Solar Power Will Kill Coal Faster Than You Think https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-15/solar-power-will-kill-coal-sooner-than-you-think [excellent graphs] Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s outlook shows renewables will be cheaper almost everywhere in just a few years. by Jess Shankleman and Hayley Warren June 15, 2017, Solar power, once so costly it only made economic sense in spaceships, is becoming cheap enough that it will push coal and even natural-gas plants out of business faster than previously forecast.
That’s the conclusion of a Bloomberg New Energy Finance outlook for how fuel and electricity markets will evolve by 2040. The research group estimated solar already rivals the cost of new coal power plants in Germany and the U.S. and by 2021 will do so in quick-growing markets such as China and India.
The scenario suggests green energy is taking root more quickly than most experts anticipate. It would mean that global carbon dioxide pollution from fossil fuels may decline after 2026, a contrast with the International Energy Agency’s central forecast, which sees emissions rising steadily for decades to come.
“Costs of new energy technologies are falling in a way that it’s more a matter of when than if,” said Seb Henbest, a researcher at BNEF in London and lead author of the report.
The report also found that through 2040:
- China and India represent the biggest markets for new power generation, drawing $4 trillion, or about 39 percent all investment in the industry.
- The cost of offshore wind farms, until recently the most expensive mainstream renewable technology, will slide 71 percent, making turbines based at sea another competitive form of generation.
- At least $239 billion will be invested in lithium-ion batteries, making energy storage devices a practical way to keep homes and power grids supplied efficiently and spreading the use of electric cars.
- Natural gas will reap $804 billion, bringing 16 percent more generation capacity and making the fuel central to balancing a grid that’s increasingly dependent on power flowing from intermittent sources, like wind and solar.
- BNEF’s conclusions about renewables and their impact on fossil fuels are most dramatic. Electricity from photovoltaic panels costs almost a quarter of what it did in 2009 and is likely to fall another 66 percent by 2040. Onshore wind, which has dropped 30 percent in price in the past eight years, will fall another 47 percent by the end of BNEF’s forecast horizon.That means even in places like China and India, which are rapidly installing coal plants, solar will start providing cheaper electricity as soon as the early 2020s.
“These tipping points are all happening earlier and we just can’t deny that this technology is getting cheaper than we previously thought,” said Henbest.
- Coal will be the biggest victim, with 369 gigawatts of projects standing to be cancelled, according to BNEF. That’s about the entire generation capacity of Germany and Brazil combined.Capacity of coal will plunge even in the U.S., where President Donald Trump is seeking to stimulate fossil fuels. BNEF expects the nation’s coal-power capacity in 2040 will be about half of what it is now after older plants come offline and are replaced by cheaper and less-polluting sources such as gas and renewables.
In Europe, capacity will fall by 87 percent as environmental laws boost the cost of burning fossil fuels. BNEF expects the world’s hunger for coal to abate starting around 2026 as governments work to reduce emissions in step with promises under the Paris Agreement on climate change.
- “Beyond the term of a president, Donald Trump can’t change the structure of the global energy sector single-handedly,” said Henbest.All told, the growth of zero-emission energy technologies means the industry will tackle pollution faster than generally accepted. While that will slow the pace of global warming, another $5.3 trillion of investment would be needed to bring enough generation capacity to keep temperature increases by the end of the century to a manageable 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the report said.
The data suggest wind and solar are quickly becoming major sources of electricity, brushing aside perceptions that they’re too expensive to rival traditional fuels.
By 2040, wind and solar will make up almost half of the world’s installed generation capacity, up from just 12 percent now, and account for 34 percent of all the power generated, compared with 5 percent at the moment, BNEF concluded.
June 16, 2017
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2 WORLD, renewable |
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Two days after President Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the Paris climate accord, Modi and Macron pledged to achieve emissions reductions beyond their nations’ commitments.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/india-joins-renewable-energy-revolution-accelerates-targets-13206/
June 16, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
India, renewable |
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Energy-efficient cleaning robot, Science Daily
- Date:
- June 14, 2017
- Source:
- SINTEF
- Summary:
- State-of-the-art solar cells are efficient — but are even more so when they are kept clean. A cleaning robot enables solar panels to deliver at full capacity.
