Chatham House is working with Practical Action and UNHCR on implementing the Renewable Energy for Refugees (RE4R) project in Rwanda and Jordan.

Newly launched REBA Institute shares research suggesting multiple policy pathways increase access, lower costs and drive decarbonization of the electricity sector.

(PRWeb May 05, 2020)

Read the full story at https://www.prweb.com/releases/viable_policy_pathways_expand_access_to_renewable_energy_for_commercial_industrial_sector/prweb17099869.htm

Remote Isle au Haut is integrating time-tested technology with emerging innovations to create its own microgrid

Source: Reuters - Wind and solar power are growing as sustainable alternatives to fossil fuels, but storing renewable energy through the night, when the sun isn’t shining, or when no wind is rotating the turbines, remains a hurdle.

The move comes after renewable companies made representations to the government to allow a blanket extension for six months to overcome supply-side disruptions in completing the projects.

Since renewable energy is unpredictable in nature, other sources of energy are required for balancing it, increasing the actual cost of such power, dissuading state-run power distribution companies from buying such electricity.

The UK is the Europe's leading destination for foreign investment in green energy, followed by Spain, finds fDi’s Top European Locations for Renewable Energy Investment.

Foreign investment in the global renewable energy market hit unprecedented highs in 2019. However, the coronavirus crisis may reverse this trend. 

According to an analysis by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), U.S. electrical generating capacity by renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) has now - for the first time - surpassed that of coal.

German utility EnBW has acquired French wind and solar developer and operator VALECO.

On June 12, Target corporation said it was increasing its renewable energy goals by committing to source 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. The goal applies to all of Target’s domestic operations.

Eleven million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide in 2018 according to the latest analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

Nigerian distributed utility company, Arnergy, announced it has raised $9 Million in a Series A round of funding led by Breakthrough Energy Ventures with participation from the Norwegian Investment Fund for Developing Countries (Norfund), EDFI ElectriFI and All On.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google said it would invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to expand its data center infrastructure in the Netherlands.

BlackRock Real Assets is aiming to boost its renewables power portfolio in Asia by as much as 10-fold as it seeks to keep pace with the world’s fastest-growing region for green energy.

Clearway Energy Group, one of the U.S.’s largest clean power developers, is launching a pilot electronic marketplace for renewable energy credits as more states push for solar and wind projects.

In April 2019, in the heart of coal country, Indiana regulators rejected a proposal by its electric and gas utility, Vectren, to replace baseload coal plants with a new $900 million, 850 megawatt (MW) natural gas-fired power plant. Regulators were concerned that with the dramatic decline in the cost of renewable energy, maturation of energy storage and rapidly changing customer demand, such a major gas plant investment could become a stranded, uneconomic asset in the future. Regulators are now pushing Vectren to consider more decentralized, lower-carbon resources such as wind, solar and storage that would offer greater resource diversity, flexibility and cost effectiveness.

According to a review by the SUN DAY Campaign of data just released by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), within the past month, the agency has dramatically revised its three-year forecast for changes in the U.S. electrical generating capacity mix. Sharp declines are foreseen for fossil fuels and nuclear power while accompanied by even stronger growth in renewable energy (i.e., biomass, geothermal, hydropower, solar, wind) than earlier projected.

EON SE is now supplying all of its 3.3 million residential customers in Britain with 100% renewable electricity, the first of the U.K.’s “Big Six” utilities to do so.

A 138 MW windfarm in Turkey is to be powered by 27 turbines from GE Renewable Energy.

India’s ambitious plan to take the leadership position among nations as one of largest producers of renewable energy may have run into some unfavorable weather.

Regulators in a number of states are ratcheting up investigations into competitive retailer behavior and proposing new consumer protection rules. Some states with aggressive carbon emission reduction goals implemented through regulated utility contracts are wondering whether retail competition has a place where a growing portion of energy supply is locked and loaded. 

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.

Namibia’s state-run utility will build four plants powered by renewable energy over the next five years as the southern African nation seeks to guarantee local supplies and cut its use of fossil fuels.

The financial benefits of buying and selling locally produced energy from rooftop solar, wind turbines and batteries within communities have been revealed in a test case run by energy tech firm LO3 Energy.

Ireland is set to add 5.8 GW of non-hydro renewable power capacity over the next decade to reach a total 9.6 GW by 2030.

Bernie Sanders wants renewable energy to power U.S. homes and vehicles by 2030 -- and he wants to do it by enlisting the federal government in building and running new solar, wind and geothermal electricity projects.

