Renewable Energy News

A new report on offshore wind from energy advisors Douglas-Westwood concludes that sector spending is set to average almost €15 billion per year over the next ten years, hitting a peak of €18 billion in 2016.

For those of us who live in communities traversed by power lines, it's hard to imagine life without electricity. But large swaths of the globe remain without this modern necessity. About one-fifth of the world, or 1.3 to 1.6 billion people, live in energy poverty, mostly in sub-Sahara Africa and parts of Asia, and to a smaller extent in Latin America and the Middle East.

A lot happened while I was unplugged and on vacation during late June. The Muslim Brotherhood offices in Cairo were stormed and then-Egyptian-president Mohammed Morsi’s tenure teetered on dissolution, record heat waves gripped the entire U.S. West resulting in devastating fires and deaths, and the Supreme Court overturned the federal Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Proposition 8, setting the stage for a new era in U.S. gay and lesbian rights. On top of that, President Obama unveiled a dramatic, wide-ranging new climate plan, getting the summer off to a heated start.

We hear a lot about how the economic crisis and subsidy cuts are affecting Europe’s solar and wind sectors — but what about the bioenergy sector? According to a new report from analysis firm Frost & Sullivan (F&S), a number of European countries are giving up on biopower installations as a means of meeting their 2020 renewable energy targets as reduced or shelved incentives make bioenergy plants an increasingly unsustainable proposition. As in other renewable energy markets, policy changes have added to the problem by creating uncertainty in the biopower sector.

Two more renewable energy projects in Latin America are recognized under the United Nations’ Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), which was established as part of the Kyoto Protocol to spur implementation of projects that contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gases, and that can also be used as a carbon credit “cap and trade” mechanism.

A hybrid wind-current power generation system will be installed off the Japanese coast later this year, said Tokyo-based Mitsui Ocean Development & Engineering Company (MODEC), the device’s developer.

Someone once said: “Your vocation in life is where your greatest joy meets the world’s greatest need.”    Without question, the pilots of Solar Impulse, Dr. Bertrand Piccard and Andre Borschberg, are living proof of that.  These two great adventurers made solar and aviation history last weekend when Solar Impulse touched down at New York’s JFK Airp

Yesterday, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) released its annual progress report for the California Solar Initiative, and it’s more good news for solar in the Golden State. Some key takeaways include:

Continuing its quest to use 100 percent renewable energy, Apple announced that it is building an 18-20 megawatt (MW) solar array at its upcoming Reno, NV data center. Apple will work with Nevada utility NV Energy and again partner with SunPower, but this time it will use SunPower’s low-concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) technology.

According to Marcus Elsässer and other executives at Intersolar North America 2013, Energy Storage + PV is the next big thing and we should all prepare ourselves to see more of it. Three years ago, Intersolar decided to focus a bit on the technology and signed up about 10 battery manufacturers to exhibit at its European show — the largest solar power show in the world. This year, there were more than 200 energy storage companies exhibiting.

After months of heated rhetoric, the voice of reason is growing between Europe and China as they seek to end their dispute over Beijing’s state support for its solar panel sector. In the latest sign that a potential agreement to resolve the dispute could be near, Beijing has decided not to levy punitive tariffs against European polysilicon, the mai

Joysticks, 3-D glasses, and room-sized stereoscopic views of some of the tiniest things in the universe — scientists at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) now have a new way to view and interact with their data.

Victor Hugo once wrote that “there is nothing more powerful than an idea whose time has come.” This little piece of wisdom, penned in the aftermath of the French Revolution, applies well to the emerging topic of climate bonds.

Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s latest speech detailing the “third arrow” of his three-pronged economic policy included a pledge of ¥30 trillion (US $302 billion) aimed at boosting competition in the electricity sector and encouraging renewable energy development.

The U.S. approved two solar projects and one geothermal plant that will total 520 MW of capacity in Arizona and Nevada. The 100-MW Quartsize Solar Energy project will be located in Arizona, while the 350-MW Midland Solar Project and 70-MW New York Canyon Geothermal Project will be located in Nevada.

Troubled German utility group Energie Baden-Württemberg AG (EnBW) has announced that it intends to shut down a total of four fossil-fuelled power plants as a result of the increasing volumes of renewable energy capacity in the country’s energy market. With renewable energy given priority in the despatch merit order, this, the company argues, means

While most incentives focus on renewable energy electricity and fuels, the Northeastern part of the United States has slowly been making inroads to include renewable heating as part of state Renewable Portfolio Standards. Now, a Coalition has formed in Massachusetts to include biomass, solar and geothermal heating in the Massachusetts Alternative Energy Portfolio Standard. SB 1593 was filed in early January 2013 by Sen. Finegold of Andover, Mass.

This month, we witnessed the Nation's 237th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  Last week, I celebrated by signing my own declaration of independence, a contract to install PV on our newly purchased home!  This got me thinking about the role that our founding documents still play in the regulation, governance, and market

The U.S. now has more than 10 gigawatts (GW) of installed solar PV capacity, joining Germany, Italy, and China — and it's just getting warmed up, according to new calculations from NPD SolarBuzz. And watch for the next 10-GW Club member that's fast approaching.

Don Draper and fellow “Mad Men” would likely be horrified, but alcohol and tobacco — long joined at the hip by chain smokers and heavy drinkers — are countering the U.S.’ current aversion to excess by rebranding themselves as new sources of bioenergy.