Cochin International Airport in Kerala, India powered entirely by solar energy
Thanks to solar power, this airport is no longer paying for electricity. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/thanks-to-solar-power-this-airport-is-no-longer-paying-for-electricity/ Jenny Soffel Website Editor, World Economic Forum 19 July 2016 [excellent graphs] If you fly over Cochin International Airport in Kerala, India, you will find yourself staring down at over 46,000 solar panels. The airport, India’s seventh busiest, last year became the first airport in the world to run completely on solar power.
It started as a pilot project in 2013 with 400 panels on the airport rooftop, an attempt by management to lower the airport’s energy bills. After the installation of a 12 megawatt solar plant, the airport was able to run entirely on solar power.
The airport has now stopped paying for its electricity altogether, and even sends energy back to the grid.
Solar energy has become a cheap option in India – the price has dropped to a similar level to that of coal.
India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said the country’s investment target for the source of renewable energy will be increased to $100 billion, five times greater than current levels, scaling solar power to more than 10% of India’s total energy sector by 2022.
The successful project has inspired other airports both nationally and internationally to invest in renewable energy. Kolkata’s international airport in India is now also looking to build a solar plant to reduce its electric bill by a third.
South Africa recently opened the continent’s first solar-powered airport in George, in the Western Cape. It’s expected to save an excess of 1.2 million litres of water every year, and will contribute to around 40% of the airport’s electricity needs.
North America looking at a Trillion Dollar Renewable Energy Market
A Trillion Dollar Renewable Energy Market Might Have Just Opened Up in North America
An agreement between the U.S., Canada, and Mexico could open up new growth for the solar industry. The Motley Fool Travis Hoium (TMFFlushDraw)
Jul 4, 2016 Leaders of the U.S., Canada, and Mexico agreed this week to increase their renewable energy consumption in an effort to get half of North America’s energy from renewable sources by 2025. It’s a lofty goal, despite assertions that 37% of the region’s energy already comes from renewables. But it highlights just how much of a coordinated effort the countries are taking. And it may open a trillion dollar energy market for renewable energy companies.
Cross-border transmission is big
One of the biggest things holding back renewable energy from an even larger market share is transmission lines. There’s not enough transmission that goes from the windy sections of Texas or Iowa or the sunny corners of Nevada and California to population centers. Part of the agreement will be to build cross-border transmission that will allow cheap renewable energy to flow more freely to where it’s needed.
To put the potential impact into perspective, the Brattle Group estimated that $130 billion in grid upgrades and transmission will be needed in the next decade to meet renewable standards in the U.S. And if those standards go up, we’re talking about billions, or hundreds of billions more.
The companies that could benefit from this are transmission line builders like Quanta Services (NYSE:PWR) and MYR Group (NASDAQ:MYRG), which have been talking about the upgrade cycle in transmission lines for years. Maybe this will help some of that come to fruition. On the ownership side, National Grid is a major infrastructure company with transmission lines all over the world……..
The two developers that would likely get a lot of business from a North America expansion of renewables are First Solar and SunPower (NASDAQ:SPWR), which are the two largest solar developers in the U.S. For example, SunPower just won 500 megawatts out of 1,860 megawatts auctioned in Mexico, part of the country’s major expansion in renewables. If Mexico starts exporting solar or wind energy to Southern California it could expand that solar market……..
Maybe the renewable energy revolution has legs left in North America after all. http://www.fool.com/investing/2016/07/04/a-trillion-dollar-renewable-energy-market-just-ope.aspx
Offshore wind prices drop 30% below nuclear
Offshore wind powers ahead as prices drop 30% below nuclear, Ecologist Kieran Cooke 19th July 2016 The cost of offshore wind power in the North Sea is 30% lower than that of new nuclear, writes Kieran Cooke – helped along by low oil and steel prices, reduced maintenance and mass production. By 2030 the sector is expected to supply 7% of Europe’s electricity.
A building boom is underway offshore in Europe. Up to 400 giant wind turbines are due to be built off the northeast coast of the UK in what will be the world’s largest offshore wind development.
Output from theDogger Bank projectwill be 1.2 GW (gigawatts) – enough to power more than a million homes.
