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Morocco’s desert solar megaproject

Morocco poised to become a solar superpower with launch of desert mega-project
World’s largest concentrated solar power plant, powered by the Saharan sun, set to help renewables provide almost half the country’s energy by 2020,
Guardian,  , 26 Oct 15, “……The project is a key plank in Morocco’s ambitions to use its untapped deserts to become a global solar superpower.

solar thermal Morocco

When the full complex is complete, it will be the largest concentrated solar power (CSP) plant in the world , and the first phase, called Noor 1, will go live next month. The mirror technology it uses is less widespread and more expensive than the photovoltaic panels that are now familiar on roofs the world over, but it will have the advantage of being able to continue producing power even after the sun goes down…….
As engineers put the finishing touches to Noor 1, its 500,000 crescent-shaped solar mirrors glitter across the desert skyline. The 800 rows follow the sun as it tracks across the heavens, whirring quietly every few minutes as their shadows slip further east.

When they are finished, the four plants at Ouarzazate will occupy a space as big as Morocco’s capital city, Rabat, and generate 580MW of electricity, enough to power a million homes. Noor 1 itself has a generating capacity of 160MW.

Morocco’s environment minister, Hakima el-Haite, believes that solar energy could have the same impact on the region this century that oil production had in the last. But the $9bn (£6bn) project to make her country’s deserts boom was triggered by more immediate concerns, she said.

“We are not an oil producer. We import 94% of our energy as fossil fuels from abroad and that has big consequences for our state budget,” el-Haite told the Guardian. “We also used to subsidise fossil fuels which have a heavy cost, so when we heard about the potential of solar energy, we thought; why not?”……..http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/26/morocco-poised-to-become-a-solar-superpower-with-launch-of-desert-mega-project

October 28, 2015 Posted by | AFRICA, renewable | Leave a comment

Apple developing huge solar investment in China

sunApple steps up solar power investment in China http://www.smh.com.au/business/energy/apple-steps-up-solar-power-investment-in-china-20151022-gkfttm.html October 22, 2015 Alex Nussbaum “The time for action is now:” Apple chief Tim Cook. The move will make Apple’s operations in China carbon-neutral, the company says.

Apple will build an additional 200 megawatts of solar power in China and push suppliers to make similar commitments, as the maker of the iPad and Apple Watch seeks to offset its global-warming emissions in the world’s most polluting country.

The solar investment comes atop two previously announced solar farms in southern China that have now been completed, producing a combined 40 megawatts of power, Apple said in a statement overnight. The company will also partner with suppliers, including iPhone maker Foxconn Technology Group, on an additional 2 gigawatts of solar, wind and hydropower projects.

“Climate change is one of the great challenges of our time, and the time for action is now,” Apple chief executive Tim Cook said. “We believe passionately in leaving the world better than we found it and hope that many other suppliers, partners and other companies join us in this important effort.”

The promises are part of Apple’s efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions and come ahead of a United Nations summit in Paris later this year where world leaders will try to reach a global deal on reining in climate-change pollution. China, the world’s biggest source of greenhouse gases, has promised to almost double the amount of energy it gets from renewable and nuclear power by 2030.

Apple said in April that it would partner with US-based SunPower Corp. to build the two generating stations in Sichuan province. The new solar farms produce more power than Apple’s operations consume in China, making the company “carbon neutral,” it claims. The 200 megawatts of new investments will involve construction in northern, eastern and southern China and “will begin to offset the energy used in Apple’s supply chain.”

Foxconn will construct 400 megawatts of solar by 2018 as part of the initiative with suppliers, starting in Henan province. Foxconn has committed to generate as much renewable energy as its Zhengzhou factory uses in final production of the iPhone, Apple said.

Bloomberg

October 24, 2015 Posted by | China, renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Solar and storage could supply as much electricity to UK, as nuclear, at half the subsidy cost

sunflag-UKNew nuclear in the UK would require twice as much subsidy as solar – report, PV tech org news, 22 Oct 15.  Solar and storage could provide as much electricity as a proposed new nuclear plant in the UK at half the subsidy cost, according to new analysis timed to coincide with expected news of a nuclear agreement between Britain and China this week……

The STA has now claimed that solar PV, if combined with storage and other flexibility mechanisms, could deliver just as much base-load generation capacity at less than half the subsidy cost that Hinkley will require over 35 years.