Renewable energy, particularly solar, is poised for significant growth in the southeastern United States. The Southeast has also mostly retained a vertically integrated utility model, and most utilities in the region have not joined a Regional Transmission Organization or Independent System Operator (collectively known as, RTO). Recent developments have led stakeholders and policymakers in the Southeast to rethink whether it is beneficial for some utilities to join RTOs – something that is generally seen as a positive development for renewable energy.

This week, Scottish software company Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) announced that it will be expanding into Europe after completing successful trials with a utility company in Germany.

In a region of the world where coal is still king, there is room for renewables. This was a takeaway from the Ministerial Address and Joint Opening Keynote at POWERGEN Asia and Asian Utility Week. The two annual events kicked off Tuesday, Sept. 3, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

The Clean Energy Regulator of Australia has approved enough capacity to guarantee that the large-scale Renewable Energy Target of 33,000 GWh of additional renewable energy will be met in 2020.

The 2019 Sustainable Energy in America factbook was released this week by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BloombergNEF) and the Business Council for Sustainable Energy (BCSE). The factbook highlights a number of key trends in sustainable and renewable energy growth, emissions and jobs in the sector. Take a glance at the six charts below to learn more.

This week independent power producer Marubeni and LO3 Energy said they have started a pilot project in Japan where LO3 will administer an energy marketplace using blockchain to connect a number of Marubeni’s power production facilities, including renewables, with offices and factories around Japan in a virtual marketplace. The project will simulate energy transactions to test the viability of the concept with the ultimate goal of creating a full-scale commercially operational network in the future.

This week ComEd said that it’s furthering innovation in Chicago’s Bronzeville neighborhood with the installation of renewable energy powered lights along the walkway to the Beethoven Elementary School. Bronzeville is home to the first “microgrid cluster” in the United States.

South Africa plans to expand use of renewable power as the coal-dependent nation expects traditional, centralized generation plants to “disappear,” Energy Minister Jeff Radebe said.

As renewable energy proliferates, major players like Hitachi, ABB and GE are seeing value in combining grid and generation business units.

In late February, Hawaiian Electric Companies announced that they have achieved a consolidated 27 percent renewable portfolio standard in 2018, even with the loss of Hawaii Island’s geothermal resource for most of the year following the Kilauea volcanic eruption. Hawaii has a goal of reaching 100 percent renewable energy by 2045.

As of the end of 2018, China’s renewable energy installation capacity had reached 728 GW, an increase of 12 percent from a year earlier, according to statistics released by China’s National Energy Administration. This breaks down into 352 GW (up 2.5 percent) for hydro, 184 GW (up 12.4 percent) for wind, 174 GW (up 34 percent) for photovoltaic (PV) and 17.8 GW (up 20.7 percent) for biomass. Renewable energy accounted for 38.3 percent of the country’s total installed power capacity, a rise of 1.7 percentage points.

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.

Findings in a recently published European Union report showed that the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia make up over 30 percent of the EU countries that have already met their 2020 renewable energy targets.

The Trump administration is again seeking severe cuts to the U.S. Energy Department division charged with renewable energy and energy efficiency research, according to a department official familiar with the plan.

What happens when a famously left-leaning city dives into the buttoned-down business of electric utilities? San Francisco may soon find out.

Distributed Energy Resources (DER), such as residential solar panels, are not only changing the way energy systems operate, they also present an opportunity to change the way local communities operate by giving consumers the ability to sell excess energy, generated by microgrids or renewable set-ups, to their neighbors – it’s the new energy paradigm.

Southeast Asia is poised for a long-overdue and much-needed boom in solar.

On Friday, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed the state’s groundbreaking Energy Transition Act (ETA) into law, meaning that by 2045, the state should be fully powered by clean, carbon-free electricity.

It was a milestone deal, not for its size but for the number of parties. In January, five big companies, each with differing energy requirements and renewable strategies, agreed to pool their investment and collectively purchase 42.5 megawatts from a North Carolina solar project.

In a first for the country, Germany generated 54.5 percent of electricity from renewable energy in March 2019. This is according to data collected by the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems.

BlackRock Inc., the world’s largest money manager, is boosting its bet on clean energy.

Recently there has been a great deal of interest in a ‘Green New Deal’ for the United States. It is seen as a way to solve pressing environmental, employment and economic problems with a single comprehensive plan. Modeled on Roosevelt’s New Deal, which created jobs, invested in large infrastructure projects, and pulled the US out of the Great Depression, the Green New Deal is a modern version of that program, but with green energy investments, 21st century job training, and deficit reduction as the key components.