Renewable Energy News

Soft costs are hindering solar industry growth in the U.S. What people can’t seem to agree on is why this is happening, or what to do about it.

Russian gas supplier Gazprom’s 100 percent prevalence in Lithuania has been shaken up in the seaport city of Klaipeda, where Finnish energy firm Fortum has opened a $173-million combined heat and power plant (CHPP). The 20-MW biomass and waste-fuelled plant will produce 40 percent of Klaipeda’s heating needs and decrease its dependency on Russian gas approximately as much.

OK, the permitting process for solar projects in the U.S. is not very easy. That’s just one of the reasons why it’s usually a good idea to work with an accredited installer to wrangle the permitting process—above and beyond safety and the assurance that a system is properly installed. But across the U.S. there are literally thousands of authority h

The teams of geothermal geologists, driven executives and keen marketers assembled in Reno this week for the Third Annual National Geothermal Summit, are easily as optimistic as their counterparts in the solar and wind renewable energy industries, but they perhaps are a tad more perplexed.

The New York legislative session ended this week without lawmakers enacting the long-term solar policy we worked so hard to support — but there’s still plenty of opportunity to get the job done this year.

Beacon Power LLC, a company that provides energy storage capacity based on grid-scale flywheel technology is installing flywheels and full-scale construction at a new 20 MW energy storage plant in Hazle Township, Pennsylvania.

It was a terse announcement that crossed the wire early yesterday morning from Fortress SZYM, without warning except perhaps to equity analysts that hopped on a hastily-arranged call. Solazyme and Roquette Frères were announcing the dissolution of their two-year old joint venture, Solazyme Roquette Nutritionals.

There is a “significant risk” that the UK’s progress on renewable energy generation will not be sustained, according to report out today.

As renewable energy sources continue to gain momentum and drive the electrical grid to a more intelligent and reliable source of power, integrating the right components and peripheral systems are essential to reliability. As most renewable systems are located in outdoor and potentially harsh environments, critical attention must be paid to the suitability and robustness of the equipment to be installed in these environments. Since this equipment is only as reliable as its power source, backup power is often required in addition to the utility power source.

Goal Zero’s solar chargers and battery backups have been used in some of the toughest environments on earth, places like Everest, and Eric Larsen used the company’s chargers on his recent attempt to bike across Antarctica. But they may be facing their toughest challenge yet — New York City. Goal Zero partnered with AT&T and design studio Pensa to d

All conferences sell trends – at Intersolar Europe trends included an uptick in prices for modules in advance of the August 6 tariff increase on Chinese modules, self-consumption as the next driver for PV industry growth, utility charges for grid-access as well as the next big market, application, technology, and so on and so forth. A trend worth starting is a return to high quality standards as well as a rejection of adherence to the ever lowering of the bar of what constitutes minimum standards.

Today President Obama spoke at Georgetown University about his plans to broadly address climate change. Ahead of his actual talk, the White House released the gist of what he would propose.

China is currently the best country in the world for renewable energy investment, while India has the strongest potential for conventional power investors, according to a new report.

Coda Holdings, which formerly made electric vehicles under the name Coda Automotive, sold its battery energy storage technology to a consortium of investors to form Coda Energy, which will design and build utility-scale energy storage solutions. Coda declared bankruptcy in May 2013.

India plans to revive tax breaks for wind farms after the expiry of earlier incentive programs led to a 47 percent slump in installations, according to two government officials with direct knowledge of the matter.

Climate change is altering and destroying important habitats that America’s migratory birds depend on and urgent action is needed to change that dangerous "flight path," including rapid development of renewable energy sources, according to a new report released yesterday by the National Wildlife Federation (NWF).

Our system of checks and balances in government is important to our democracy. Each of the three branches of government limits the powers of the others to prevent one branch from becoming too powerful. In a similar manner, wind power may serve as a check to future natural gas price hikes.

As the cost of distributed solar, like rooftop solar, continues to become cheaper for home and business owners, utilities are getting worried that distributed solar will hurt their bottom line. Sunrun CEO Ed Fenster says that to thrive, these utilities should take a page from telecom companies, which changed their business model from entrenched mon

Several corporate leaders have volunteered to reduce energy use 20 percent by 2020 as part of a challenge initiated by President Barack Obama. But that’s not the big deal. The big deal is that they have agreed to publicly disclose how they’re doing it. Factories, data centers, stores and other large energy users often balk at revealing their energy

At this year's PV America conference, Jennifer Runyon spoke with Conor McKenna from Reznick Capital Market Securities, Tim Short, Capital Dynamics and Laura Jones of Hunton and Williams. They discussed the complexities of solar project finance and how to attract new entrants into the space.