The STA’s analysis compared the amount of subsidy required over the lifetime of Hinkley Point C with what would be needed to deliver the same amount of electricity through solar and storage over the same 35-year period.

It calculated that the subsidy needed for Hinkley C would come to £29.7 billion, compared to £14.7 billion for solar and storage – £3.8 billion for the solar element, £10.9 billion for storage.

Mike Landy, head of policy at the STA, said the association hoped the analysis would give the public cause to think about “how inexpensive solar has become” and “how competitive it is” against other forms of low-carbon generation.

“We are not saying that solar is the solution to all our energy problems, nor that it could completely replace other technologies. However the government needs to explain why it is drastically cutting support for solar energy whilst offering double the subsidy to Hinkley Point C.

“It also needs to explain why it is championing overseas state-backed utilities over British solar companies which given stable support would have considerable growth prospects,” Landy added.

The STA report comes just a day after environmental charity Greenpeace’s own analysis claimed that a fleet of three new nuclear reactors at Hinkley, Sizewell and Bradwell would add £33 per year to the average household energy bill for more than three decades. This would represent a 4.5-fold increase over the £6 cost per year associated with the solar feed-in tariff that UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change is currently consulting on cutting for this reason.

During a hearing yesterday of the UK House of Commons’ Energy and Climate Change Select Committee with Andrea Leadsom, committee chair Angus Macneil put it to the energy minister that the government was being “miserly with renewables, but profligate with nuclear”, a claim which Leadsom rejected.

But Frank Gordon, senior policy analyst at the UK’s Renewable Energy Association, agreed with Macneil, telling PV Tech’s sister site, Solar Power Portal: “Well before Hinkley C is commissioned solar power will be generating electricity without subsidy. It will be able to produce baseload electricity as it combines with massively falling costs of energy storage.”

“Government support in its many forms is acting as an effective bridge to this future, but the proposed changes jeopardise some of the tremendous achievements of the past decade,” he added.http://www.pv-tech.org/news/new_nuclear_in_the_uk_would_require_twice_as_much_subsidy_as_solar_report

October 23, 2015 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Britain’s cost for new nuclear could buy 6 times the amount of wind energy

exclamation-Smflag-UKFor Nuclear’s Cost, U.K. Could Have Six Times the Wind Capacity, Bloomberg  RVLANDBERG October 21, 2015 Britain could have six times the power-generation capacity for the same money by investing in wind turbines instead of the 24.5 billion-pound ($37.9 billion) Hinkley Point nuclear reactor.

That’s the conclusion of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a London-based researcher that estimates the cost of power from renewables in the U.K. are rivaling fossil fuels even without subsidy. Wind easily beats the more expensive nuclear plant that Electricite de France SA is building with the support of investment from China.

The findings highlights the trade-offs Prime Minister David Cameron weighed in his decision to support EDF’s bid to build the first new reactors in the U.K. in more than two decades……..

In some places, notably the U.K., wind is cheaper than nuclear. The new EDF plant at Hinkley Point will sell electricity for 92.50 pounds per megawatt-hour. That compares with lowest contract price of 79.23 pounds for supplies from onshore wind-power plants that the government awarded in February after a competitive auction.

Hinkley Point will supply 3.2 gigawatts of electricity to the grid. Spending the equivalent money on wind would give 21 gigawatts of capacity, said David Hostert, a wind energy analyst at BNEF in London.

October 23, 2015 Posted by | renewable, UK | Leave a comment

UK govt trumpets nuclear deal with China, silently wages war on renewable energy

highly-recommendedflag-UKSolar subsidies are slashed, but the sun always seems to shine on nuclear, Guardian, 20 Oct 15 
Two events this week will throw the government’s contradictory attitudes to spending on green and atomic power into sharp relief. 
A glaring anomaly of British energy policy will be on display this week: the government will loudly trumpet a nuclear deal with China, and then will come a no-fanfare end to a controversial solar subsidy consultation.

President Xi Jinping will probably sign a heads of agreement with David Cameron that will allow the government to say that a new plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset is on its way.

The groundwork for the deal was done by George Osborne on his recent trip to Beijing, with the chancellor determined to roll away any obstacles that could halt China becoming a major investor at Hinkley – and beyond.

The chief developer of the new nuclear reactors in the south-west – the first for 20 years – is EDF, which has also been trying to woo state-owned Chinese companies to invest in the £24.5bn scheme.

