Renewable Energy News

As the low-emission economy evolves, building new generation technologies is just half the challenge. The other half of the challenge lies in building the transport and distribution networks – and Asia is the region to watch, specifically China, Japan, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) States, East Timor and Australia.

Suntech Power, feeling the sting of the tariff the U.S. government imposed on silicon solar cells from China, said Tuesday it will shutter its Arizona factory on April 3 and let go of 43 employees.

Solar investors are feeling decidedly bearish this week, bidding down shares in most major solar panel makers even as a few major names including Suntech (NYSE: STP), Canadian Solar (Nasdaq: CSIQ) and JinkoSolar (NYSE: JKS) tried to prime the market with upbeat news. But truth be told, the news from all three of these companies looks marginally pos

The enormous growth in local renewable energy is decentralizing the electricity system, often supplanting energy from centralized power plants.  But not all renewable energy is built locally, even in a country like Germany with massive local ownership of its renewable energy systems.  The Germans are undergoing significant upgrades to their electri

Suntech has managed to delay a major bond payment for another two months until May 15, but there's still considerable buzz surrounding the company and this $541 million debt deadline, widely anticipated as a major test of China's drive to consolidate its solar industry.

Once again the race is on to get new renewable energy projects under construction by year end. While the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 ("ATRA") provided the long sought extension of the Production Tax Credit ("PTC") and Investment Tax Credit ("ITC") for certain renewable resources through 2013 (wind, biomass, geothermal, landfill gas, trash, hydropower and marine and hydrokinetic facilities), the extension comes with terms that present new challenges for developers.

The Advanced Geothermal Systems panel at the University of Texas Energy Forum reviewed both current and promising new advanced geothermal systems, much of which receives DOE support. "I am in full support of R&D that provides electrical power at lower risks and lower costs," said Douglas Hollet, director of geothermal technologies in Washington, D.C., who attended the forum.

Japan's solar developers would get 10 percent less for the power they feed to utilities under a recommendation a government panel made after taking into account a plunge in the cost of panels.

More and more, renewable energies are competing against each other, instead of against conventional energy sources. If you read the reports from major energy agencies and industry associations, you might be tempted to conclude that there is a bright future where all types of renewable energies will flourish and coexist peacefully. Well, they will n

South Africa's agreement to buy more than half the power from the first stage of a planned $80 billion hydropower project in the Democratic Republic of Congo may be the catalyst for expansion of the power industry throughout southern Africa, a government official said.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) demand will increase two gigawatts (GW), from 29 GW to 31 GW during 2013, up 7 percent Y/Y according to the new NPD Solarbuzz Marketbuzz 2013. For the first time, China will outpace Germany to become the leading PV consumer, while the top 10 PV territories will still account for 83% of global PV demand.

Japan is wasting the opportunity of the Fukushima disaster by failing to use the crisis and public opposition toward nuclear reactors to form an energy mix more reliant on renewable energy, Canadian author, environmentalist and geneticist David Suzuki says.

With early stage capital for cleantech innovation becoming increasingly scarce, crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter, Indiegogo and a new crop of clean/green ones are beginning to emerge as significant sources of funding for selected next-gen clean technologies. Hurdles remain, particularly for investors seeking returns, but I’m more optimistic abou

If a country has an overabundance of a globally coveted product, should it export it or keep the product for its own use? That is the question that Icelanders are grappling with regarding to the country's vast and overabundant supply of clean energy.

A glut of government-subsidized wind power may help accomplish a goal some environmentalists have sought for decades: kill off U.S. nuclear power plants while reducing reliance on electricity from burning coal.

The issue: Although panel prices have plummeted in the past five years, installling a rooftop system in the U.S. costs twice as much as it does in Germany. The cause: According to Solar Freedom Now, a new grassroots organization led by industry veterans Barry Cinnamon, Ron Kenedi, Jesse Pichel, Paula Mints, and Tom McCalmont, it all boils down to "

As a result of a disappointing earnings release, SolarCity (SCTY) took a shellacking on Thursday. The stock traded down 17.6 percent to the low of the day, and closed down 14.4 percent. Still, the stock is up 6.5 percent for the month, and the savvy investor would have gained 78 percent if they bought SCTY on the first day of trading in December 2012.

Hanergy Holding Group Ltd., a Chinese thin-film solar panel maker, expects the technology it has backed to take a greater share of the market that's dominated by silicon-based cells as the biggest manufacturers stumble.

The sequester. Continued Congressional gridlock. Declining levels of venture capital funding. High-profile bankruptcies. The boom in low-cost natural gas. As the Obama administration seeks to find its footing for a second term, there appear to be plenty of reasons to hold a very bleak outlook for clean tech in the U.S. and beyond.

The $77 billion solar-energy industry is forecast to expand the most since 2011, as China becomes the biggest market for the first time and drives annual global installations to a record.