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Eco Wave to Raise $5 Million to Accelerate Ocean Energy Plans

Eco Wave Power, based in Israel, plans to raise $5 million by the end of the year to further develop its technology and projects that harness the power of the ocean to generate electricity.





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Exploring Finance Options: Yield-cos Don’t Fit the Bill for Many Renewable Energy Companies

Yield-cos have been grabbing headlines lately. Typically, large utilities spin off their high-yield alternative energy operations into separate smaller companies called yield-cos. These new companies are then taken public to attract individual and institutional investors.




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UN Climate Summit Heats Up Discussion on Global Warming, Carbon Emissions

More than 100 world leaders converged upon New York City today to discuss international efforts to reduce carbon emissions and combat climate change. The list of speakers at the UN Climate Summit included U.S. President Barack Obama, UK Prime Minister David Cameron, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, French President François Hollande, and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli.




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RGGI Chair Says States Won’t Leave Emissions Trading Market for California, Quebec

California and Quebec, which together created the largest carbon market in North America this year, may come away empty-handed as they woo northeastern U.S. states to join their system.




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Scotland Rejects Independence, But Concerns Linger for a Renewables Future

Scotland’s decision to vote no to independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has elicited a collective sigh of relief from energy sector players. Those companies with significant investments in Scottish renewable energy assets had understandably been anxious over the uncertainty that an independent Scotland would engender, for example potentially changing the rules on support measures for renewable energy investment north of the border.




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Japan Installs 11 GW of Renewable Energy in Two Years

Japan has added 11,090 megawatts of clean energy capacity since July 2012, when it began an incentive program to encourage investment in renewables, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.





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EU Seeks Faster Renewable Energy Integration Amid Crisis in Ukraine

The European Union is seeking to speed up the creation of a common energy market to help its shift to a low-carbon economy and boost security of energy supplies amid a natural-gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine.





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Electrifying Keyna: How One African Country is Approaching Renewable Energy Development

Kenya’s renewable energy ambitions have attracted growing attention in recent months. There has been a strong uptick in interest in the country’s wind energy potential in particular. Last year, Kenya’s Ministry of Energy and Petroleum said in an investment prospectus for 2013-2016 that it plans to boost wind power generation by 630 MW as part of its target to increase electricity levels by 5,000 MW by 2016. In March, the Kenyan government also signed a financing document for the largest private investment in Kenya.




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Latin America Report: 7 Renewable Energy Stories Worth Reading

The renewable energy market is fast-paced and growing with each passing day. It’s hard to keep up with every industry announcement and insight, so we decided to highlight interesting developments that took place during the past few weeks, and some valuable insights that are worth revisiting.




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UK Green Bank Set to Draw Offshore Wind Investors to $1.6 Billion Fund

The U.K. Green Investment Bank is set to tie up the first investments in a $1.6 billion fund by the end of March, part of Britain’s push to cement its dominance in offshore wind power.




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New Poll: New Yorkers Overwhelmingly Support Fracking Moratorium — And Clean Energy

Last month, NRDC engaged a nationally recognized opinion research firm to conduct polling in New York State to evaluate public attitudes about fracking and clean energy. Importantly, this is the first statewide poll in at least two years — and perhaps ever — to directly ask residents their views of the now six-year-old de facto moratorium on fracking.




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The 51st State: What’s Your Ideal Energy Market?

Imagine a place where there is no electricity market. No rules, no policies, no market. A clean slate. This is what the Solar Energy Power Association (SEPA) calls the 51st State, a new initiative to get people to think outside the box when it comes to utility design and infrastructure.




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Australia Seeks to Reduce Renewable Energy Target to ‘Real’ 20 Percent

Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s government will negotiate with the opposition to cut Australia’s renewable energy target and exempt industries such as aluminum and copper smelting.





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US Midyear Elections Offer Opportunities and Challenges for Renewable Energy

Every time the U.S. holds midyear elections, the country almost always goes against the incumbent President’s party, which is always sobering to whomever holds The White House. And this week’s elections were no exception.