Only by promising to allow the Chinese to build their own replacement plant at Bradwell in Essex have Osborne and Cameron finally won Beijing’s support for Hinkley. After that it will be up to EDF to press the final investment button and for construction to start in earnest…….

At the same time the Conservative government has been waging what looks like a determined war against solar and other renewables, highlighted by a proposed 87% cut in subsidies from 1 January on rooftop solar panel installations.

More than 1,000 jobs have been lost in the past 10 days as three major solar installers have closed their doors in anticipation that ministers will bring burgeoning demand for small solar schemes to an abrupt halt.

Unlike the warm words of encouragement and firm policy help for nuclear, there has been a relentlessly negative attack on the solar industry, which ministers have suddenly decided should now stand on its own feet. There have been constant references to hard-pressed bill payers, with the intermittent nature of solar and wind being highlighted by the Department of Energy and Climate Change against the advantages of constant power from nuclear.

These generalisations hide a different truth. Renewable energy is largely a new UK private-sector success story, where costs are falling fast and which deserves considered and time-limited support. Nuclear power is a mature technology run by state-owned companies from France and China where costs seem to constantly rise and where 35-year price commitments at double the cost of existing wholesale power should not be being given.

With power capacity margins falling so low that many warn the lights could go out this winter, you have to conclude that the government lacks competence as well as vision……http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/18/solar-subsidies-slashed-but-sun-shines-on-nuclear

October 23, 2015 Posted by | politics, renewable, UK | Leave a comment

Dramatic fall in price of solar electricity

sunFlag-USASolar Energy Sees Eye-Popping Price Drops Solar electricity’s price tag has plummeted 70 percent, says a new report, as SolarCity rolls out a low-cost, super-efficient panel. By Christina Nunez, National Geographic  OCT 02  2015 “…….The figure, cited in a report this week from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, coincides with SolarCitys debut Friday of what it calls the world’s most efficient rooftop solar panel. The largest residential solar installer in the U.S. says its module can produce 38 percent more power than a standard one, yet costs less to produce.

Not bad for an industry that had no large-scale U.S. presence just a decade ago. Photovoltaic panels currently contribute only about 1 percent of all electricity, but lower costs are helping fuel the expansion of large, utility-size projects.

As historic UN climate talks near, solar’s latest strides are key in the worldwide race to slash carbon emissions by paring back dependence on fossil fuels. (See surprising countries where wind and solar are booming.)……….

The falling price of power from large-scale solar projects reflects the lower cost of building them. The report notes that cost fell by more than 50 percent between 2009 and 2014. At the same time, solar farms have seen a “notable improvement” in how much power they put out, thanks to smarter siting and better technology.

SolarCity is aiming to apply its own gains in efficiency and cost to the residential market when it begins production at its 1-gigawatt facility in Buffalo, New York, in early 2017. Its new rooftop panel, which earned a rating of 22.04 percent efficiency in a third-party certification test, surpasses an earlier record set by SunPower, which has a high-efficiency model rated at 21.5 percent.

Another trend Bolinger called “encouraging”: Solar’s reach is expanding. Most development has been centered in the Southwest, but Bolinger says big solar power contracts are cropping up in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, and Georgia—states that “haven’t seen much solar development in the past to speak of.” http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/10/151002-solar-energy-sees-eye-popping-price-drops/

October 16, 2015 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

Record low price for solar power to be sold by Indian Government

sunflag-indiaIndian government plans to sell solar power at record low price of $0.07 per unit. News Forage, 13 Oct 15,  India’s strategy of a foreign currency-denominated tariff plan for solar energy is aimed at providing solar power at a new low of Rs.4.75 per unit to the states. Continue reading

October 14, 2015 Posted by | India, renewable | 1 Comment

Remote Kenya will be connected to grid with Africa’s larges wind farm

A Mitsubishi 250 kW wind turbine of the Kama'oa Wind Farm in Ka Lae. Photo by Harvey McDaniel from Naalehu, HI. Wikimedia CommonsAfrica’s largest windfarm set to connect remote Kenya to the grid, Guardian,     and  , 9 Oct 15  Lake Turkana’s fierce winds have plagued villagers for generations, now they have inspired plans for Kenya’s most ambitious infrastructure project in 50 years – a 310MW windfarm, that they said was an impossible dream “……..Today, a sprawling, mostly-flat, dun-coloured terrain of moody, stumpy thorn bushes in the Sarima village around 40km from the shores of Lake Turkana is home to the most ambitious infrastructure development project carried out in northern Kenya since independence.

