The vast majority of Americans have air conditioning but in Germany almost nobody does. At least not yet.

GE Renewable Energy announced at HydroVision that it has signed two hydropower contracts in the U.S. one for FirstLight’s Northfield Mountain project and one for PG&E’s Caribou One hydropower station.

Consumers Energy says it’s happy with the launch of its electric vehicle charging station program and open to expanding the three-year, $10 million pilot.

The latest crop of utility participants includes NRG Energy, Cleco Corp., Entergy, Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities, AEP’s distributed energy ventures group AEP OnSite Partners and Hindustan Power from India.

Sweden and Norway agreed to boost their target for renewable energy production amid concerns the additional capacity will exacerbate a power glut and strain the region’s electricity grid.

U.K. electricity from low-carbon sources accounted for almost a quarter of the country’s generation in the fourth quarter as Drax Group Plc converted a second coal-power plant to burn wood.

The European Commission raised concern that the U.K. and France may not meet their 2020 renewable energy targets, saying the two countries should examine whether they’re doing enough to reach the goals.

Publicly, the United Nations climate-change talks look mired in disputes over everything from money to the length of the proposed agreement.

Engineering firm Lahmeyer International GmbH and sub-consultant Manitoba Hydro International have been awarded a contract by Tanahu Hydropower Ltd. to provide a number of services associated with the development of the 140-MW Tanahu pumped-storage project in Nepal.

On Aug. 27, Rwanda’s Ministry of Infrastructure government announced it has leased 22 small hydropower projects located in the northern and western provinces to private investors to spur the country’s hydroelectric energy program. According to energy experts at the ministry, the plants would add about 24.6 MW of hydroelectric energy to the national grid. 

According to the Federal Register, potential power is presently unutilized at the 800-kW East powerhouse and proposed 700-kW West powerhouse for the Potsdam hydroelectric project on the Raquette River in Lancaster County, New York. The proposed West powerhouse received a Federal Energy Regulatory Commission exemption from licensing in 1981.  

Knight Construction & Supply Co. has won a $3.7 million contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to rehabilitate spillway gates at the Blue River Dam in Oregon.

Murilo Ferreira, chairman of Brazil-based energy conglomerate Petrobras (Petroleo Brasileiro SA), has stepped down effective Nov. 30.

Tidal energy developer Atlantis Resources remains on track to deliver power to the Scottish power grid from the MeyGen site in the coming year, according to an end-of-year statement issued by the company earlier this week.

Italian construction and civil engineering firm Salini Impregilo has been awarded a US$2.8 billion contract to build the 2,200-MW Koysha hydropower plant in Ethiopia.

Hydroelectric power developer Gilkes Energy has begun construction on a trio of small hydro projects, all of which are to be located on the Attadale Estate near Loch Carron, Scotland.

RWE Innogy UK Ltd. is awaiting a decision by the end of August or in early September on its resubmitted planning application for the run-of-river US$17 million, 5 MW hydroelectric project located across Conwy Falls and Fairy Glen near Betws-y-Coed, the principal village of Snowdonia National Park, in northwest Wales, UK.  

U.S. Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, and Patty Murray, D-Wash., today announced funding will be awarded to build the United States’ first open-ocean, power grid-connected wave energy test facility at a site off the Oregon coast, according to a U.S. Senate press release.
 

Nyadi Hydropower Ltd. and Zhejiang Hydropower Construction & Installation Company Ltd. of China signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract on Jan. 16 for the 30-MW Nyadi hydropower project, according to local published reports.  

The North Carolina Attorney General's Office has filed a court injunction against the German ownership group that owns the damaged Woodlake Dam in an effort to make it pay for dam safety repairs.

The Philippines Department of Energy (DOE) released a report today saying its US$133.4 million 10.6-MW Pulanai hydropower plant being constructed in the southern province of Bukidnon on the Island of Mindanao, was attacked by armed individuals on Feb. 25.

New Hampshire is preparing to follow the lead of other New England states and create a system for procuring renewable energy on behalf of residents.

Connor, Clark & Lunn Infrastructure (CC&L Infrastructure) and Regime de Rentes du Mouvement Desjardins, Desjardins Financial Security Life Assurance Company, and Certas Home and Auto Insurance Company (together, Desjardins) have acquired Regional Power Inc. from The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company (Manulife).