State-of-the-art solar cells are efficient — but are even more so when they are kept clean. A cleaning robot developed by Norwegian researchers enables solar panels to deliver at full capacity……
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/06/170614092728.htm
June 16, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
EUROPE, renewable |
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Clean energy stored in electric vehicles to power buildings
Stored energy from electric vehicles (EVs) can be used to power large buildings — creating new possibilities for the future of smart, renewable energy — thanks to ground-breaking battery research from WMG at the University of Warwick.
http://www.enn.com/energy/article/51513
Making hydrogen fuel from humid air
One of the biggest hurdles to the widespread use of hydrogen fuel is making hydrogen efficiently and cleanly. Now researchers report in the journal ACS Nano a new way to do just that. They incorporated a photocatalyst in a moisture-absorbing, semiconducting paint that can produce hydrogen from water in the air when exposed to sunlight.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-06/acs-mhf060917.php
New technology will enable properties to share solar energy
Dr. Mahmoud Dhimish’s research will mean low energy bills for consumers
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-06/uoh-ntw060717.php
June 16, 2017
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2 WORLD, renewable |
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Renew Economy 13th June 2017, Wind, solar and energy efficiency have replaced the vast majority of power
previously provided by the UK’s coal fleet, a new analysis shows.
Since the start of the coalition government in 2010, coal’s role in the
generation mix has fallen to historic lows, culminating in the country’s
first coal-free day since the 19th century earlier this year.
But the gap has not been plugged by natural gas, the UK’s now primary source of
electricity. Renewables and energy efficiency have together covered nearly
85% of the power the UK no longer gets from its coal plants. http://reneweconomy.com.au/wind-solar-energy-efficiency-replaces-coal-generation-uk-33657/
June 14, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
renewable, UK |
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Big switch: Distributed energy to overtake centralised power by 2018 http://reneweconomy.com.au/big-switch-distributed-energy-to-overtake-centralised-power-by-2018-2018/ By Giles Parkinson on 13 June 2017 [good graphs]
Energy storage has reached a tipping point, so much so that around 320GW of new large scale power plants that might have been planned in the 10 years to 2023 will now no longer be needed.
According to a new report from Deutsche Bank, the growth of distributed energy – locally provided renewables such as rooftop solar and battery storage – will soon outstrip new centralised generation capacity additions across the world.
In fact, it could happen as early as 2018, marking a fundamental shift in the nature of the world’s energy systems, recognising that the old centralised model will be quickly replaced by a system based around localised energy production and storage.
Deutsche Bank estimates that the market for stationary energy storage – used in electricity grids – will rise six fold in the next five years, from 1GW and $4 billion, or 40GW or $25 billion by 2022. Note the big fall in spending per GW as the price of storage plunges.
“This increased penetration of distributed generation should drive the need for intelligent distribution networks comprised of nanogrids, microgrids and virtual power plants (VPPs),” the Deutsche analysts write.
To put the 320GW into context, it is more than six times the installed capacity in Australia’s electricity grid, and about 14 times the size of its coal fleet. It represents the once-anticipated new build of coal fired power stations in India, that many say will no longer happen.
The shift in emphasis from centralised to distributed energy has long been predicted, although it is given scant attention in the latest Finkel Review. Some analysis, such as that by the CSIRO, predict that half of all generation will come from consumers by 2050.
Deutsche Bank says the global shift is likely to be accelerated by moves to reduce the scope of solar feed in tariffs, encouraging yet more consumers to add battery storage.
“Regulatory environment will likely be a critical driver of storage adoption rates and contrary to consensus views, detrimental solar policies could potentially act as a significant growth catalyst for storage sector.” (Meaning low feed in tariffs will encourage more people into storage).
It notes that in several European countries, the difference in the price of feed-in-tariffs and price paid for electricity from the price of power consumed from the grid is significantly wide. It didn’t mention Australia, but that is also significant difference.
This shift is being accompanied by big cost reductions in battery storage, particularly in the cost of lithium ion cells.
It lithium-ion cell costs have already plunged from $US900/kWh in 2010 to $US225/kWh in 2015 – a similar trajectory to solar, and are tipped to fall to $US150/kWh by 2020. Tesla/Panasonic li-ion costs are already below $US200/kWh for cells and around $US225/kWh for the entire battery pack.