Covering 40,000 acres (162km2), the project will entail the installation of 365 wind turbines, each with a capacity of 850kW and is expected to be fully operational in mid 2017.

A 204km road linking the area to the nearest paved road will be built, and the Kenyan electricity transmission company, with funding by both the Kenyan government and a concessional loan from Spain, will construct a 428km transmission line to link it to the national grid……. A $600,000-700,000 community development budget means the contractors have been able to sink boreholes and deliver water to communities while the contractors have promised to light up most of the towns near the area once the power comes online……

Most people don’t worry too much about the energy but are happy that the powerful wind which was seen as a nuisance for generations might open up the region and link it with the rest of the country.” http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/09/africas-largest-windfarm-set-to-connect-remote-kenya-to-the-grid

October 14, 2015 Posted by | Kenya, renewable | Leave a comment

Iran’s opportunity – energy efficiency and renewables, leaving nuclear power behind

flag-IranIran’s invisible opportunity, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Amory B. Lovins, 30 Sept 15, “……….the areas that could do the most to keep Iran from drifting back towards the nuclear path? Energy efficiency and renewables.

Legendary possibilities. At the eye of the storm over the Iran agreement is a zone of silence—an almost unnoticed opportunity to raise the odds of success. On the Iranian side, wisely using the period of restrictions on potential military nuclear activities could help Iran shift its domestic el­ec­tricity priorities from a failed nuclear power program to a world-class, faster-to-implement, and vastly cheaper program that combines energy efficiency, modern renewables, and advances in the electrical grid. By weakening the domestic case for nuclear power, this approach could help remove uncertainty about Iran’s continuing domestic nuclear activities (however benign they may allegedly be, such as the creation of medical radioisotopes for radiation therapy). Importantly, that would clear some of the fog around Iran’s nuclear program. This in turn would isolate bomb-seekers and allow outside intelligence and monitoring efforts to focus on needles instead of haystacks.

Modernizing Iran’s electricity investments could also reduce the risk of renewed sanc­tions, reward and reinforce political moderation, enhance Iran’s prosperity and energy independence, bolster national pride, and—since the same logic applies to neigh­boring coun­tries already making similar energy shifts for economic reasons—help stabilize the region by reversing an incipient Gulf nuclear arms race. More broadly, it could even help guard the global nonproliferation regime from dangerously permissive interpre­ta­tions by updating the purpose of the Non-Proliferation Treaty’s (NPT’s) Article IV, which enshrines signatories’ “inalienable right” to the exclusively peaceful use of nuclear energy. Thus, a speedy alignment of Iranian domestic electricity investments with new economic realities could advance the security and economic interests of Iran, Israel, the Arab Gulf states, America and its P5+1 partners, and the world. It could strengthen Iran’s global integration, political evolution, and national stature without compromising others’ similar goals.

Key Iranian officials already publicly favor this approach to their nation’s energy needs, and the technologies are ready and the vendors eager. Continue reading

October 5, 2015 Posted by | Iran, renewable | Leave a comment

Spain’s solar thermal stations – 24 hour electricity provided

Even after dark, vast Spanish solar plant harnesses sun’s power

GUADIX, SPAIN | BY MARCELO DEL POZO  Reporting by Alister Doyle; Editing by Frances Kerry , 1 OCT 15 In December this year the UN Climate Conference takes place in Paris. Ahead of the summit, we will release a series of stories, titled “Earthprints,” that show the ability of humans to impact change on the landscape of the planet. From sprawling urban growth to the construction of new islands, each site has profoundly changed in the last 30 years. Each story has accompanying NASA satellite images that show the scale of the change. (here)

Near the town of Guadix, where summer temperatures often top 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), the main sound at the site is a whirring of motors to keep the mirrors – mounted on giant steel frames – tracking the sun as the Earth turns.

The Andasol plant, whose name combines the local Andalucia region with the Spanish word for sun – “sol”, provides electricity for up to about 500,000 people from about 620,000 curved mirrors.

solar thermal Andasol Spain

The glass alone would cover 1.5 square km (0.6 square miles) – the size of about 210 soccer pitches. Installed electricity generating capacity at this semi-desert site is about 150 megawatts.

There is little sign of life here, at an altitude of 1,100 meters (3,600 feet) near the snow-capped Sierra Nevada range. Some hardy red and yellow flowers grow around the fringes, a few pigeons flap past and workers say that the odd fox lopes by at night.