Next year, a 150-turbine wind farm off the coast of the Netherlands is due to start operating, and other schemes along the Dutch coast are in the works.
Denmark, Sweden and Portugal are major investors in offshore wind, and China has ambitious plans for the sector.
Wind farms – both onshore and offshore – are a key ingredient in renewable energy policy, and an important element in the battle against climate change.
WindEurope, an offshore wind industry group, says that at the present rate of installations it’s likely Europe will be producing about 7% of its electricity from offshore wind by 2030.
Ofshore wind developers benefit from falling costs……..
Offshore wind’s greatest renewable competitor is probably solar power, which has seen dramatic cost reductions in recent years. But the two technologies make a harmonious fit – the two together producing a smoother electricity supply curve, and one that more closely matches demand, than either alone.http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_round_up/2987919/offshore_wind_powers_ahead_as_prices_drop_30_below_nuclear.html
Solar 2016 – a future with abundant, clean and cheap energy
Bright future for renewable energy on display at giant solar show,Financial Post, Diane Francis diane@dianefrancis.com July 15, 2016 SAN FRANCISCO — It has been said that renewable energy is the energy of the future and always will be.
But the tipping point is nigh, thanks to Germany’s leadership, China’s pollution catastrophe and technological advances in battery storage, materials science and software.
At this year’s giant solar show – Solar 2016 – a future with abundant, clean and cheap energy was discussed and on display.
Success will be based on the continuation of five trends:
- The Germans and Chinese have been dramatically transitioning to renewable energy by government edict, which has massively driven down costs for everyone through innovation and mass production;
- The Americans, wary of government edicts of any kind, are increasingly adopting and developing viable solar “distributed power” units — a do-it-yourself and market-based approach designed to dramatically reduce or free residences and industries from any dependency on grids or utilities;
- “Distributed power” is being adopted by developing countries to leapfrog the traditional giant power utility and extensive grid model. Power demands are high, fossil fuels are expensive and power grids inadequate so two-thirds of renewable development is underway in developing nations, led by China;
- A materials science breakthrough involving solar cells made from a material called perovskite will be introduced next year and will drive down solar cell costs and exponentially increase efficiency;
- Battery storage technology is advancing so dramatically that within three years a “tipping point” cost-wise will allow anyone with renewable power generation such as a rooftop solar system to go off grid.
The Germans have led the world to rid themselves of any dependency on fossil fuels from the Middle East or Russia as well as from nuclear power, which will be phased out by 2022. Their grand scheme — called Energeiwende — is publicly supported and German consumers pay a “green tax” of 24 billion euros annually to convert their economy to renewables such as biomass, wind and solar. Scaling and inventions have greatly reduced subsidies.
In the sunnier U.S., the biggest “tipping point” is closer thanks to cheaper storage, said Adara Power Inc. founder Greg Maguire. “Batteries are now US$650 per kilowatt hour and will be US$425 soon. In less than three years, they will hit US$200 and then there will be mass adoption.”……….http://business.financialpost.com/diane-francis/bright-future-on-display-for-renewable-energy-at-giant-solar-show
France greenlights a raft of new tenders for solar energy
France rolls out solar tenders for 20 GW by 2023 http://www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/france-rolls-out-solar-tenders-for-20-gw-by-2023_100025234/#ixzz4DUCfz1pn01. JULY 2016 BY: IAN CLOVER French environment and energy minister Segolene Royal greenlights raft of new tenders for solar energy, including a three-fold increase in installed PV capacity, eyeing 20 GW by 2023. The French environment and energy minister Segolene Royal announced this week the introduction of a number of new solar tenders in France for the development of various PV applications.
Chiefly, France is aiming to triple its solar PV capacity to 20 GW by 2023, with the tenders expected to hit incremental goals of 10.2 GW by 2018, and between 18.2 to 20.2 GW by 2023.
Other tenders announced aim to support France’s stuttering building integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) sector, with the French government earmarking 450 MW of BIPV tenders over the coming three years. Another tender will be aimed solely at the country’s self-consumption sector, particularly in C&I and agriculture, while 1 GW of tenders for ground mounted PV will be issued annually for the next six years.
