Renewable Energy News

Thanks to solar’s resiliency, falling prices and ability to help out in disasters, New York is anticipating more solar installed in 2013 than ever before in the Empire state and in New York City. That’s based on experts who discussed the “Tipping Point for Solar in New York” at the City University of New York (CUNY), which held the seventh annual N

A new kind of tracking system, in combination with system-wide savings, could substantially reduce balance of system costs, claims one company.

The sun is still only rising for the commercial and residential deployment of photovoltaics (PV) and, as barriers to development are identified, innovative approaches to solar financing continue to sprout.

Investment in renewable energy is changing, with those who were once the backbone of the market pulling out and new entrants increasingly taking up the slack.

The countdown to Global Wind Day marks more than just a wait for a fun-filled day spent outside discovering wind energy. It is also a chance for the public, politicians, and industry officials to discuss wind energy and its benefits, sharing ideas, exchanging opinions, and deepening their knowledge and understanding along the way. Across Europe, wi

At industry trade body RenewableUK’s offshore wind event in Manchester, UK energy minister Michael Fallon has announced that the government will launch a new Offshore Wind Investment Organisation (OWIO) this summer, with the aim of increasing investment in the nation’s offshore wind sector.

Brown kelp macroalgae — the strange, foul-smelling seaweed so often found washed up on the Pacific Northwest’s volcanic sand beaches — could ultimately offer an almost unlimited global supply of commercial-quality ethanol or biomethane.

Semiconductors grown on graphene at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) may be the most important research breakthrough of 2012 in Norway. At the centre of the research efforts are Professor Helge Weman, Professor Bjørn-Ove Fimland and post-doctoral fellow Dong-Chul Kim. The team is now working on translating the results of their basic research into an initial prototype.

In late spring, the Connecticut Light & Power Company (CL&P) and the United Illuminating Company (UI) announced the joint issuance for the second year of the Low and Zero Emissions Renewable Energy Credit (LREC and ZREC) Program. The utilities issued the program in the form of a Request for Proposal (RFP) for bids for 15 year contracts with LREC an

There was an extra level of excitement and anticipation at the Renewable Energy World Europe and Power-Gen Europe Conference and Exhibition in Vienna last week. Not just because more than 13,000 of the world’s renewable energy and power industry had gathered to hear the latest developments and to see top power leaders debate Europe’s energy future,

Energy companies may invest as much as $3 billion on power-storage systems in California to facilitate wider use of renewable energy. Utilities owned by PG&E Corp., Sempra Energy and Edison International would be required to procure 1,325 megawatts of storage capacity by 2020 under a June 10 proposal from the California Public Utilities Commission.

Sometimes known as non-recourse finance, project finance emerged as a popular technique in the 1980s primarily as a means of supporting new energy projects. The concept consists of financing specific projects with recourse only to a ring-fenced project company (for example, a public utility that financially separates itself from a parent company that engages in non-regulatory business to protect consumers from losses), supported by a strong contractual framework including a fixed-price power-purchase agreement (PPA).

For years, the cumulative amount of distributed generation (DG) on the grid was akin to a drop of water in a glass.  That is, a tiny drop in a big glass.  But look how far we’ve come in the past few years. Last year the U.S. installed more than 90,000 photovoltaic installations, with a total capacity of 3.3 GW. This represents an 80 percent increas

It sounds obvious: put solar panels on a movable mount to follow the sun and catch as much sunlight as possible. But applying solar trackers to a project is not clear cut. Developers not only have to consider cost and location but the type of tracker that best suits the project. Yet as innovations in technology continue, trackers are starting to play a larger role in the industry.

Renewable energy investments are shifting to developing nations as countries from Morocco to Chile pursue power sources that wean them off fossil fuel imports, two studies promoted by the United Nations said.

About 1.2 billion people still lack access to electricity, and 2.8 billion have to rely on wood or other biomass to cook and heat their homes, said a recent report produced by a multi-agency team led by the World Bank.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) technology is a recipe of highly engineered materials and components, sandwiched with specific functions and working together to harness sunlight and convert it into electricity. One of those layers is the encapsulation film which protects the solar cell and ensures its performance and reliability; its role is to provide optical and electrical transmissivity and keep out moisture.

Almost one decade ago, Japanese PV makers dominated global PV production — Sharp, Kyocera, Sanyo (now part of Panasonic) and Mitsubishi Electric represented about 50 percent of global production in 2005. When German and other European markets expanded quickly, a great number of companies in Europe and Asia, specifically China, jumped into the “potentially” profitable PV industry. They rapidly ramped up their production and brought down costs, leaving Japanese companies behind.

On June 7, 2013, the IRS released the public version of the private letter ruling (PLR) that it issued to Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure Capital, Inc. prior to that company’s IPO in April. Contrary to some industry observer's expectations, the ruling doesn't break new ground. It certainly doesn't reflect IRS agreement that solar and wind farms are good REIT assets.

A solar installation built adjacent to a natural gas-fired power plant in Florida; a hydroelectric plant needed to meet an expected 6 percent annual growth in Chile; a coal-fired power plant that also burns biomass in Virginia; and a solar power plant built on a former lignite mining strip in Germany. These projects and more are some of the past wi