The environmental benefits of clean energy are judged to outweigh the scar to the landscape from the mirrors, which are visible from space. The land is infertile, there is little wildlife and few people live nearby. The biggest regional city, Granada, with about 240,000 people, is 70 km (45 miles) away.

Andasol was Europe’s first “parabolic trough solar power plant” when its first section opened in 2009 – California has the biggest.

Sunlight bounces off the mirrors to heat a synthetic oil in a tube to a blazing 400 degrees C (752 F). That energy is in turn used to drive a turbine, generating electricity.

At Andasol, some energy also goes into a “heat reservoir” – a tank containing thousands of tonnes of molten salt that can drive the turbines after sundown, or when it is overcast, for about 7.5 hours.

That gets round the main drawback for solar power – the sun does not always shine. The system is very different from better-known rooftop solar panels that transform sunlight directly into electricity……..

Solar power has massive potential – one U.N. study estimated the world’s electricity needs could be generated by harvesting solar power from an area of the Sahara 800 km (500 miles) by 800 km.

And in 2014, a report by the International Energy Agency said the sun could – with a radical shift in investments – be the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050, ahead of fossil fuels, wind, hydro and nuclear.

Capacity just from solar thermal plants like Andasol could expand to 1,000 gigawatts a year from 4 gigawatts at the end of 2013, the agency said…….. http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/01/us-climatechange-summit-earthprints-spai-idUSKCN0RV43O20151001

October 2, 2015 Posted by | renewable, Spain | Leave a comment

New batteries coming for solar powered homes

solar-rooftopsWant a Solar-Powered Home? Here’s a New Battery That Won’t Ignite
As solar panels and wind turbines spread worldwide, they’ll need batteries to store power for times when they don’t produce it. Harvard debuts a promising prototype. 
By Wendy Koch, National Geographic  SEPTEMBER 24, 2015 If you dream of an off-grid house powered by the sun, plan on a battery to store energy for cloudy days—ideally, one that won’t catch fire. Harvard researchers might have just the fix.

 In the race to build the battery of the future, they’re unveiling a unique option. They say their flow battery is the first made with cheap, non-toxic, non-corrosive, non-flammable, high-performance materials.

“It is a huge step forward. It opens this up for anyone to use,” says Michael Aziz,  Harvard University engineering professor and co-author of a study published Thursday in the journal Science. Because the battery is safe and non-corrosive, he says, it’s well suited for both businesses and homes, adding: “This is chemistry I’d be happy to put in my basement.”………http://news.nationalgeographic.com/energy/2015/09/150924-nonflammable-battery-could-charge-solar-homes/

September 26, 2015 Posted by | decentralised, energy storage, USA | Leave a comment

No major reason why we can’t shift to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050

renewable_energyWorld could go 100% renewable by 2050 for net economic gain REneweconomy By  on 21 September 2015 [excellent graphs and tables ] Whether or not last week’s unceremonious changing of the guard in Canberra will shift Australia’s political debate on renewables from bickering over costs, to developing sensible policy for growth, remains to be seen.

But a new report released by Greenpeace International on Monday has reinforced the view that there are no major economic or technical barriers to shifting the world to 100 per cent renewable energy by 2050; nor to the complete phase-out of fossil fuels. All we need now is the political will to do it.

Greenpeace’s Energy [R]evolution scenario 2015 phases out coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy as fast as technically and economically possible, by expanding the renewable energy share to 42 per cent in 2030, 72 per cent in 2040 and 100 per cent in 2050.

The only remaining use for fossil fuels, says the report, would be in the non-energy sector, such as petrochemicals and steel making.

Of course, the transition will not come cheaply. As you can see in the chart below, [on original] there is a lot to be done, and according to, the costs will be “huge” at around $US1 trillion a year. But the analysis also shows that the savings are even bigger.

“The investment costs for the switch to 100% renewables by 2050 is about $US1 trillion a year,” the report says.

“But because renewable energies don’t need fuel, the average fuel cost savings are $US1.07 trillion a year.  So the investment over the period is met in full (107 per cent) by fuel cost savings, with the cross-over happening between 2025 and 2030.

Beyond 2050, there are no further fuel costs in renewable energy, thus stabilising energy costs for socities, as well as reducing energy sector emissions to near zero.