An additional 50 MW tender for solar+storage has also been introduced for France’s overseas territories.
This latest suite of support for solar development follows the previous round of tenders – first introduced in 2014 – that have collectively attracted more than $1 billion in investment into France’s solar PV industry. Experts in the country believe that the certainty offered by this approach will curry further favor with investors, and should particularly help boost France’s ground-mount and BIPV sectors.
The plans were first announced by the Conseil Superieur de L’Energie (CSE) in April, which outlined how France will embrace further its use of solar and wind energy. However, the CSE confirmed that there will be no nuclear plant closures before 2019, but affirmed that nuclear’s share of the energy mix will fall from 75% currently to 50% by 2025.
For solar, the cumulative target for 2023 is relatively ambitious and certainly achievable. France currently has just over 6.2 GW of cumulative PV capacity installed – according to official figures from grid operator RTE – and added just under 1 GW of capacity in 2015. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) expects France to add around, or just above, 1 GW of new capacity this year, but the hope is that these new tenders will accelerate that pace of installation.
World Bank backs solar power in 1 trillion dollars loan, tripling India’s renewable energy
PM Modi lands World Bank’s record 1 trillion dollars loan for mega solar power project The World Bank has signed an agreement with India-led International Solar Alliance (ISA) to mobilise investments worth $1 trillion by 2030. IANS India Today, by Arpan RaiNew Delhi, June 30, 2016 The World Bank on Thursday signed an agreement with India-led International Solar Alliance (ISA) to mobilise investments worth $1 trillion by 2030 to help fund projects to increase solar energy use around the world.
The agreement, establishing the World Bank Group as a financial partner for 121-nation ISA, was signed here in the presence of visiting World Bank President Jim Yong Kim, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley and New and Renewable Energy Minister Piyush Goyal.
The ISA was launched at the Paris United Nations Climate Change Conference in November by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Francois Hollande.
WHAT ALL DOES THE AGREEMENT INCLUDE?
As part of the agreement, the Bank will develop a roadmap to mobilise financing for development and deployment of affordable solar energy, and work with other multilateral development banks and financial institutions to develop financing instruments to support solar development.
On the occasion, the multilateral lender also announced that it planned to provide more than $1 billion to support India’s initiative to expand solar energy generation.
WHY IS THE MOVE A GRAND INVESTMENT FOR WORLD BANK?
The solar investments for India combined would be the Bank’s largest financing of solar energy projects for any country in the world to date, it said.
India’s plans to virtually triple the share of renewable energy by 2030 will both transform the country’s energy supply and have far-reaching global implications in the fight against climate change………http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/pm-modi-lands-world-banks-record-1-trillion-dollars-loan-for-mega-solar-power-project/1/704572.html
US solar power market hits all-time high
Here comes the sun: US solar power market hits all-time high, Guardian, Matt Weiser, 29 June 16
After a rocky start, the American solar market is taking off and growing faster than coal and natural gas power. What will it take to make it go truly mainstream?
Solar energy in the US has had a rocky existence. Ever since Ronald Reagan symbolically removed Jimmy Carter’s solar panels from the White House roof in 1986, federal policy has been unpredictable, such that manufacturers and consumers could never depend on reliable incentives to produce and install solar energy systems.
Remarkably, the US solar energy industry is now entering what may be its most prosperous decade ever, thanks to a new wave of federal and state policies and positive economics in the industry, both at home and abroad.
“I think it will actually be bigger than people are projecting,” says Jigar Shah, president and co-founder of Generate Capital, a clean energy investment firm based in San Francisco. “The solar industry is booming right now.”
The US solar industry expects to install 14.5 gigawatts of solar power in 2016, a 94% increase over the record 7.5 gigawatts last year, according to a new market report by GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association. Revenues from solar installations also increased 21% from 2014 to more than $22bn in 2015.
For the first time, more solar systems came online than natural gas power plants – the top source of electricity in the US – in 2015, as measured in megawatts, said Justin Baca, vice president of markets and research at the Solar Energy Industries Association. This year, new solar is expected to surpass installations of all other sources, said the US Energy Information Administration.
