” • President-elect Donald Trump has been twisting the facts in ways beyond what even George Orwell envisioned in his dystopian novel 1984. PolitiFact has analyzed over 300 of his assertions and found that only 15% were completely true. [AlterNet]

¶ “Why China is Dominating the Solar Industry” • Between 2008 and 2013, China’s fledgling solar-electric panel industry dropped world prices by 80%, which is a stunning achievement in a fiercely competitive high-tech market. China had leapfrogged from nursing a tiny solar program in the 1990s to become the globe’s leader. [Scientific American]

Rooftop solar (Credit: Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

World:

¶ India has released a new power plan promoting a dramatic increase in renewable energy. Among other things, it raises doubts about the Indian-owned Adani Group’s massive coal mine in Queensland. The new national electricity plan says India will not need any additional coal-fired energy capacity in the next decade. [info-europa]

¶ A dangerous gray haze descended on Northeast China over the weekend, choking off schools, flights, and industry. China saw the smog coming and last week issued its first red alert of the year for 23 cities. The smog covered an area of 10.1 million square kilometers (3.9 million square miles), roughly the size of the United States. [CNN]

Smoke rising from a factory in Tianjin

¶ Shell Energy Europe entered into an agreement for 100% of the power generated from Offshore Wind Farm Egmond aan Zee in the Netherlands. The company will supply the power from the wind farm to European industrial and commercial customers seeking to meet their business needs with renewable energy. [CleanTechnology News, …]

¶ Aruba has pledged to transition to 100% renewable electricity within the next four years. The island is heavily dependent on imported fossil fuels, with more than 80% of its electricity generated using heavy fuel oil. The Government of Aruba is emphasizing variable wind and solar for renewable energy. [Climate Action Programme]

Aruba’s Palm Beach

¶ The largest Central American microgrid is now operational in Costa Rica. Establishment Labs, SA has commissioned a solar-plus-storage microgrid at their medical manufacturing plant. The heart of the project is a 500-kW / 1 MWh lithium-ion battery system by Demand Energy, powered by a 276-KW solar PV system. [Microgrid Media]

¶ Japan’s government has urged Fukushima operator TEPCO to integrate its transmission and nuclear operations with peers to cut costs and generate higher income to pay the costs from the 2011 nuclear disaster. A government panel said that the next six months will be a “make or break” period for TEPCO’s reform efforts. [Reuters]

US:

Please click on the image for a larger view.

¶ We all knew that 2016 was going to be a very good year for the US solar market; however no one could say exactly how good. Now, the DOE’s Energy Information Administration posted some of the first concrete numbers for the year. EIA estimates that the US will have installed 9.5 GW of utility-scale solar installed in 2016. [pv magazine USA]

¶ With Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker describing climate change as a “serious threat,” the state’s clean air agency unveiled draft regulations aimed at securing greenhouse gas emission reductions from the natural gas, transportation and electricity generation industries. The regulations will be vetted in a series of public hearings. [Worcester Telegram]

Salem Harbor Power Station (File photo / The Associated Press)

¶ Norway’s state-owned Statoil oil and gas company won the right to develop an offshore wind farm in US waters last week, practically within hours of selling off its tar sands oil assets in Canada. The new wind area is off the coast near New York City, which makes it a high status, high visibility site for the global energy giant. [CleanTechnica]

¶ 8minutenergy Renewables LLC and DE Shaw Renewable Investments LLC have just commissioned the 191-MW DC Springbok 2 solar farm in Kern County, California. Springbok 2 joins the 137-MW DC Springbok 1 solar farm, which went online earlier this year. They are located 70 miles north of Los Angeles. [Solar Industry]

Springbok solar array

¶ Enel Green Power commissioned two wind farms with a combined 173 MW in Oklahoma. The company connected the 108-MW Drift Sand wind farm in Rush Springs and the 65-MW Chisholm View II facility in Grant and Garfield counties to the grid. Enel’s installed wind capacity in the US state is now more than 1.1 GW. [reNews]