In says that in California, for example, combining a solar-panel system with a commercial-scale battery installation (500kWh) can deliver a 20 per cent return on investment with state subsidies, and still 12 per cent without subsidies, from peak shifting alone.
June 14, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
2 WORLD, decentralised |
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Renewable Energy Outproduces Nuclear In The U.S. [good graphs] Oil Price.com By Ron Patterson – Jun 10, 2017, The EIA released the latest edition of their Electric Power Monthly on May 25th, with data for March 2017. March data includes some milestones which are significant in that these circumstances have not existed for a very long time, if ever.
• The contribution from solar reached just over 2 percent
• The contribution from All Renewables exceeded that from Nuclear
• The combined contribution from Wind and Solar exceeded 10 percent
• The contribution from Non-Hydro Renewables exceeded 12 percent
………This year the increase in solar output in March seems significantly greater than in the previous three years. The solar generation capacity in the U.S. increased by over 57 percent for the year 2016 and data is not yet available from the Solar Energy Industries Association for the first quarter of 2017….http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Renewable-Energy-Outproduces-Nuclear-In-The-US.html
June 12, 2017
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renewable, USA |
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NuClear News No.96 June 2017, What was remarkable about Donald Trump’s announcement on 1st June that the US would abandon the Paris climate agreement was not the almost universal condemnation of the move, but the number of stories about how successful renewable energy has become and how its advance has now become unstoppable.
Donald Trump is so wrong to be taking the US out of the Paris accord on climate change, says Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph. The renewables train has already left the station and won’t now be stopped. Non binding targets for reducing greenhouse gases are no longer relevant and will almost certainly be naturally exceeded of their own accord without any help from inter-government actions. There is therefore absolutely no reason for the US to withdraw. (1)
Although President Donald Trump has presented his energy policy decisions as being focused on creating jobs, the solar and wind industries that could be threatened by leaving the Paris accord employ many more people than the coal industry that is likely to be the principal beneficiary. About 374,000 people spend at least some of their time working in the solar power industry in the US, with 260,000 of those working there more than half the time. A further 102,000 work in wind power. Together that is almost three times the 160,000 people employed in the coal industry, with about 86,000 of those at coal-fired power plants and 74,000 in coal mining and distribution. The number employed in coal mining has dropped from about 89,000 of those at coal-fired power plants and 74,000 in coal mining and distribution
The number employed in coal mining has dropped from about 89,000 at the start of 2012 to about 50,500 in April, following a slight bump of about 1,000 over the past year. Solar power is so labour-intensive in part because the rapid growth of the industry has created a lot of construction jobs installing systems. About 37% of US solar jobs are in construction, with about 27% in wholesaling. Only about 19% of US solar jobs are in manufacturing, and the industry has been heavily reliant on low-cost imported panels, mostly from China, Malaysia and Korea, to enable it to compete against fossil fuel generation. (2)
The US solar industry alone employs more than twice as many workers as the coal sector. Manhattan has more Tesla charging spots than petrol stations, though many are in fee-paying parking garages. And across the US, where power companies are facing lower wholesale prices thanks to cheaper natural gas, renewables are adding pressure too – even in unlikely spots such as oil-rich Texas. Texas now has more installed wind power capacity than Canada and Australia combined. If it were a country, it would rank as the world’s sixth-largest wind power, after China, the US, Germany, India and Spain.
The irony about Mr Trump’s inclination to back old industries, says Magnus Linklater in The Times, is that the US is an innovator in renewable energy, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. When you add in all the spin-offs, such as electric forms of transport, employment in renewable energy is starting to outstrip that in the declining oil and gas industries. Now is not the time to slow down. Wind turbines are proving a remarkable success. On some days they produce more electricity than Scotland needs, allowing it to export the remainder. In places like Denmark and Germany, where there has been a massive expansion of wind farms, they manufacture so much renewable energy that electricity prices have turned negative, with customers paid to use it. Alternative energy is beginning to turn in some remarkable statistics. On 26th May solar energy produced one quarter of Britain’s energy needs, more even than nuclear and coal-fired power. There is much more of this to come. (3)
Many U.S. states and private companies announced that despite Trump’s decision, they would continue their own existing policies, such as restricting greenhouse gas emissions, as well as pursue new ones to demonstrate urgency in addressing the climate threat. US states accounting for almost 30% of national gross domestic product have pledged to meet the country’s climate commitments. California, New York, Washington and five other states have said they are committed to cutting emissions by 26-28% from 2005 levels, which was the reduction proposed for the US by Barack Obama. (4) City leaders of 102 cities across the US have announced they are adopting the Paris Climate Agreement. Mayors who have signed on to the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda represent roughly 50 million Americans in 34 States. (5)
What is striking is how much of a financial impact this is already having on some companies says Per Lekander, a portfolio manager at London’s Lansdowne Partners hedge fund, who has tracked global energy markets for more than 25 years. Government efforts to tackle climate change and smog have driven down costs and spurred huge technical advances.