On Thursday, US Congressman from Pennsylvania Mike Doyle introduced a bill that would establish a federal investment tax credit (ITC) for energy storage. The legislation would allow energy storage project developers, both commercial and residential, to receive a 30 percent tax credit for large-scale, commercial-scale and residential-scale storage projects through 2021.

The insurance industry has lots of exposure to climate change. But as Warren Buffet has explained, not so much for companies that do annual policy adjustments, like Berkshire Hathaway. Their exposure is limited because the trends are baked into the premiums. But there is an opportunity for reducing insurance risk due to climate change, and it comes from the insurance industry itself. The business model is to have car insurance salespeople provide leads to virtual electric car charging services. This has perfect demographics because electric vehicle owners are very receptive to solar electricity. Who wouldn’t want a clean transportation solution with local job creation that can’t be offshore?

The United States in 2019 will become the world’s largest market for grid-connected battery energy storage, as solar-plus-storage and peaking capacity requirements drive increased procurement, according to IHS Markit.

Iowa economic development officials are tentatively endorsing a tax credit for battery storage to complement the state’s wind and solar generation.

Consumers Energy says it’s happy with the launch of its electric vehicle charging station program and open to expanding the three-year, $10 million pilot.

The latest crop of utility participants includes NRG Energy, Cleco Corp., Entergy, Louisville Gas & Electric/Kentucky Utilities, AEP’s distributed energy ventures group AEP OnSite Partners and Hindustan Power from India.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) has released its Short Term Energy Outlook for 2019 and we have summarized the key highlights for you below.

Presentation by Russell Nowland of CommScope

Presentation by Don Ball of Chemcut Corporation

Presentation by George Milad of Uyemura International Corporation

Presentation by Mike Carano of OMG Electronic Chemicals.

Presentation by Sree Bhagwat, IPC market research manager.

IPC China President Phil Carmichael shares his insights, as well as those of some of his colleagues, into the current state of the general economy in China.

多年来 Karen McConnell 一直在多个 IPC 委员会中任职，这为她赢得了让人梦寐以求的 IPC 总裁奖。 她把 IPOC 会议看作是学习和扩展个人网络的地方。

Desjardins Industrials, TMT and Consumer Conference

Today, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its renewable electricity generation projections as part of its "Annual Energy Outlook — 2014" (AEO2014).

The Obama administration is considering cutting greenhouse-gas emissions from power plants by reaching beyond the plants themselves — an unusual approach that could run afoul of anti-pollution laws.

The Obama administration has taken a lot of heat for creating climate change rules that bypass Congress. But recent court decisions are bolstering the president’s clean air agenda – and they come at a crucial time.

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.

As a businessman exploring investments, I need simple answers, however complicated the problem. I wish to know: Are microgrids economical? How much investment is needed and for what? What are the factors that principally affect profitability, within the system and in the environment? If microgrids are not profitable at the present, when will they be? I recognize that understanding microgrids as a system requires complicated mathematics and modeling. I’m sympathetic to and respect those who do that.

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.

The UN climate conference in Lima set the stage for Paris in 2015. Next year’s accord is to provide a working, albeit not a final, answer to the question: Is it possible to keep global warming at or below the 2 degree Celsius limit? This limit is considered the boundary beyond which the negative climatic, economic and social consequences of climate change are thought to become intolerably severe and potentially irreversible.

In a crammed Washington conference room last week, speaker after speaker seemed to apologize for their ‘broken record’ talking points as Bloomberg New Energy Finance and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy unveiled their annual Factbook. But, of course, they were only being honest — like 2013 before it, 2014 had been an unprecedented year for clean energy.

Last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed its aggressive Clean Power Plan (CPP), which calls to reduce carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030 over 2005 levels. States are required to submit reduction plans that can include increasing renewables, efficiency, and cap and trade programs by June 2016.

The first round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) programme — the UK scheme that is designed to support low-carbon generation and a capacity margin in the energy sector — has concluded. Contracts were offered to 27 renewable electricity projects with a total value of some £315 million (US$500 million), which include two offshore wind farms with a total planned capacity of more than 1.1 GW, 15 onshore wind projects and five solar projects. In total, more 2 GW of new low-carbon capacity (including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage) could be built under the CfD scheme.

Sweden and Norway agreed to boost their target for renewable energy production amid concerns the additional capacity will exacerbate a power glut and strain the region’s electricity grid.

Following the conclusion of the United Nations climate negotiations in Lima, Peru, last December, a busy schedule of breakout sessions has begun for Latin American business and political leaders in early 2015.