The rise of solar energy use, especially by homes and businesses with panels on their roofs, is gradually transforming the electricity industry. For more than a century, power plant owners and utilities have controlled the energy delivery service, and some of them enjoy a monopoly.
“We were just a tiny little speck 10 years ago, and now we are really up there with the major established generating technologies,” said Baca. “It’s amazing.”
Sunny path
What’s behind all this? A federal tax credit has played a key role: it enables home and business owners to take off 30% of the price of their solar energy systems from their income taxes. Congress renewed the tax credit last December.
Another factor is cost. It is simply a lot cheaper to install solar these days, largely because cost of components have declined considerably. The wholesale price of a solar panel today is about $0.65 per watt, compared with $0.74 per watt a year ago and $4 per watt in 2008…….
The tariffs and increasing domestic demand have boosted manufacturing jobs in the US, which is now one of the top five nations for solar panel producers behind China, Singapore, Taiwan and Malaysia.
“Now the market’s so large you can actually sustain the large manufacturing plants and support the product locally,” said Shah.
One example is SolarCity, which is building a giant new solar panel factory in Buffalo, New York. The facility, expected to be in operation later this year, plans to employ 3,500 people. It will produce panels primarily for SolarCity’s own projects around the world……..https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jun/28/solar-power-energy-us-utilities-environment-climate-change
Fiji making its mark in renewable energy
Solar energy: Innovative start-up puts Fiji ahead on renewable energy, ABC News, 1 July 16 By Pacific economic and business reporter Jemima Garrett Fiji is making its mark as a leader in renewable energy thanks to an innovative start-up company focusing on supplying energy to the corporate sector.
Sunergise is the brain-child of entrepreneurs from Africa and the Pacific and has attracted investment interest from the World Bank as well as from Australia, New Zealand, North America and China……..
The installation of the first 700 photovoltaic cells at the marina was completed in 2012, just two days before Cyclone Evan hit, with winds gusting up to 270 kph.
Only one panel was damaged.
Sunergise has since completed two more installations at the Port of Denarau, creating the biggest marina-based solar plant in the world.
Australia ‘well behind’
In Australia, corporate solar is lagging behind residential investment and Sunergise is something advocacy group Solar Citizens would like to see more of.
“Australia leads the world in terms of residential roof-top solar,” Solar Citizen consumer campaigner Reece Turner said.
“Mums and dads have invested $8 billion of their own money in solar panels in just the last six or seven years. But we are well behind in the commercial space; comparatively we are probably 20th or 30th in the world in terms of commercial solar.
“That is where we are seeing some of the growth now but we really need to incentivise that uptake of commercial solar.”
We sell energy’
Sunergise’s business model is to focus on blue chip corporate clients and to own and operate the infrastructure they put on their roof.
“We don’t sell solar panels, we sell energy,” Sunergise chairman Bob Lyon said.
“We install the panels, the clients get an instant discount on their power, they don’t pay anything [for the infrastructure].”
Sunergise sells contracts that run for 10 or more years, with the client enjoying an initial saving of about 10 per cent and certainty on their power costs for the full term of the contract.
One of Fiji’s top hotels, the Tokoriki Island resort, uses Sunergise’s solar power technology and has cut its power bill by 50 per cent and silenced its expensive diesel generators.
The World Bank’s International Finance Corporation, its private sector arm, made its decision to take a 20 per cent stake in Sunergise based on the skills of its people………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-30/innovative-start-up-puts-fiji-ahead-on-renewable-energy/7557594
Nuclear power generation no longer makes sense: renewables set to boom in California
As Nuclear Plants Shut Down, Renewable Energy Could Boom A California utility wants to close the state’s last nuclear power plant and replace it with solar and wind farms. Take Part JUN 29, 2016 Taylor Hill is an associate editor at TakePart covering environment and wildlife. “…….The shutdown has implications nationwide, as it shows how dozens of other aging nuclear plants could also be closed in favor of cheap natural gas or renewable energy…….