Global renewable power generation capacity rose by 9% last year – a fourfold increase from the start of this century – buoyed by the growth of solar power that shot up by more than 30%. For the second year in a row, renewable energy accounted for more than half the new power generation capacity added worldwide. These advances have become too significant for the oil and gas industry to ignore. Saudi Aramco talks about a “global transformation”; Shell says it’s “unstoppable”. Isabelle Kocher, chief executive of French power and gas group Engie, calls it a new “industrial revolution” that will “bring about a profound change in the way we behave”.
Brian Marrs, director of policy and strategy at NRG, the second-largest US power producer says: “I think what we’re seeing in the US now is the German postcard from the future finally arriving across the Atlantic.” Yet fast-growing industrialising nations are seeing some of the most profound changes. Towering over them all is smog-choked China, which has become a green energy juggernaut after designating renewables a strategic industry. China has more than a third of the world’s wind power capacity; a quarter of its solar power; six of the top 10 solarpanel makers; four of the top 10 wind turbine makers and more battery-only electric car sales last year than the rest of the world combined.
India is eager to follow: it built one of the world’s largest solar photovoltaic farms last year; ranks fourth in the world for wind power capacity; and could become the world’s third-biggest solar market this year. It also wants to boost its use of electric cars.
The cost of wind turbines fell by nearly a third since 2009 and solar panels by 80%, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). “It is as if every country in the world woke up one bright morning to find that it had a North Sea at its disposal”, says London energy analyst Kingsmill Bond. Costs are already lower than widely understood. “In 2010 we financed a 15 megawatt solar plant in southern California that cost $55m to build,” says Jim Long, a partner at Greentech Capital Advisors, a global clean energy advisory firm. “This year we have done another one the same size in the same area that has cost $15m and will produce at least 40 per cent more energy.”
Costs are expected to fall further as expensive subsidies guaranteeing set prices are replaced by competitive auctions or tenders. The amount of auctioned renewable electricity tripled last year compared to 2015, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance, while the average global price of auctioned solar power has plummeted fivefold since 2010. One of the most striking auction results came in Germany in April when Denmark’s Dong Energy, the largest builder of costly offshore wind farms, said it would build two new schemes without subsidies, relying instead on market prices alone. Advances in wind technologies – including the prospect of much more powerful turbines – were one reason for Dong’s move, a step others are expected to follow. “Renewables have reached a tipping point globally,” says Simon Virley, of KPMG. “A subsidy-free future is now in reach for a number of technologies and geographies.”
Even the experts have been caught out by the pace of the shift. In 2010, IEA projections suggested it could take 14 years before there were 180 gigawatts of installed solar capacity. It took less than seven years for the world to reach more than 290 gigawatts, nearly the entire generating capacity of Japan. “Fossil fuels have lost,” says Eddie O’Connor, chief executive of Irelands’s Mainstream Renewable Power. “The rest of the world just doesn’t know it yet.” (6) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo96.pdf
June 7, 2017
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No2Nuclear No 96 June 2017 According to the Office for National Statistics the number of full-time equivalent (FTE) direct jobs in the nuclear industry had declined to 12,400 by 2015, but about 9,400 of these workers do not produce electricity at all. They are engaged mostly in legacy nuclear waste management.
In 2015 ONS reported that the number of FTE direct jobs in the renewable forms of electricity generation had increased to 48,900 – about 16 times the number of jobs in nuclear electricity generation. (2) In 2015, 338 TWh of electricity was produced in the UK (DECC data). This comprised 70 TWh from nuclear, 85TWh from renewables and the rest from fossil fuels. (3) That amounts to about 43 jobs per TWh for nuclear and about 575 jobs per TWh for renewables. So not only are renewables cheaper than nuclear, but they also create around 13 times more jobs than nuclear power.