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Fossil Fuels Reap $550 Billion in Subsidies, Hindering Renewables Investment

Fossil fuels are reaping $550 billion a year in subsidies and holding back investment in cleaner forms of energy, the International Energy Agency said.




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IEA World Forecast: Stresses on Energy System Must Not Be Ignored

The world’s decision-makers must not let current events distract them from recognizing and addressing the longer-term signs of stress that are emerging in the global energy system, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned today at the launch of its annual World Energy Outlook 2014 report in London.




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Marine Energy Making Waves on Both Sides of the Pond

In recent months, a number of initiatives aimed at speeding up the development of the wave energy sector have been launched in the U.S. and Europe. As part of the ongoing work to establish a viable United States wave energy industry, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Sandia National Laboratories (SANDIA) are working on the creation of a sophisticated open-source modeling tool known as WEC-Sim — and the U.S. Department of Energy is also enlisting the coding community to help in its development. Meanwhile, the European WavePOD project is an industry-wide initiative that aims to solve the problem of converting captured wave energy into electricity by creating a "standardised self-contained offshore electricity generator for the wave industry."




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Halifax Water Generates Power from a 32-kW In-pipe Small Hydroelectric System

Halifax Regional Municipality of Nova Scotia, Canada, is the first Canadian city to use an in-pipe hydroelectric generation system within a pressurized water distribution pipeline, according to Halifax Water. On Nov. 13, a 32-kW generating system within a drinking water distribution control chamber for Halifax Water began providing power.




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Shining a Light on Women Leaders in the Power Industry

In early 2013, a group of women, dubbed the Women in Power committee, assembled in Orlando, Florida to figure out how to honor women who have dedicated their careers to the power industry. The industry is male-dominated with men making up more than 75 percent of the workforce, according to estimates.




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Wind Energy Provides More Than Two-Thirds of New US Generating Capacity in October

According to the latest "Energy Infrastructure Update" report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of Energy Projects, wind power provided over two-thirds (68.41 percent) of new U.S. electrical generating capacity in October 2014. Specifically, five wind farms in Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas came on line last month, accounting for 574 MW of new capacity.




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Siemens Announces Plan to Exit Marine Power Sector

Technology and equipment giant Siemens AG has decided to sell its tidal energy company, Marine Current Turbines Ltd., citing slow development in the marine and hydrokinetics sector.




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Japan Should Continue Its Road Towards Renewables

The power sector crisis in Japan has entered a new stage. The recent refusal of Japanese utilities to grant grid access to new renewable energy projects should not be seen as a failure of Japan’s renewable energy policy, but as a consequential and necessary phase to extend Japan’s technological leadership into the power sector.




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Gas and Coal To Replace Hydropower in Brazil, Pollution to Follow

The Brazilian government is seeking to award contracts in an auction tomorrow for natural gas- and coal-fueled power plants, reversing a drive that previously favored renewable-energy projects. It would lead to the first new thermal plants in three years, after the government scaled back such projects and awarded wind contracts starting in 2009 and solar energy earlier this year.




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Energy Efficiency and Renewables Are Lowest Risk/Cost Investments for Utilities

A new report by utility and finance experts contains positive news for the environment, our air and our (and our utilities’) pocketbooks — the economics of electric power resources have made zero-emissions energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies the most financially attractive options to meet the nation’s future energy demands.




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German Utility EON To Ditch Fossil Fuel Arm, Focus on Renewables

EON SE’s plan to spin off its fossil fuel plants marks a watershed moment in Germany’s renewables effort that will likely bolster the country’s already leading position in clean energy.




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German Fossil Fuel Giant Jumps on Renewables Bandwagon

Germany’s biggest utility E.ON — long a pillar of the country’s fossil fuel and nuclear industry — dropped a bombshell on Europe’s business world with the announcement that the multinational was exiting the conventional energy market in favor of a new business model based on renewables, intelligent grid systems, energy management and other services. Indeed, the company seems finally to have drawn the logical consequences from the Energiewende, Germany’s renewable energy transition, after years of resisting the ambitious transformation of the nation’s energy supply.





