China’s Belt and Road Initiative is arguably the biggest regional connectivity and cooperation programme in operation today. But with China being a major polluter, there are also concerns the Initiative could just be adding to global environmental stress. Not so, argue John A Mathews and Carol X Huang of Macquarie University, Sydney: it’s actually a magnet for renewable energy investments. Courtesy of The Asia-Pacific Journal. … [Read more...]
How do ambitious climate pledges impact economic growth?
At the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco, delegates from all over the world made ambitious commitments to tackle climate change. But how will their actions impact economic growth? Chris Busch of think-tank Energy Innovation compares manufacturing and employment data from climate leader California to laggard Texas and the US as a whole. His findings suggest that climate actions are affordable and even provide a boost to economies. … [Read more...]
Why decarbonising gas might be harder than you think
Decarbonising the European energy system by 2050 will require a fundamental shift for the way the gas industry operates, away from business-as-usual in network planning and market design. Achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in Europe, in line with the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, leaves no room for fossil gas consumption where CO2 is not captured and stored. But turning the gas industry into a zero-carbon industry is no simple task. … [Read more...]
Flexible printed solar cells – a new manufacturing frontier?
The University of Newcastle in Australia has unveiled a 200m2 rooftop solar array made from innovative flexible and printed solar cells that could further revolutionise the global use and manufacturing industry of renewables. According to Professor John Mathews of Macquarie University in Australia, this could be a giant step forward for solar cells. Courtesy Global Green Shift blog … [Read more...]
What role for gas in Europe’s 2050 energy system?
The European Commission sees natural gas play a critical role in the energy transition to 2035, but beyond that its views on the role of gas are much less clear. Simon Blakey, analyst at IHS Markit, does not believe that renewables can be ramped up quickly enough to replace coal generation. Jonathan Gaventa of think tank E3G argues gas has no place in the energy mix by then, unless it is decarbonized. Energy Post editor Jason Deign spoke to both … [Read more...]
UK offers green assurances for no-deal Brexit
The UK government says its environment and energy rules will remain in step with the EU’s even if it makes a hard, no-deal exit next year. Time, however, is running short, writes Sara Stefanini. Courtesy Climate Home News. … [Read more...]
Hydrogen is heading up the European policy agenda
Hydrogen’s momentum is building, as European ministers consider approving a new ‘Hydrogen Initiative’ this week that aims to “maximise the great potential of sustainable hydrogen technology.” With funding from the EU’s Fuel Cells and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking, a consortium of industrial heavyweights in the H2FUTURE project is already ramping up production of hydrogen from renewable sources. But, as the International Renewable Energy Agency notes … [Read more...]
Smart cities: not enough projects make the grade
Despite the hype about smart cities, and the availability of EU funding, there are very few projects out there that qualify for funding, according to Lada Strelnikova, lead fund manager at the European Energy Efficiency Fund (EEEF). An exception: Belgian bank Belfius has, with the support of the European Investment Bank (EIB), provided €1 billion to smart city projects involving more than 100 municipalities in Belgium. According to Joost Declerck … [Read more...]
Why we need a blackout
The risk of a cyber-attack that will take down the power system is seriously underestimated, writes financial energy specialist Gerard Reid. To prevent future disaster, we need to build a completely new power system. Reliability is not anymore about the “average minutes of downtime per year”. Courtesy Energy and Carbon blog. … [Read more...]
How attractive are renewables for oil companies?
At the recent ONS (Offshore Northern Seas) conference in Stavanger, the largest annual gathering of the oil and gas industry in Europe, debate on the energy transition took centre stage. Some major oil companies are expanding into renewables, but there was a lot of skepticism among the attendants about this strategy, writes independent energy analyst Jilles van den Beukel, who attended the event. He also noted that in project financing there is a … [Read more...]
Poland’s PGE should accelerate its coal diversification plans
Poland’s biggest utility, PGE, should accelerate plans to diversify away from coal, as surging carbon prices underscore risks gathering around its present PLN 21 billion ($5.6 billion) coal power investment programme, write Gerard Wynn of IEEFA (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis) and Paolo Coghe of the Paris-based independent consultancy Acousmatics. Courtesy Energy and Carbon Blog. … [Read more...]
An evening with ecomodernist Michael Shellenberger (or: a defence of nuclear power you have not heard before)
Pro-nuclear activist Michael Shellenberger, founder of the California-based global citizens movement Environmental Progress (“not paid by the nuclear industry”) was in Amsterdam recently, where he gave a very personal “Ecomodernist” defense of why nuclear power is good and how it should be supported. “It is about protecting the natural environment by concentrating human activity.” This article was first published on Energy Post Weekly. … [Read more...]
DNV GL’s Energy Transition Outlook shows massive shift of investment from oil and gas into power lines
The global energy transition will lead to a massive expansion of power lines at all voltage levels as well as a steep growth in the number of transformers and substations in the electricity system. This is one of the major new findings of the second edition of the Energy Transition Outlook, the annual flagship publication of global technical consultancy DNV GL. As a result, grid costs will triple, yet this cost explosion is offset by cost … [Read more...]
Interview Ditlev Engel, CEO DNV GL Energy: “We have to rethink the mechanisms of the electricity market”
DNV GL’s new 2018 Energy Transition Outlook projects a massive investment shift from fossil fuels to renewables and grids – and this is based mainly on cost considerations. Yet, notes Ditlev Engel, CEO of DNV GL Energy, in an interview with Energy Post, this won’t be enough to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement. He says policymakers will have to take additional actions. “Doing just a little more won’t be enough.” (See here for main … [Read more...]
European utilities have increased their activity in energy cloud platforms
The energy industry is experiencing a profound transformation as the sector moves towards a more intelligent, more distributed, and cleaner use of electricity, referred to as the Energy Cloud. According to digital innovation expert Alex Metz of Navigant, European utilities are increasingly recognising the value of integrated distributed energy resources (DER) and the potential of the Energy Cloud. In this article he looks at the activities of … [Read more...]
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