Offshore wind is becoming a double win for policymakers, according to Ray Thompson, Head of Business Development at Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy. He says offshore wind is coming to represent a major challenge to competing technologies. The new Siemens blade manufacturing facility and project execution harbour in Hull which opened in December 2016 has already created 800 new jobs and the numbers on site will rise to over 1,000 when full production is reached. (4)
Renewable energy jobs could “offset” fossil-fuel job losses by 2030 according to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). Renewable Energy and Jobs – Annual Review 2017 presents the status of renewable energy employment, both by technology and in selected countries, over the past year. In this fourth edition, IRENA finds that renewable energy employed 9.8 million people around the world in 2016 – a 1.1% increase over 2015. Jobs in renewables, excluding large hydropower, increased by 2.8% to reach 8.3 million in 2016. China, No2NuclearPower nuClear news No.96, June 2017 8 Brazil, the United States, India, Japan and Germany accounted for most of the renewable energy jobs. The shift to Asia continued, with 62% of the global total located in the continent. (5) Nuclear Power and Jobs
A policy which promotes nuclear power significantly diminishes the prospects of creating new jobs in renewable energy industries – in establishing an offshore wind manufacturing base for instance.
Nuclear power is a capital intensive industry, which means it requires a much higher injection of money to produce its final product – it is not a very efficient way of creating jobs. If there were an alternative way of providing or saving the same amount of electricity, but at the same time creating more jobs, clearly that would be a strategy worth pursuing.
One way of comparing the number of jobs created by different energy sources is to calculate the number of jobs for each Terawatt hour (TWh–1 billion kilowatt hours) generated annually. This, of course, will depend on the performance of the generating station. So a new 1.6GW reactor employing 500 people which operates an average of 80% of the time will be providing 45 jobs per TWh. Goldemberg has estimated the number of jobs created per TWh of power generated and found that nuclear produces around 75 jobs per terawatt hour (TWh), whereas wind power produces 918 – 2,400 per TWh. Solar photovoltaics provides 29,580 – 107,000 jobs/TWh. (1) http://www.no2nuclearpower.org.uk/nuclearnews/NuClearNewsNo96.pdf
June 7, 2017
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employment, renewable, UK |
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Solar Portal 6th June 2017 Rooftop solar panels in towns and cities across Scotland were able to generate more than the average home’s demand for electricity throughout May in an “extraordinary month for renewables”, according to WWF Scotland. Analysis of solar data by WeatherEnergy found that homes in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and more were able to generate over 100% of the
average household electricity demand, with rooftop solar in Lerwick on the Shetland Islands producing the most kWh last month. http://www.solarpowerportal.co.uk/news/rooftop_solar_generation_reaches_new_highs_in_scotland
June 7, 2017
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decentralised, UK |
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Solar lamps light up more African nights http://climatenewsnetwork.net/22346-2/ June 5, 2017, by Paul Brown Solar lamps are tackling poverty, ill-health and natural hazards in Africa, thanks to Chinese industry and a UK-based charity.
LONDON, 5 June, 2017 – With 600 million people in Africa still without electricity and relying on expensive kerosene for lighting, the invention of a new high-quality solar light gives hope for a better quality of life for the poorest people of the continent.
And with solar light design and quality constantly improving and prices falling, a brighter future is more affordable – and can even turn a profit for householders.
The new £4 ($5) lamp now on offer in parts of East Africa was created by Inventid, a company based in Manchester, UK, and has undergone trials with 9,000 families in Malawi, Uganda and Zambia. The SM100, as it is called, is now being made in China by the solar giant Yingli and distributed in Africa by the charity SolarAid.
The lamp is small enough to be used as a hand torch or a bicycle lamp, and has a stand which lets it be used as a table lamp or overhead light. It is tough enough to survive being dropped, or drenched in rain.
SolarAid, which has been pioneering the sale of solar lamps to poor communities in Africa since 2006, says the new model gives twice the light of a kerosene lamp and and, over its five-year guaranteed lifetime, saves a ton of carbon dioxide for each kerosene light it replaces.
Cash generator
Although it is a charity, rather than give the lamps away SolarAid prefers to sell them at cost, creating trade in the economy. Each lamp sold at £4 generates £145 in cash for food and essentials in East Africa, it says.