So it is not only achievable by 2050, according to Greenpeace’s analysis, but affordable, cost competitive, a net job creator and would bring a huge cut in global emissions. You can see in the table below[on original] how this plays out under Greenpeace’s scenario, as compared to the International Energy Agency’s “Current Policies” scenario.

A large part of the report focuses on the global power generation sector, which it notes has been the most dynamic, with a renewables comprising 60 per cent of new generation world wide in 2014, despite energy subsidies still being “weighted heavily in favour of fossil fuels.”

According to the report, the  transformation  to  a  carbon  free  100%  renewable energy  system  in  the  Advanced  Energy [R]evolution scenario – Greenpeace’s optimum scenario – will increase global electricity demand in 2050
to more than 40,000 TWh/a from about 18,860 TWh/a in 2012.

“Electricity will become the major renewable ‘primary’ energy, not only for direct use for various  purposes but also for the generation of synthetic fuels for fossil fuels substitution,” says the report……………http://reneweconomy.com.au/2015/world-could-go-100-renewable-by-2050-for-net-economic-gain-90746

September 23, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment

Renewable energy race – 5 developing countries fast ditching fossil fuels

renewable-energy-world-SmChina continues to invest in renewables at a scale that dwarfs that of other countries. China invested nearly $90bn in clean energy in 2014, or 73% more than the US, building large solar parks in Qinghai and wind farms in Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia, just to name a few.

as solar power rapidly becomes a mainstream energy option, the industry could create over 670,000 new, clean-energy jobs in India.

virtually infinite potential from wind and solar energy can truly democratise the generation of, and access to, power.


Race to renewable: five developing countries ditching fossil fuels
Costa Rica, Afghanistan, China, India and Albania are all embracing renewable energy sources – five experts give their opinion on what the future holds
Continue reading

September 16, 2015 Posted by | 2 WORLD, renewable | Leave a comment

100% renewable energy achieved in city of Columbia, Maryland

renewable-energy-world-SmFlag-USAColumbia, Maryland Running On 100% Renewable Energy Energy Matters, 15 Sept 15 A new solar power station has enabled Columbia Association to complete its transformation to running facilities and services in Columbia, Maryland on 100 per cent renewable energy.

Columbia is an unincorporated city of nearly 100,000 people that was established in the 1960’s; part of the New Towns Movement in the United States. Its founder, James Rouse, sought to build a complete city that would respect the land and provide for the growth of people as well as making a profit.

Columbia Association (CA) is the nonprofit service corporation that manages Columbia. It operates a vast array of infrastructure, recreational, cultural and community services within the community; including fitness facilities, tennis clubs and dozens of swimming pools.

Columbia Association had been sourcing 75 percent of its energy from wind renewable energy credits. The final 25 percent is now being generated by a newly completed two megawatt solar farm; a project of SunEdison and Bithenergy.

The Nixon Farm solar project is located West Friendship, Maryland. Electricity generated by the plant is provided to Columbia via virtual net metering and under a 20 year power purchase agreement with SunEdison.

“With the completion of the Nixon Farm solar power plant, the people of Columbia now enjoy the environmental and cost benefits of getting 100 percent of their electricity from renewable sources,” said Steve Raeder, SunEdison’s general manager of Eastern U.S. commercial and industrial solar…….In addition to its renewable energy efforts, Columbia Association has been very active as an Energy Star Partner with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), promoting the benefits of the program to the community as well as carrying out various energy efficiency upgrades within the facilities it operates. http://www.energymatters.com.au/renewable-news/sunedison-columbia-solar-em5061/

September 16, 2015 Posted by | renewable, USA | Leave a comment

500 MW Renewable Energy Plan for Alabama

sunAlabama Power Getting 500 MW Renewable Energy Plan, Clean Technica September 15th, 2015 by   Originally published on Solar Love.

Alabama has 2 megawatts of installed renewable power at present, which ranks it among the bottom 10 states in that category. But that is going to change quickly, after the Alabama Public Service Commission gave its blessing recently to a plan that will allow Alabama Power to add 500 megawatts of new renewable power within 6 years……..

Southern-tier states enjoy much more sunlight than northern states and could generate most if not all the electricity they need from renewable sources. Alabama has failed to capitalize on its renewable assets until now, but will soon become a model for its neighboring states to emulate. http://cleantechnica.com/2015/09/15/alabama-power-getting-500-mw-renewable-energy-plan/

September 16, 2015 Posted by | renewable, USA | 1 Comment