¶ The EPA released a rule limiting sulphur dioxide pollutions from power plants as part of the EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule. Sulphur dioxide in the air can cause asthma and even death. Ironically, the rule was proposed partly because Texas successfully fought back another emission rule saying it would raise electric bills. [KERA News]

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Opinion:

¶ “Solar Power: America Invented It… China Owns It… Opportunity Springs From It” • Gregory Wilson, the co-director of the US DOE’s National Center for Photovoltaics, put it this way: “We argue so much about the silly politics of climate change and fail to recognize the gargantuan economic opportunity that this presents.” [Wall Street Daily]

Solar power – invented in the US – monopolized by China

¶ “Will Big Business Help Fight Trump’s Anti-Environment Agenda?” • US Environmentalists still have hope. Though their public protests may fall on deaf ears as long as Trump is in the White House and Republicans control Congress, environmental activists may find more of an audience in corporate boardrooms. [The American Prospect]

World:

¶ State-run oil giant Saudi Aramco will commission the first wind turbine project in Saudi Arabia next month, developed in partnership with GE and aiming to support the renewable goals of Saudi Vision 2030. The 2.75-120 GE wind turbine will provide power to Saudi Aramco’s Bulk Plant in Turaif, in northwest Saudi Arabia. [Trade Arabia]

The wind turbine being transported

¶ UK Households will be facing “intermittent blackouts for the foreseeable future” unless something is done about problems with National Grid’s capacity. Recent winters have seen the spare electricity margin fall from around 17% in 2011-12 to around 1% this winter, according to a report by the British Infrastructure Group of MPs. [Sky News]

¶ Despite the best efforts of Taiwan’s government, energy market reform has repeatedly been sunk by its Legislature, with bills to amend the Electricity Act failing six times over the course of 20 years. But as the new pro-renewables Tsai administration vows to put power on the agenda, hopes are high for a breakthrough. [China Post]

Solar array in Taiwan (Photo courtesy of MOFA)

¶ With a clear focus on clean energy, and especially renewables, India has added 14,300 MW of renewable energy capacity in less than two and a half years since announcing its Renewable Energy program. The new renewable capacity includes 7.04 GW of Wind Power, 5.8 GW of solar, 0.53 GW of small hydro, and 0.93 GW of Bio-power. [EnergyInfraPost]

¶ Carnegie Clean Energy unit Energy Made Clean has formed a joint venture with infrastructure group Lendlease to deliver solar, battery and microgrid projects in Australia. The 50/50 venture will seek to identify, bid for, secure and deliver EPC contracts for the technologies across the country, Carnegie said. [reNews]

Australian solar array (Image: SXC)

¶ Powered by Reposit, South Australia has the largest operational virtual power plant in Australia, equivalent to a 300-kW diesel generator. It was achieved as part of a unique trial, led by SA Power Networks, involving residents from Salisbury. The final Reposit solar battery system in the virtual power station trial was installed this week. [RenewEconomy]

¶ H2One is a hydrogen-based energy supply system by Toshiba Corp. It will be used in a two-year study in Japan with a goal of finding ways to balance fluctuations in renewable energy output. Tohoku Electric Power Co will use the H2One system in its study of power management options, with the study planned to start in March 2017. [SeeNews Renewables]

Rendering of Hydrogen Power Storage System (Source: Toshiba)

¶ At least ¥375 billion ($3.2 billion) will be needed over 30 years to decommission the Monju prototype fast-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture, according to a government estimate revealed on December 19. The government’s committee for fast reactor development proposed a plan is to start decommissioning from 2017. [Asahi Shimbun]

¶ A Bristol based renewable energy fund raised £7.7 million in under a month to help build two wind farms in Scotland. The projects, funded by Thrive Renewables, will have a total capacity of 11 MW and will be able to generate enough power for over 8,500 homes. The investment will also help fund a future solar project. [CommonSpace]