Jeremy Leggett, founding director of SolarAid, says there are not many social-benefit paybacks as good as this in the world today: “We know that much of the money saved is spent on food and seeds. This is a great way to help people help themselves while famine stalks the continent.”
Most people without electricity in Africa live on less than $1 a day, and buying kerosene takes up around 15% of their annual income. The SM100 runs at full power for up to eight hours when fully charged, and will also charge mobile phones.
As well as helping people escape from poverty, the lamps also help to improve their health; kerosene fumes damage eyes and lungs. The light also allows children to study after dark.
But Leggett says it is the light itself that makes the real difference. “Seeing the faces of Africans who witness a solar light being turned on for the first time in a hut at night, as I have, is a highly emotional experience.
“We often forget how lucky we are in the rich nations – how much we take for granted. One thing I hadn’t realised before I went to Africa is what a danger snakes are at night. With a solar light, you have a chance to see them.
“There are so many other benefits. It is thrilling to think that our lights address almost all the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.”
So far SolarAid has sold 1.9 million solar lights to Africa and hopes that this cheaper, later version will be even more successful. One of the problems is that some countries, for example Uganda and Malawi, tax solar lights, making them less affordable for the poor.
“In my view this is short-sighted, because the price has to be passed on to the consumer, meaning fewer lights will be sold, meaning reductions in the cash freed up by savings on the kerosene which is no longer needed”, says Leggett.
Price of a drink
“Those savings, spent in the local economy, would help the governments build a healthy economy much more than the taxes they raise.”
When the Climate News Network last wrote about solar lights for Africa in February 2015, SolarAid was asking companies to donate 5% of their profits to the scheme. It now needs more help to reach more of the 600 million Africans without electricity.
“To get solar lights out to the frontier areas where we work, SolarAid is currently overdependent on increasingly impossible-to-predict and precarious donations from large organisations,” Leggett says.
He is asking all his friends, and many other people besides, to donate £4 a month – “the price of a drink” – to pay for one light a month for Africa. – Climate News Network
June 7, 2017
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AFRICA, decentralised |
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Leading the way is Lightsource, Europe’s largest privately-held solar developer, which plans to expand into the US. Last year the company unveiled a world first: a floating solar installation to help power a Thames Water reservoir just outside London.
The 6-megawatt structure lies flat against the water and is made up of 24,000 solar panels that sit on a platform buoyed by 61,000 individual floats and held in place by 177 anchors.
Once eclipsed, the solar industry will rise and shine again over Britain http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/06/03/eclipsed-solar-industry-will-rise-shine-britain/ Jillian Ambrose 3 JUNE 2017 •
From above, the summer sun catches the glimmer and sheen of a new facet of the energy evolution.
A solar panel does not command attention quite like the stoic thermal power plants that rise up from British landscapes. But on a balmy summer’s day last month, the collective glare of millions of panels proved solar power’s mettle.
The spring bank holiday heatwave began with a new record for solar power generation, which created a quarter of the nation’s electricity mix on Friday afternoon. Britain’s solar panels produced more electricity than nuclear and coal power combined. They are likely to do this again and again as summer rolls on. Five years ago this was a feat few would have dared predict. The solar boom was fuelled by generous subsidies and spurred by rapidly falling costs, at a rate far exceeding expectations.
Paul Barwell, head of the Solar Trade Association, says there are now 12.1 gigawatts of solar in the UK, the same production capacity as eight new-generation nuclear reactors and enough to power 3.8m homes.
He says the “colossal achievement” achieved in just five years sends a positive message that solar has a strong place in the UK energy sector. This is a point Barwell is keen to make because the rise of solar power has been far from assured – the industry has been shattered by knee-jerk political interventions.
In China, policymakers put the country’s manufacturing heft firmly behind developing cheaper solar panels, accelerating the technology’s journey down the cost curve.
Once considered the preserve of the very well-off, in the UK rooftop solar panels were suddenly within the reach of homeowners. Farmers with depleted land found economically it made more sense to farm renewable electricity than sheep. Energy-intensive factories were easily persuaded to generate their own power to cut costs.
