How do you get neighbouring states, with different renewables mixes, and different emissions targets and penalties, to trade their surplus energy? It’s one of the biggest challenges to face the rapid growth of intermittent wind and solar. Meredith Fowlie at the Energy Institute at Haas describes how an “Energy Imbalance Market” (EIM) is operating across eight states in the west of the U.S. Bidding for your neighbour’s excess renewable energy is … [Read more...]
Archives for October 2019
Offshore Wind: a new source of clean energy for Asia?
Offshore wind is seeing the same dramatic cost reductions as solar and onshore wind. Though still more expensive, it’s heading towards $60/MWh parity with them across Europe. The U.S., China and Taiwan are also experiencing impressive drops. It’s why global capacity nearly doubled in three years from 12GW in December 2015 to 23GW by the end of 2018. IEEFA’s briefing note “Offshore Wind Ready to Be Key Part of Energy Mix Globally – Top European … [Read more...]
Why renewables need gas: case study USA
Everyone is predicting the continued expansion of gas through to 2050. Jim Conca reviews the state of play in the U.S. to explain why that projection makes sense. The welcome and rapid growth of renewables still needs something to provide backup load-following to a growing and increasingly intermittent electric grid. Gas is the cheapest to roll out and can keep prices low for decades. The other two contenders, hydro and nuclear, just can’t match … [Read more...]
DNV-GL: energy’s shrinking share of growing global GDP shows how we can afford Transition
At the current rate of progress higher energy efficiency, more renewables, and carbon capture will not be enough to keep the global temperature rise to well below 2°C. So to point the way, DNV-GL has condensed its Energy Transition Outlook 2019 into 10 ways technology can meet the COP21 targets. This article gives figures on how much solar and wind we really need, battery production, annual investment in grids, and energy efficiency. It further … [Read more...]
The rapid liberalisation of China’s domestic gas market
China’s coal-to-gas ambitions are driving big changes to its internal gas markets, says a report “China’s Quest for Blue Skies: The Astonishing Transformation of the Domestic Gas Market” by the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate, authored by Sylvie Cornot-Gandolphe. To cope with a doubling of gas demand by 2030, market reforms are liberalising the downstream gas market. Nobody wants a repeat of the winter shortages of 2017-18. And air … [Read more...]
Hydrogen electrolysis: cheap, abundant Cobalt Phosphide can replace Platinum
Platinum and iridium are the preferred catalysts for producing hydrogen through electrolysis at scale. But they are expensive and rare, offering serious bottlenecks in hydrogen’s plans to replace gas worldwide. Now researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have shown for the first time that cobalt phosphide can do the same job in the harsh environment of a commercial device: high … [Read more...]
1.2TW: cost reductions, policy advances will drive 50% renewables growth to 2024, says IEA
Carbon Brief’s Simon Evans runs through their analysis of the updated forecasts in the International Energy Agency (IEA) Renewables 2019 report, released this week. In its “base case” global renewable energy capacity will increase by 50% over 6 years. Rising from 2,501GW in 2018 to 3,721GW in 2024, it will add the equivalent of the entire US electricity system. In the “accelerated case” it’s 60%, further adding the equivalent of Japan’s. 85% of … [Read more...]
$7.87tn: the global green economy, by region, revenue, jobs, productivity
Economic data on the green economy in many countries can be difficult to come by. But it’s vitally important when convincing taxpayers that the investment is creating real turnover and real jobs. So Lucien Georgeson and Mark Maslin at UCL analysed massive databases to estimate global and country-by-country sales revenue and employment figures across 24 economic sub-sectors covering renewable energy, environmental protection, and low carbon goods … [Read more...]
Germany 2021: when fixed feed-in tariffs end, how will renewables fare?
Starting in 2021 many of Germany’s existing “pioneer” wind turbines, solar PV installations and biogas plants – launched with generous price guarantees - will stop receiving fixed feed-in tariffs. That means renewable capacity may be shut down if they can’t find a new business model to run on. The new rules comes at a decisive time for Germany’s energy transition as it tries to increase renewables to meet emissions targets and gradually increase … [Read more...]
An independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050 (part 3 of 5): fossil fuels
Schalk Cloete is creating his own 5-part independent Global Energy Forecast to 2050, to compare with the next IEA World Energy Outlook, due in November. To make his predictions he has created simulations of cost-optimal technology mixes and made his own assumptions over the drivers that will affect them: policy, technology, demand growth and behavioural change are all included. Cloete reminds us that fossil fuels did not reach their dominant … [Read more...]
Hydrogen Fuel Cell trucks can decarbonise heavy transport
Patrick Molloy at Rocky Mountain Institute runs through the pros and cons of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs). The big pluses are that hydrogen has an energy density of around 120 MJ/kg, almost three times more than diesel or gasoline. Half the energy generated by an internal combustion engine is wasted as heat, whereas electric drivetrains used by FCEVs only lose 10%. Nikola Motors, a U.S. maker of hydrogen trucks, claims its vehicles can get … [Read more...]
Non-energy firms lead investments in clean energy start-ups
Investments in innovative “blue sky” companies tell us where the bets are being placed on the energy sector’s future. Such investments leaped in 2016, mostly directed at clean energy technology. This analysis by Simon Bennett at the IEA usefully includes a long list of firms and their investments. Digital sensors, batteries, electric vehicles and smart algorithms are among the main recipients this year. Other fascinating categories include … [Read more...]
TurkStream disruption: Turkey, Greece can become new gas hubs
For over 30 years the Trans-Balkan pipeline has been used to pump Russian gas to southeast Europe. But Russia’s construction of the new TurkStream pipelines can open the door for the Trans-Balkan to be re-purposed, explains Aura Sabadus writing for the Atlantic Council. Going forward, LNG can be imported into Turkey and Greece and pumped back up the same pipes to serve the region, reducing dependence on Russian gas. However, such a plan would … [Read more...]
India: coal plummets, renewables stepping in
In 2018, 80% of India’s total energy lending went to renewables. Coal got the rest, a major fall compared to 2017. No wonder, given coal plants have been running at below 60% utilisation for two years with the operators suffering huge losses. Renewables are now undercutting coal and getting cheaper. And shortages in water – needed for plant cooling – just add to their woes. Vibhuti Garg at IEEFA catalogues the problems, then describes the … [Read more...]
Extract CO2 from our air, use it to create synthetic fuels
Carbon Capture needs to take off, but nobody knows how it’s going to happen. We need innovation, scrutinised, tested and funded. Jim Conca looks at a method of extracting CO2 directly from the air that’s being pioneered by Carbon Engineering in Canada, backed by private investors and government agencies. It grew out of academic work at the University of Calgary and Carnegie Mellon University. It’s “Direct Air Capture” system can remove a ton of … [Read more...]