Scottish onshore wind farm (Picture courtesy of ms.akr)

US:

¶ It’s time for energy storage to shine. As technology improves and costs keep falling, we’ll see energy storage play a bigger role across the country. GTM Research estimates that 260 MW of energy storage will be built in the US in 2016, but that figure will jump to 478 MW in 2017 and 2,045 MW by 2021. [Bloomington Pantagraph]

¶ French renewable power producer Akuo Energy said it has secured the needed financing to build the 150-MW Rocksprings wind project in Texas. GE Energy Financial Services provided tax equity financing for the project. GE will also supply 53 units of its 2.3-MW wind turbines and 16 units of the 1.72-MW machines. [SeeNews Renewables]

GE wind turbine (Source: General Electric, all rights reserved)

¶ New York state may have banned fracking, but nevertheless
it consumes more of the fuel, a trend that researchers say is bad for the planet. Methane emissions from natural gas have dire consequences, warned Cornell University scientists Anthony Ingraffea and Robert Howarth on a recent visit to the Capitol. [Plattsburgh Press Republican]

¶ An ambitious group of engineers sees value in the abandoned shafts in a centuries-old iron mine in New York’s Adirondacks. They say the mine can provide a steady flow of electricity in a growing renewable energy market. They have a plan to use the millions of gallons of groundwater that have flooded the mine for energy storage. [Tribune-Review]

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World:

¶ Turkey will focus its efforts on local renewable energy projects to cut back on costly imports of up to $40 billion annually for energy. Geothermal energy projects will play a part in that. The Energy and Natural Resources Minister said Turkey will focus more on domestic and renewable energy investments in the future. [ThinkGeoEnergy]

Istanbul (source: flickr / John Virgolin, creative commons)

¶ Australian Chief Scientist has outlined the case for serious and urgent reform in Australia’s energy markets. He said consumers are at the center of a massive and “unstoppable” transition to a grid based around wind and solar power. The technical solutions exist, but market structures and the supporting policies are also needed. [CleanTechnica]

¶ The latest coal predictions from the International Energy Agency say global coal demand growth will falter in the next 5 years as the appetite for it wanes and different energy sources increase in popularity. The IEA expects the share of coal in the power generation mix to drop to 36% by 2021, down from 41% in 2014. [Blue & Green Tomorrow]

How’s your appetite for coal? (Photo by oatsy40 via flickr)

¶ Gamesa has achieved a new milestone, having installed 1,000 wind turbines in Brazil since it entered the market six years ago. The turbines have a total installed capacity of 2 GW, and provide enough power for a city the size of Munich, Germany. And they prevent emissions of around three million tonnes of CO2 each year. [Renewable Energy Focus]

¶ In the Philippines, Energy Development Corporation is urging the country’s government to support the development of more geothermal projects. According to the Manila Bulletin, the company argues that geothermal is not only a clean, renewable, and indigenous energy source but its cost, as well as supply, is stable. [ThinkGeoEnergy]

Philippine geothermal plant (source: Mike Gonzalez, CC BY-SA)

¶ Indian state-run engineering major Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited is internally aiming to cut down its dependence on thermal power business from 80% to 50% in the next 10 years, a company official said. The company is investing ₹300 crore ($45 million) to increase the solar PV cell making capability to 225 MW. [NDTV]

¶ A northern Alberta county hopes to inspire other areas to look at producing their own renewable power after it put solar panels on a local fire hall. With a population of 1933, Northern Sunrise County is about 500 km northwest of Edmonton. Its installation of 88 panels on the roof of a fire station went into service last week. [Edmonton Journal]

Rooftop PVs on the St. Isidore/Three Creeks Fire Hall (Supplied)

¶ Khuzestan Regional Electricity Company of Iran and Medio Energy Invest GmbH & Co KG, a German company, have sealed two Memoranda of Understanding with an aggregate total value of approximately $104 million to build two solar and wind power stations in southern Iranian cities of Shushtar and Bandar-e Mahshahr. [Mehr News Agency]