“Given these and other uncertainties, the parties cannot, and it would be a mistake to try to, specify all the necessary replacement procurement now,” PG&E stated in the proposal to shutter Diablo Canyon.
The boom in rooftop solar systems will also help meet electricity demand, said Geisha Williams, president of PG&E. Photovoltaic panels installed on the roofs of homes and businesses account for an estimated 5 percent of California’s electricity generation.
“You don’t need [Diablo Canyon],” Williams told KQED. “There’s been so much energy efficiency. There’s been so much power that’s been generated by customers on their own private solar rooftop.”
The nuclear power decline could be a turning point for solar.
“To the extent that any capacity is retired—nuclear or otherwise—it’s an opportunity for new solar development,” said Shayle Kann, senior vice president of research for Greentech Media.
Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, is calling for solar capacity to grow from 26 gigawatts to 140 gigawatts by the end of 2020 and for half a billion solar panels to be installed by the end of her first term if she is elected…….
The cost of producing electricity from photovoltaic panels is expected to drop by 59 percent worldwide by 2025, according to a new report from the International Renewable Energy Agency, making solar cheaper than fossil fuels.
“The fact is that we live in a world where technologically, financially, environmentally, and ethically, nuclear power generation no longer makes sense,” Dorsey said……http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/06/29/solar-nuclear-california-future
Four new solar power plants in Fukushima
Mitsubishi Materials builds solar plants in Fukushima, Japan Today , By Shinichi Kato, Nikkei BP CleanTech Institute, 29 June 16, TOKYO —Mitsubishi Materials Corp has started operation of solar power plants with a total output of about 8.3MW in Fukushima Prefecture.
The power producer for the mega (large-scale) solar power plants, Yabuki Solar Power Plant, is MM Sun Power, a 50-50 joint venture between Mitsubishi Materials and Mitsubishi UFJ Lease & Finance Co Ltd.
The plants were built by using four unoccupied areas of Yabuki Techno Park, which Mitsubishi Materials Real Estate Corp, a subsidiary of Mitsubishi Materials, runs in Yabuki-machi, Nishishirakawa-gun, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan.
The Yabuki Solar Power Plant consists of four solar power plants built on the four areas. The total site area is 103,624m2, and the total output of solar panels installed at the plants is 8.284MW. The plants transmit a total of 6.544MW of electricity to the power grid…….http://www.japantoday.com/category/business/view/mitsubishi-materials-builds-solar-plants-in-fukushima
International Energy Agency favours clean energy to cut air-pollution mortality
Shift to Clean Energy Could Save Millions Who Die From Pollution
Reducing deadly pollution has the double benefit of quickly trimming carbon dioxide emissions, the International Energy Agency says. Inside Climate News, BY PHIL MCKENNA 27 JUNE 16
In its first report ever to examine the links between these twin goals, the authoritative International Energy Agency said the solutions go “hand-in-hand.”
With a 7 percent increase in energy-related investment, it said, the world could cut air-pollution mortality from about 6.5 million today to 3.3 million in 2040. And the changes would bring about a peak in CO2 emissions by 2020, it said.
Along with spending on pollution control equipment, the keys, it said, are energy efficiency and the use of renewables like wind and solar.
The report marks a new movement among those who favor the long-term goal of fighting global warming toward an equal and more immediate concern—protecting the health of the world…….
The IEA assessment outlines a Clean Air Scenario where an additional $4.8 trillion in pollution control technologies, renewable energy and energy efficiency measures is invested worldwide between now and 2040. The investment would include making clean cooking facilities available to an additional 1.8 billion people worldwide.
The $4.8 trillion cost represents an additional 7 percent on top of energy spending plans already announced by the world’s nations, including the pledges to reduce carbon dioxide emissions that they made under the new Paris climate treaty. (The IEA calls this baseline its “New Policies Scenario” to distinguish it from business as usual.)
The alternative Clean Air Scenario detailed in the report would result in a drop of more than 50 percent in global emissions of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides and a nearly 75 percent reduction in harmful particulate matter emissions by 2040.
Air pollution reductions would be greatest in developing countries. The 60 percent of India’s population currently exposed to air with a high concentration of fine particles would, for example, fall to less than 20 percent, according to the report.