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Marine Power May Suffer More Casualties After Siemens Tidal Sale

The downfall of two leading marine- energy developers is damping hope that the emerging industry, which has already lost almost $1 billion, will ever get the technology to market.





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Sage Advice is the Highlight of the Women in Power Luncheon

The advice that Pennwell’s 2014 Woman of the Year, Mary Powell, gave to women in the power industry during Tuesday’s Women in Power Luncheon might come as a surprise to some. It was this: Stop undercutting each other. Powell said the most difficult obstacles she has encountered in her various leadership roles have not come from men, but rather from other women. Small comments like “I don’t know how you do it [being a mom and holding a high-level job]”, serve to bring doubt and uncertainty to high achieving women in any industry, and ultimately can lead to women exiting their careers in order to fit what they perceive is the societal norm.




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India Plans Renewables Splurge, But Will Not Commit to Carbon Plan

India, the world’s third-largest polluter, will spend at least $100 billion on climate-related projects but isn’t ready to follow China and the U.S., the top two emitters, in promising to limit its fossil-fuel emissions.




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Renewable Energy Matchmaking: Newest Key to Reaching 2020 Sustainability Goals

The siren call of 2020 corporate environmental sustainability goals is quickly getting louder, as corporate leaders realize they must go further today to achieve their sustainability targets for tomorrow. Increased use of renewable energy is an ambitious goal for some of the world’s largest companies, as 59 percent of the Fortune 100 and nearly two-thirds of the Global 100 have set GHG emissions reduction commitments, renewable energy commitments or both, according to a recent Ceres’ report, Power Forward: Why the World’s Largest Companies Are Investing in Renewable Energy. One global consumer products company, for example, plans to derive 30 percent of its energy from clean sources by 2020.




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Renewable Energy Is Driving the Energy Transformation: REWNA Recap Video

Renewable energy stakeholders are well aware that clean energy is slowly but steadily transforming the energy landscape and that message couldn’t have been more clear at the recently concluded Power-Gen International, the largest show for the traditional power generation industry. Since all forms of power generation are represented at the show through the four co-located conferences, PennWell calls the second week in December "Power Generation Week."




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Japan Toughens Rules for Renewable Energy Incentive Payments

Japan’s trade ministry is setting stricter rules for production and sales of renewable energy in what it says is a drive to speed up development of projects and ensure stable power supply.









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RenewableEnergyWorld.com's Top 10 Blogs of 2014

We here at RenewableEnergyWorld.com would like to send a big "thank you" to our blogging community. Year after year, bloggers contribute content that is filled with valuable insights, up-to-date news, innovative project highlights and cool new technology updates. RenewableEnergyWorld.com bloggers are truly a crucial part of our website.




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Renewable Energy Review: Finance Mechanisms

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need updates on the latest and greatest finance mechanisms available today. Since 2003, global consultancy Ernst & Young has released its Country Attractiveness Indices, which ranks global renewable energy markets by analyzing investment strategies and resource availability.





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Energy Storage and Biofuels Top RenewableEnergyWorld.com’s Most Commented Articles of 2014

The online community of readers who visit RenewableEnergyWorld.com is an important aspect of the news and information that we offer renewable energy stakeholders. We often post news that we feel will get people to view important topics from new angles, offering insights and opinions about technology, policy and more. Often that leads to engaging and informative discussions that add even more value to the article that we have posted.




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Serbia Seeks to Boost Renewable Energy Investment With New Law

Serbia seeks to unblock investment in renewable energy after adopting legislation that opens gas and power markets in line with European Union guidelines.




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RenewableEnergyWorld.com's Most-read Articles of 2014

At the close of each year, we like to take a look back to see which stories made an impact on our readers. This year's most read articles show the many twists and turns that the industry took this year and reveal interesting trends for us as editors and for other industry insiders.




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Renewable Energy Review: Australia

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.