US:

¶ In recent years, North Carolina has emerged as a leader in the solar energy market, ranking third nationally for solar capacity, behind California and Arizona. There are more than 200 solar-related companies in the state and approximately 2,436 MW of solar power has been installed, enough to power 260,000 homes. [StarNewsOnline.com]

Solar array in North Carolina (Matt Born / StarNews)

¶ Vermont utility Green Mountain Power will partner with Virtual Peaker Inc to help customers save money, reduce carbon emissions, and use more renewables. GMP will use proprietary software by Virtual Peaker that shares access to internet-based appliances and devices, so they can be managed to even out grid demand. [vtdigger.org] (Thanks to Tad Montgomery)

Baffin Wind farm (Photo by Mike McPheeters, Avangrid Renewables)

¶ The Texas coast could be the state’s next frontier for wind energy. The state’s wind boom began in the west, but developers are looking to the coast and the Panhandle for new sites. Wind farms at the coast will make wind energy available during a greater part of the day because wind picks up earlier in the evening there. [Victoria Advocate]

¶ In a report submitted to the Washington state Legislature, the state’s Ecology Department recommends more aggressive action on climate change, with a mid-century target of reducing carbon emission by 80% below 1990 levels. That compares with a current target that calls for a 50% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2050. [The Seattle Times]

¶ Exelon Generation will soon stop managing the closed the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant. The Omaha Public Power District issued a six-month notice to Exelon that it will terminate its contract with Exelon early. This triggers a $5 million early exit fee and clears the way for another nuclear contracting expert to manage the site. [Omaha World-Herald]

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Opinion:

¶ “Passive house building boom shows low-carbon future may be closer than we think” • The number of Passive House units in North America has quadrupled in the last year, from 500 to over 2,000 units. Once the projects on the books are completed, North America will have four times as many certified Passive House buildings as in 2015. [Straight.com]

Passive house construction (Stephen Hui, Pembina Institute)

Science and Technology:

¶ Lazard Ltd’s Levelized Cost of Energy Analysis compares costs of various generation technologies. Its latest, LCOE 10.0, shows that the cost decline of generating electricity from solar PV was steeper than decreases among other forms of renewable energy in 2016, with utility-scale PV technologies down about 11% from last year. [Solar Industry]

¶ The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released its 2015–2016 Arctic Report Card. With sea ice extent and snow cover diminishing, it now appears that the Arctic is stuck in a set of feedback loops that will only see temperatures in the region rise at ever faster rates for the foreseeable future. [CleanTechnica]

Please click on the image to enlarge it. 

World:

¶ For over a decade Argentina’s oil sector has profited from the government’s policy to keep domestic oil prices low. When President Mauricio Macri took office he vowed to reduce energy subsidies. Now his administration says it is making good on that promise and subsidies for oil producers are being stopped. [chinadialogue]

¶ Yet another study has affirmed that Australia could – and should – shift to a 100% renewable energy grid, as a “robust, reliable and stable” supply of clean electricity. It found that a fully renewable grid would provide long-term economic and social benefits for Australia, with fighting climate change as a benefit. [CleanTechnica]

Concentrating solar trackers at the Windorah Solar Farm  
(Photo by Aaronazz, CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Japanese labor authorities have recognized the thyroid cancer of a man who worked at Tepco’s stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant as a work-related. This is the third case that labor authorities have linked to radiation exposure for workers at the Fukushima plant. The two previous cases involved leukemia. [The Japan Times]

¶ China is targeting renewable energy output of 1.9 trillion kWh by 2020, accounting for 27% of the country’s total power output, the National Development and Reform Commission said in its latest five-year plan for renewable energy. The country aims to have installed renewable power capacity of 680 GW by 2020. [ETEnergyworld.com]

Chinese renewable energy

US:

¶ With an incoming presidential administration seemingly hostile towards action on climate change, local solutions have now become more important than ever. By a 5-0 vote, the town council of Boone, North Carolina passed a resolution demanding that the US completely stop use of fossil fuels to “avoid climate catastrophe.” [EcoWatch]

¶ In August 2010, one of Donald Trump’s most exclusive new hotels, the Trump SoHo in downtown Manhattan, boasted it would invest in 100% clean power. Specifically, it would purchase electricity from wind. One of the deal’s main architects said the move to purchase wind energy was spearheaded by Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. [Mother Jones]

Trump SoHo hotel condominium in New York City
(Alec Perkins / Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Public Service Electric & Gas, New Jersey’s oldest and largest publicly owned utility, is about to bring a new solar farm online in Edison. The solar array will produce 7.75 MW of power, which is enough to power 1,300 homes. It is one of the last sites to come online in the current phase of the utility’s Solar 4 All program. [MyCentralJersey.com]

¶ New England’s largest battery project, which is the size of eight shipping containers, is set to begin operating in the next week or so. The lithium-ion battery was installed in a warehouse at the oil-fired Wyman Station in Yarmouth, Massachusetts. NextEra Energy Resources is Wyman Station’s lead owner and operator. [Press Herald]

Four modules of New England’s largest power storage battery
(Derek Davis / Staff Photographer)

¶ The 10-MW Western Antelope Dry Ranch solar plant in Lancaster, California is now producing enough energy to power over 1,800 homes. Lancaster seeks to be the nation’s first city to produce enough clean energy to meet its electricity needs. The plant operates under a 20-year power purchase agreement. [San Fernando Valley Business Journal]

¶ Norwegian energy giant Statoil was declared the provisional winner of the US government’s wind lease sale of 79,350 acres in waters off New York. Statoil had submitted the winning bid of $42,469,725 in the online offshore wind auction conducted by the US Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. [GCaptain]

Block Island wind farm (Photo: Deepwater Wind)

¶ American Electric Power Company Inc may be adding a lot more renewable energy in Ohio. The Columbus-based electric utility is taking proposals on new projects that would total 100 MW of solar-powered and 250 MW of wind-powered electricity, with a site preference for the solar projects in Appalachian Ohio. [Columbus Business First]

¶ In Vermont, the Burlington Electric Department continues to focus on sourcing 100% of its power from renewable generation with the addition of a new source to its power portfolio. Maine’s 17-turbine Hancock Wind Project began operating commercially on December 16, and it will supply 9% of Burlington’s energy needs. [vtdigger.org]

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Opinion:

¶ “We May Have Been Talking About Climate Change All Wrong” • German researchers suggest a new approach to talking about climate change. They reviewed attitudes of over 1,600 participants in the United States. Conservatives responded more favorably to messages focused on the past, rather than on the future. [CleanTechnica]

Lake Oroville in July 2011 (left) and January 2014 (right)
(Credit: California Department of Water Resources)

The Arctic in September, 1984 (left) and 2016 (right)
(Credit: NASA)

Science and Technology:

¶ A transformation is happening in global energy markets that is well worth noting as 2016 comes to an end: Solar power, for the first time, is becoming the least costly form of new electricity. Unsubsidized solar is beginning to outcompete coal and natural gas on a larger scale, according to fresh data from Bloomberg New Energy Finance. [TechCentral]

World:

¶ More than 16,000 Indian households in 800 remote villages will be given a solar panel, with an eight-hour battery storage backup, according to the Indian energy minister. He said the households would also be given 5 LED bulbs, an energy efficient ceiling fan and a solar power-based mobile phone charging socket. [PV-Tech]

Rural India (Photo: flickr, ADDEVOL Design Studio)

¶ Senvion is to supply of 220 turbines totalling more than 500 MW to an Indian independent power producer. Delivery will start in the fourth quarter of 2017 and continue until 2019. Commissioning of the first site is expected by the end of 2017, Senvion said. The hardware will be manufactured in an Indian manufacturing plant. [reNews]

