Cities and renewable electricity have, respectively, become the habitat and energy of choice globally. The two are increasingly inseparable. Urbanization and electrification trends have turned cities and the grid into leading platforms for human activity, presenting unique opportunities for today’s utilities to partner with municipalities to achieve their smart city goals.

The Redford Center, a California-based non-profit co-founded in 2005 by Robert Redford and his son, James, announced that every morning, from April 15-22, 2019, the organization will post an episode a day of "Renewable Therapy for Climate Anxiety," a conversational mini-series featuring Filmmaker, James Redford, and Matthew Nordan, clean energy investor and managing partner at MNL Partners. In each two-minute installment, the pair explores questions that nag environmentalists when it comes to renewable energy. Watch the first episode below.

This weekend at its “Earth Day Every Day Fair,” Green Mountain Power announced an energy vision to have a 100 percent carbon free energy supply by 2025 and 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. The utility said the move is among the most aggressive carbon targets for a utility of GMP’s size in the country.

The European Commission has approved a €385 million (US$429.7 million) renewable energy scheme to support renewables generation in Lithuania, including hydroelectric power.

This week global energy and infrastructure group, Eversheds Sutherland, announced that it helped Ball Corporation secure two virtual power purchase agreements (VPPAs) – one wind and one solar – for a total of 388 MW of new renewable energy. According to Ball, these agreements will allow the company to power 100 percent of its corporate, packaging and aerospace operations electricity load in North America with renewable energy by the end of 2021.

Energy advisory and certification body DNV GL has launched a new digital platform for renewable energy power purchase agreements.

ComEd sees a significant role for energy storage on Illinois’ electric grid as the state works toward realizing its ambitious renewable goals.

Last year was the first time since 2001 that growth in renewable power capacity failed to increase year on year.

As of 2018, the city of Los Angeles boasted close to 350 MW of installed local solar power, according to reports. Its solar capacity increased some 44 percent year over year.

This week energy developer BayWa r.e. published its Energy Report 2019, which surveyed 1,200 European corporations about their attitudes toward renewable energy.

This week, Xcel Energy announced plans to retire its last two coal plants in the Upper Midwest a decade earlier than scheduled. The acceleration of the coal closures is part of the company’s clean energy transition that includes expanding wind and solar, using natural gas and operating its Monticello nuclear plant until at least 2040.

Renewables energy investment in Asia excluding China will overtake spending on upstream oil and gas projects in the region as soon as next year, according to Rystad Energy.

State-run NTPC Ltd., India’s largest coal-fired power producer, is appointing a new head of its renewables team to speed up its expansion into clean energy, according to a company official with knowledge of the plan.

Anheuser-Busch President and CEO Michel Doukeris wouldn't give financial details of the agreement, but says it's a smart investment

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.

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).

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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 idea of communities, cities, states, or countries being powered by 100 percent renewable energy used to be perceived as fantasy. Enter the Go 100% Renewable Energy Project, which aims to perpetuate the clean energy movement by creating a revolutionary online platform that showcases real-time 100 percent renewable energy progress. So far, the project has mapped 8 countries, 59 Cities, and 61 Regions/States, representing more than 62 million people who have set, reached, or surpassed official 100 percent renewable targets in at least one sector (electricity, transportation, heating/cooling). Discover what’s driving the shift to 100% RE, the common trends emerging, and learn more about the Go 100% project with Founding Director of the Renewables 100 Policy Institute Diane Moss!

A report that examines statements about rolling blackouts made by regional grid operator ISO-New England, shows that sustained growth of renewables, and not more gas, will boost reliability of New England’s electric power system.

Utilities and independent power producers (IPPs) plan to invest $110 billion through 2025 to build new, natural gas-fired power plants. They, their shareholders and society would be better served were that capital invested in new, distributed, renewable power generation and distributed energy resources (DERs), including utility-customer demand response and energy efficiency programs, the Rocky Mountain Institute says.

Reparations for the worst-ever U.S. natural gas leak will involve cow-dung duty.

Earlier this week SIMEC ZEN Energy announced details of the first of many planned renewable energy projects for South Australia. The Cultana Solar Farm, a 280-MW solar power plant expected to generate 600 GW-hours of energy annually in Australia’s sunny climate is expected to begin construction in early 2019 according to details in a press release.

Yesterday another milestone was reached in California’s march toward a 100 percent renewable energy mandate with the passing of SB100 by the Assembly. The bill will require the state to receive 50 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2026; 60 percent by 2030 and 100 percent by 2045. The current law requires the state to get 50 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030.

It can be hard to get your head around just how much energy the world uses. Expressed in terms of oil, it was equivalent to almost 14 billion metric tons of the stuff in 2017. That’s like burning through all of Russia’s proved reserves in the space of 12 months, which is, in technical terms, a lot.

When innovators come up with the idea for the next great technological breakthrough, the first roadblocks to seeing that idea to fruition are typically funding. Among renewable energy inventions, this need is typically filled through wealthy private investors, venture capital firms, or government grants. But today, in the age of the Internet, budding entrepreneurs have taken their funding needs online through crowdfunding sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo.

Egypt has the potential to meet up to 53 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030, according to a new report by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA). The Egypt Renewable Energy Outlook, released in Cairo last week in the presence of Egyptian government officials and regional decision makers, found that pursuing higher shares of renewable energy could reduce the country’s energy bill by up to $900 million annually in 2030.

Latest market outlook report predicts that the country will get more than half of its power from hon-hydro renewables by 2030.

Marubeni Corp., the Japanese trading house for whom coal makes up about a quarter of its power generation, never expected renewable energy prices to plunge as much as they have.

It’s been a turbulent and exciting 2018 over at Renewable Energy World. We have a new parent company, Clarion Energy, and we, as a media outlet, are doing more than ever to support the dynamic and top-quality energy events in the Clarion Energy Power and Energy Series, with shows focused on energy all across the globe.

Renewable energy projects were marked by distinctive trends and characteristics in 2018: frothy M&A market driven by a crush of liquidity and a shortage of project supply; a highly competitive environment among investors and lenders for an inadequate supply of projects...

Renewable energy muscled out coal to become Germany’s biggest source of electricity for the first time last year, helped by a surge in solar panel installations and coal-plant closures.

Crowdfunding has become a popular tool for people and organizations to use to test out their new ideas for green products while securing funds to begin operations. The most well-known crowdfunding websites, Kickstarter and Indiegogo, have helped a significant amount of projects in renewable energy and sustainability get off the ground, projects that have been the focus of previous installments in my ongoing articles series about crowdfunding in energy.

This week at the Assembly of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), political and business leaders from around the world outlined the far-reaching geopolitical implications of an energy transformation driven by the rapid growth of renewable energy.

Utilities and renewable-energy advocates have long had a complicated relationship. Yet the prospect of PG&E Corp. tipping into bankruptcy by the end of January has sent shivers through the solar-and-wind sector.

GE announced today that it sees a future in housing its renewable generation businesses (onshore and offshore wind, hydropower) alongside its grid businesses which include substations and transformers plus solar, storage and distributed energy resource (DER) control software. GE Renewable Energy CEO Jerome Pecresse said in a press conference that the move will simplify the lives of GE’s customers by giving them one point of contact for all of their renewable energy power needs.

This week, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announced that rather than investing in the Haynes, Harbor and Scattergood natural gas power plants to meet the requirements of a 2010 law related to a practice known as once through cooling, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) will phase them out in favor of renewable energy.

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.

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