“Implementing the IEA strategy in the Clean Air Scenario can push energy-related pollution levels into a steep decline in all countries,” Birol said.
“It can also deliver universal access to modern energy, a rapid peak and decline in global greenhouse-gas emissions and lower fossil-fuel import bills in many countries.”…….http://insideclimatenews.org/news/27062016/shift-clean-energy-could-save-climate-and-millions-who-die-air-pollution
Floating solar panels – the go for drought-stricken US lakes
Floating solar is a win-win energy solution for drought-stricken US lakes
Sunbaked southwest US is a prime spot for floatovoltaic projects, where they could produce clean energy and prevent evaporation in major man-made reservoirs, reports Environment 360, Guardian, Philip Warburg , 1 July 16 The Colorado River’s two great reservoirs, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, are in retreat. Multi-year droughts and chronic overuse have taken their toll, to be sure, but vast quantities of water are also lost to evaporation. What if the same scorching sun that causes so much of this water loss were harnessed for electric power?
Installing floating solar photovoltaic arrays, sometimes called “floatovoltaics,” on a portion of these two reservoirs in the southwestern United States could produce clean, renewable energy while shielding significant expanses of water from the hot desert sun.
The dual energy and environmental benefits of floating solar arrays are already beginning to earn the technology a place in the global clean energy marketplace, with floatovoltaic projects now being built in places as diverse as Australia, Brazil, China, England, India, Japan, South Korea, and California. And nowhere could they prove as effective as on lakes Mead and Powell, the two largest man-made reservoirs in the US.
The US Bureau of Reclamation estimates that800,000 acre-feet of water – nearly six percent of the Colorado River’s annual flow – is baked off Lake Mead’s surface by the searing desert sun during an average year. Lake Powell loses about860,000 acre-feet annually to evaporation and bank seepage. Since floatovoltaics can reduce evaporation in dry climates by as much as 90%, covering portions of these two water bodies with solar panels could result in significant water savings.
Extrapolating from the spatial needs of floating solar farms already built or designed, the electricity gains from installing floatovoltaics on just a fraction of these man-made desert lakes could be momentous. If six percent of Lake Mead’s surface were devoted to solar power, the yield would be at least 3,400 megawatts of electric-generating capacity – substantially more than the Hoover Dam’s generating capacity of 2,074 megawatts.
This solar infusion could give the power-hungry Southwest a major boost in renewable electricity, and at least some of that power could piggyback on underused transmission lines built for the Hoover Dam…….https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/30/floating-solar-is-a-win-win-energy-solution-for-drought-stricken-us-lakes
Route 66 – America’s first public solar road
The street pavers were developed by Solar Roadways, a company created by inventors Scott and Julie Brusaw which raised more than $2.2 million in crowdfunding in 2014 to bring their technology to market. The Brusaws claim that replacing all of America’s roads and parking lots with their solar pavers would generate more than three times the country’s electricity consumption in 2009.
Missouri’s transportation department is set to launch their own crowdfunding campaign to support their energy experiment, and expects the hexagonal solar panels to be fully installed and operational by the end of the year.
A model for nuclear plant closure: Diablo Canyon co-operative plan
Diablo Canyon Nuclear Closure Plan: An Important Model, Natural Resources Defense Council, June 22, 2016 Matthew McKinzie Fourteen U.S. nuclear reactors have now been shut down or their owners have announced their closures since 2010, either because they were uneconomic in today’s electricity markets or had operational or environmental problems. The Joint Proposal announced yesterday for the two reactors at California’s Diablo Canyon Power Plant is historic, because it is the first time any utility owner has committed to a plan to replace retiring nuclear generation with 100 percent, zero-emissions, clean electricity-generating resources that are also lower cost. This shows that with careful planning, there is no need to substitute polluting fossil fuels for retiring nuclear generation –-an important model for the rest of the world.
The Diablo Joint Proposal signed by Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), Friends of the Earth, NRDC, labor and other environmental groups is further proof that our energy system is changing, and renewable energy and other resources can fill the gaps left from shuttering nuclear plants.