¶ The state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute reported that most of the electricity so far this year came from renewable sources. The country surpassed 250 days using only renewable power sources according to an agency statement. During 2016, 98.12% of Costa Rica’s energy was generated from renewable sources. [The Tico Times]

First turbine running at the Reventazón plant
(Via Casa Presidencial)

¶ Tidal power company Atlantis Resources confirmed it is going ahead with the next phase of its MeyGen project in Scotland’s Pentland Firth. Four 1.5-MW tidal turbines will be deployed on the sea bed, adding to four installed last month. The project was awarded more that £14 million funding from the European Commission. [Press and Journal]

US:

¶ A member of the National Petroleum Council has penned an op-ed, apparently with the aim of persuading the incoming Trump Administration to adopt the Texas model for killing coal jobs. Her argument is pretty strong even though the CPP is still in legal limbo. She is basically arguing for a carbon tax. BTW, so did Exxon Mobil. [CleanTechnica]

Texas wind energy (screenshot, cropped image, via AWEA)

¶ The Michigan Legislature approved a rewrite of state energy laws, voting on the final day of the two-year term to boost the required use of renewable sources of power and to keep intact some competition in the electricity market. The bill is going to the governor, who supported it actively, for his signature. [Crain’s Detroit Business]

¶ California Governor Jerry Brown is calling on President Barack Obama to use his authority to permanently ban new offshore oil and gas leasing in federal waters off the coast of California. The call comes along with other actions Governor Brown outlined to combat climate change and help protect ocean waters off the Golden State. [GCaptain]

Offshore drilling rig

¶ Massachusetts has been a national leader for reliable power sources such as solar, wind and water, according to the 2016 Massachusetts Clean Energy Industry Report. Early-stage investments in clean energy companies in the state grew 166% from the previous year, adding more than 6,300 clean energy jobs this year. [Metro.us]

¶ Middlebury College has won an important battle in what Resident Scholar Bill McKibben recently asserted must become an all-out war on climate change. Late last week the college announced it had reached carbon neutrality, bringing its net carbon footprint to zero, in response to a student challenge of 2007. [Addison County Independent]

Middlebury College maintains a 2,100-acres forest
preserve for sequestering carbon. (Photo by Brett Simison)

¶ The Burlington Electric Department has proposed creating an electric public bus fleet as part of its efforts to reach “net zero” carbon emissions in the city and meet state renewable energy requirements. The utility hopes in can partner with a transit provider, such as Green Mountain Transit or the University of Vermont. [vtdigger.org]

¶ Closing its lone nuclear plant helped the Omaha Public Power District head off a rate hike that would have resulted in a bill increase of 2.5% for average residential ratepayers in 2017. The utility’s board approved a recalculation based on closing the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant and the adding of 400 MW of wind power. [Omaha World-Herald]

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Opinion:

¶ “While Turnbull spins his wheels, industry is getting on with deploying renewables” • Incredibly, for the sake of party unity, Turnbull has turned his back on all administrative, economic and industry advice, including his own advice of a few years ago. But the rollout of renewable energy goes on, becoming more clearly achievable. [Independent Australia]

Flinders Island Hybrid Energy Hub (Image: Hydro Tasmania)

¶ “Could Rick Perry Forego his Special-Interest Past for a Clean Energy Future?” • Rick Perry is President-elect Trump’s pick for Energy secretary. Put simply: The appointment of Rick Perry is “open season” on the environment, and all who care about the health of their families should be concerned. [Environmental Defense Fund]

World:

¶ The British government reaffirmed its commitment to spend £730 million yearly on renewable power projects and confirmed that the second Contracts for Difference auction will open for less established technologies in April 2017. So companies may compete for the first £290 million worth of renewable project contracts. [Seawork International]

Government backs offshore wind
(Image copyright © Mercator Media 2016)