Now solar panels encrust the surfaces of reservoirs and are expected to plate the roof of Buckingham Palace. Continue reading →
June 5, 2017
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renewable, UK |
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Times 2nd June 2017 Flywheels will be used to balance supply and demand on Britain’s electricity grid in a £3.5 million project that could help the country to cope with more wind and solar power. Sophisticated flywheels that can store electricity for long periods of time are to be installed next to the University of Sheffield’s battery storage facility at Willenhall near Wolverhampton, in the first project of its kind in the UK.
The cylindrical structures draw electricity from the grid when surplus is available, powering a motor that makes the flywheel rotor spin at high speed. So far, efforts to tackle the problem have focused on lithium-ion batteries, which
can respond in less than a second to provide or absorb power and restore balance to the grid.
Eight such projects are being built around the UK after winning contracts from National Grid last year. Dr Gladwin said that such batteries would degrade over time the more they were charged and discharged, and were only expected to have a lifetime of ten years. Flywheels were a better way to deal with rapid short-term fluctuations, he said. The flywheel project in Willenhall should provide a megawatt of power for just over a minute before it runs out of energy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/business/flywheels-could-join-batteries-in-storing-electricity-for-the-national-grid-fjw95ggqv
June 3, 2017
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energy storage, UK |
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Cheaper Solar in India Prompts Rethink for Coal Projects, Bloomberg, by Anindya Upadhyay and Rajesh Kumar Singh June 1, 2017,
India’s coal-power plant developers are growing more pessimistic about their projects after a plunge in the cost of electricity from solar panels improved the economics of renewable energy.
After a string of federal auctions, solar is suddenly the cheapest source of electricity in India. That’s darkening the outlook for the coal-fired power industry as projects struggle to find customers or face cancellation amid a glut of capacity.
“The crashing solar tariffs are creating a mental block for distribution companies and holding them back from signing long-term purchase agreements with conventional power producers,” said T. Adi Babu, chief operating officer for finance at Lanco Infratech Ltd., an Indian power producer. “A couple of years back, when people talked of solar reaching grid parity, people were skeptical. Now the solar tariffs have gone well below that. It is definitely making conventional players sit up and take notice.”……
evidence of a shift away from coal is gathering by the day.
- State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest power producer, along with RattanIndia Power Ltd. are considering installing solar panels over land initially intended for thermal projects.
- NTPC said in February it’s aiming to have 30 percent of its capacity come from non-fossil fuel by 2032
- The Indian subsidiary of Hong Kong-listed CLP Holdings Ltd., which owns both coal and renewable projects, is debating whether to participate in another round of conventional projects. “A transition from coal to solar is a generic direction that all utilities are taking. We are an early mover into the renewables space so our journey continues,” Mahesh Makhija, business-development director for renewables, said in a phone interview.
- The government of the sunny state of Rajasthan expects more conventional power to be replaced by clean energy as higher renewable purchase targets are fulfilled. “At the rate the renewable power tariffs are decreasing, the time is not far when renewable power will start replacing costlier conventional power,” Sanjay Malhotra, principal secretary for energy in the Rajasthan government, said by phone.
Solar is now as much as 50 percent cheaper than new coal power, according to solar research firm Bridge to India.
“That’s why we have seen many new coal power tenders being suspended or canceled in the last three months,” said Vinay Rustagi, managing director at Bridge to India…….
renewables are expanding quickly in India. Solar capacity has surged fourfold since December 2014 to about 12 gigawatts, while wind farms now provide 32 gigawatts, up from 22.5 gigawatts over the same period. Modi is seeking an additional 88 gigawatts of solar and 28 gigawatts more of wind by 2022. And those projects are crowding coal out of the power market…….https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-01/cheaper-solar-in-india-prompts-rethink-for-more-coal-projects
June 2, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
business and costs, India, renewable |
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Ecowatch 30th May 2017. Despite President Donald Trump’s pledge to bring back U.S. coal jobs, hundreds of laid off miners in Wyoming—the nation’s largest coal-producing state—are still seeking work.
But these ex-miners might find hope with a most unlikely employer: a wind power company. The American arm of Goldwind, a Chinese wind turbine maker, has announced a free program to retrain miners to become wind farm technicians, The New York Times reported. https://www.ecowatch.com/wind-jobs-coal-miners-goldwind-2426715170.html
June 2, 2017
Posted by Christina Macpherson |
employment, renewable, USA |
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nuclear-news 