Energy efficiency, wind, and solar address climate change without nuclear energy’s burdens of highly radioactive waste, the need for physical and cyber security to guard against terrorist nuclear threats, the risk of radiation release in a major accident, and the nuclear weapons proliferation problem.
To see just how monumental the Joint Proposal for Diablo is, it’s important to take a look at what’s happening today in the nuclear industry. Since 2010, across Vermont, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Florida, Illinois, Wisconsin, Nebraska and California, 14 nuclear reactors at 11 power plants totaling 11.9 gigawatts of electric capacity have either closed, or their owners have announced they will close.
Information on these closed or closing nuclear reactors is summarized in this table, and patterns are evident. Three of the reactors closed for primarily mechanical/safety reasons, whereas 11 reactors closed or will close primarily for market reasons. In other words, in today’s wholesale electricity markets (which largely do not reflect external costs imposed by carbon pollution), these reactors were unable to compete with other forms of electricity generation, including natural gas and wind, when utilities are procuring energy sources to help meet their customers’ needs……….
A carbon-free, renewable futureFortunately, both the United States and the world are making great strides forward on carbon-free energy efficiency and renewable energy, as well as technologies like demand response and battery storage. An October 2015 NRDC report “Tectonic Shift” describes how economic growth is now decoupled from energy usage, and that in fact energy usage is flat. California has adopted a requirement that half of its electricity come from renewable energy resources by 2030, and New York is about to adopt the same requirement. In 2015,in data compiled by AWEA, more than 30 percent of Iowa’s electricity came from wind power alone and three other states generated more than 20 percent of their electricity from wind power alone.
And the National Renewable Energy Laboratory has concluded that “renewable electricity generation from technologies that are commercially available today, in combination with a more flexible electric system, is more than adequate to supply 80 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2050 while meeting electricity demand on an hourly basis in every region of the country.”……
the Diablo Canyon proposal shows that given sufficient time to prepare, retiring nuclear capacity can transition smoothly to a mix of energy efficiency measures; clean, renewable resources; and energy storage without any role for fossil fuels – an outcome that can be optimal for the environment, the market, and the reliability of the electric grid.The Joint Proposal governing the shutdown of Diablo Canyon within nine years is exactly that – full replacement of retiring nuclear generating capacity with lower cost, zero-carbon resources. The proposal is a robust model of planned, orderly transition that takes into account sound energy policy, the values of jobs and community, the threat of climate change, and nuclear safety concerns. https://www.nrdc.org/experts/matthew-mckinzie/diablo-canyon-nuclear-closure-plan-important-model
Nestle’s new deal for powering its UK and Ireland operations with wind energy
NEW RENEWABLE POWER SOURCE FOR NESTLE UK AND IRELAND OPERATIONS LONDON, The Climate Group, 22 June 16 Nestlé has signed a new deal to power around half of its UK and Ireland operations with wind from the Scottish Highlands.
An initial 15 year Power Partnership Agreement with Community Wind Power will see a brand new nine turbine wind farm open up in Dumfries and Galloway in the first half of 2017. It will produce approximately 125GWh of power per annum, meeting around 50% of Nestlés electricity demand in the UK and Ireland – equivalent to 30,000 homes.
Earlier this year, Nestlé UK & Ireland announced that all its grid supplied-electricity would come from renewable sources, in a deal with EDF Energy. This currently accounts for all of Nestlés electricity use in the UK and Ireland.
As a member of RE100, Nestlé is committed to transitioning its electricity use to 100% renewable electricity not just in the UK, but across its global operations. The latest available data shows that in 2015, 8.4% of Nestlés total electricity consumption was being sourced from renewable power. Today’s development is another positive step towards its global goal.
Dame Fiona Kendrick, Chairman & CEO of Nestlé UK & Ireland, said: “This is a newly commissioned wind farm, generating new energy, creating capacity that didn’t previously exist and capable of providing half of our electricity needs. It’s a proud moment for us and means we have reached another key milestone in our efforts to become a sustainable business.”…….http://www.theclimategroup.org/what-we-do/news-and-blogs/new-renewable-power-source-for-nestl-uk-and-ireland-operations/?platform=hootsuite
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