¶ New research carried out by the UK’s manufacturing sector concluded the sector has untapped potential to increase energy efficiency, which could lead to a 12 TWh reduction in annual electricity consumption. The energy efficiencies had a 20-month payback period, and a significant proportion had no capital investment at all. [CleanTechnica]

¶ Energy giant AGL’s dream of a solar PV Virtual Power Plant for Adelaide is taking shape, with a first release of 150 batteries sold out and nine already installed. AGL hopes that, when complete, the metropolitan distributed energy network will have an output equivalent to a 5-MW solar peaking plant, supported by 1,000 batteries. [EcoGeneration]

AGL virtual power plant installation (AGL image)

¶ Gamesa reported that it had beaten its own annual turbine manufacturing record, having already made more than 1,880 units with a total productive capacity of 3,880 MW. The old record, set in 2008, was 3,787 MW. The turbines were assembled all over the world, in India (36%), Europe (28%), China (26%) and Brazil (10%). [CleanTechnica]

¶ The price of electricity from offshore wind keeps dropping. A consortium made up of Shell, Mitsubishi/DGE, Van Oord, and Eneco has won the concession to build the Borssele III and IV Wind Farms, amounting to 700 MW, at a new record low cost of €54.5/MWh (5.7¢/kWh). Only last July, the record low price was €72.70/MWh. [CleanTechnica]

Offshore wind substation
(photo by Wikichops, CC BY-SA, Wikimedia Commons)

¶ Energy storage provider Younicos was selected by Centrica to design and deliver one of the world’s most sophisticated battery-based energy storage systems, and one of the largest. To be completed by winter 2018, the 49-MW lithium-ion system will respond to demand fluctuations in less than a second, according to a press release. [solarserver.com]

US:

¶ New technology developed by Environmental Defense Fund, Google, and Colorado State University is reducing pipeline methane emissions by 83% in an area surveyed for a utility. A specially equipped Google Street View mapping car measures the volume of methane escaping, finding where the worst leaks are. [CleanTechnica]

Google Street View mapping car
(Courtesy Environmental Defense Fund)

¶ Donald Trump’s transition team is disavowing a questionnaire sent to the Energy Department asking for names of employees who had worked on climate change issues. “The questionnaire was not authorized or part of our standard protocol. The person who sent it has been properly counseled,” a Trump transition official told CNN. [CNN]

¶ Dong Energy is teaming up with Eversource Energy, the New England transmission system company, on the Bay State Wind project. The proposed offshore windfarm would be located approximately 15 to 25 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard in an area that has the potential to develop at least 2,000 MW of electricity. [Offshore Wind Journal]

Dong Energy and Eversource Energy plan to develop
the 2,000-MW Bay State offshore wind project together.

¶ New Hampshire Public Radio reports the state’s Site Evaluation Committee voted 5 to 1 to approve the Antrim wind farm. The project will include nine turbines that are expected to power roughly 12,000 homes. The project was first rejected in 2009, as opponents of wind farms argued the turbines would mar New Hampshire’s landscape. [PennEnergy]

¶ EDP Renovaveis SA announced it has signed a $114-million (€107 million) institutional tax equity financing deal relating to the Gamesa-powered 101-MW Timber Road II project in Ohio. The project has a long-term power purchase agreement with Amazon Web Services Inc and will start power generation in May 2017. [SeeNews Renewables]

Wind park (Author: Santi Villamarín, CC BY-SA)

Please click on
the image to enlarge it.

¶ The DOE gave its approval this week to an international power line to carry 1,000-MW from Canada to southern New England. The electricity will come mainly from Canadian hydroelectric dams, but it will also include some power from wind turbines in New York state. The state of Vermont will have dibs on 200 MW of it. [vtdigger.org]

¶ Vernon officials heard a pitch from former Google executive Matt Dunne, who said the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant’s property would be good for a data center. Ever since Entergy announced it would close VY, the Vernon Planning Commission has working on an economic development plan for the site. [Vermont Public Radio]

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