On Monday (February 22nd 2021) the Czech government announced their intention to file a lawsuit in the EU Court of Justice against Poland’s plan to “expand the mining” at Turow, saying it can endanger the drinking water for up to 30,000 people living in the Liberec Region. Frank Umbach at EUCERS argues such a lawsuit sets a dangerous precedent that could stand in the way of regional cooperation and achieving the EU’s climate goals. Instead, the … [Read more...]
EU Taxonomy: Gas as a transition fuel needs Green Deal support too
PGE Group is Poland's largest energy company. Its transformation plan targets a 50% share from renewable generation and an 85% reduction in CO2 emissions by 2030. By 2050 it intends to have net zero CO2 emissions and provide 100% green energy to its customers. As with all nations around the world, and certainly in the EU, successful transitions depend on capital flows to the right sectors, signposted by policies and support. What does and does … [Read more...]
Decarbonising Industry is key to China’s net-zero strategy
China has committed to a CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. It’s 14th 5-year plan will be released in March, followed by sector-oriented plans. For the first time it will include a dedicated plan addressing climate change. Dolf Gielen, Yong Chen and Paul Durrant at IRENA start by laying out China’s energy mix for scrutiny, then dive into its industrial sector which accounts for 60% of gross final energy use. Success … [Read more...]
The Energy Charter Treaty makes the transition easier. Don’t scrap it, reform it
Energy and climate experts as well as national and EU parliamentarians are lining up to press their governments to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty (ECT) if insufficient progress is made in its modernisation. Their main argument is that it gives protection to fossil investments in a world where policies are changing in order to constrain or phase them out. Here, Frank Umbach at EUCERS sternly warns against abandoning the ECT. The treaty … [Read more...]
The top Clean Energy developments of 2020
The world is still a long way off the pathway to meeting our emissions goals. But 2020 saw a number of major steps in the right direction. Laurie Stone at RMI presents a list of what has been achieved and which trends and new policy commitments are pointing us towards a much needed faster transition. They include coal’s decline, wind and solar’s growing competitiveness (even compared to gas), the promise of green hydrogen, bans on gas/petrol … [Read more...]
Coal regions are ideally suited for utility-scale Wind, Solar and jobs
Over 15% of total greenhouse gas emissions in the EU come from coal-fired energy generation. 18 EU countries still use coal for electricity production. The argument goes that the phasing out of coal threatens the livelihoods of coal workers and their regional economy. But it should be the opposite, argue Elif GĂĽndĂĽzyeli and Jörg MĂĽhlenhoff at CAN Europe. Coal regions are ideally suited for new gigawatt-scale wind and solar. They already have the … [Read more...]
IEA’s “accelerated case” becoming the norm? Global Wind + Solar to overtake Gas and Coal by 2024
The IEA’s 2019 “accelerated case” for renewables is turning into this year’s “main case”. It predicts that Wind and Solar capacity combined will overtake both Gas and Coal globally by 2024. Josh Gabbatiss at Carbon Brief summarises the IEA’s Renewables 2020 report. Within five years, renewables will constitute 1/3 of all electricity generation, equivalent to the combined demand of China and the EU. Virtually all global growth in electricity … [Read more...]
Solar is displacing Coal in India’s electricity market
India is the world’s third largest electricity market and as a fast-growing economy can, according to the IEA, lead the recovery of global energy demand out of the pandemic for the coming decade. Kashish Shah at IEEFA runs through solar’s prospects in India, which hopes to build 450GW of renewable energy by 2030. Solar is getting cheaper. A 2GW auction in June delivered India’s lowest-yet renewable energy tariff at US$31/MWh. That figure could … [Read more...]
5 charts show the rapid fall in costs of renewable energy
Plenty in the energy sector already know about the impressive declines in renewable energy costs since 2010, particularly solar (down 82%), concentrated solar (47%), onshore (39%) and offshore wind (29%). For those of you putting together presentations to people whose buy-in you need - citizens, public officials, investors, customers, etc. - these graphics should come in useful. It looks like a tipping point is being reached, says Douglas Broom … [Read more...]
Chinese energy institutes present new net-zero scenarios for 2050
It was just one sentence, in September, from China’s President Xi Jinping: “We aim to have CO2 emissions peak before 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality before 2060.” Already, leading Chinese energy institutes have presented two scenarios that lay out what needs to be done to meet that goal. Writing for Carbon Brief, Lauri Myllyvirta reviews the plans. Both aim for over 85% of all energy and more than 90% of electricity coming from non-fossil … [Read more...]
WEO 2020 means updated price predictions to 2040: Oil, Gas, Coal, Renewables, Power
The combined effect of the global lockdown, more ambitious climate policies and the rise of renewables will have a significant effect on European power prices up to 2040, as well as the sales revenues of renewable energies. Carlos Perez-Linkenheil at Energy Brainpool uses their Power2Sim model to look at the data in the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook 2020 and make quantitative forecasts. The pandemic has caused structural distortions to the … [Read more...]
The IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2020 at a glance
This month the IEA published its annual flagship World Energy Outlook (WEO). Simon Göss at Energy Brainpool picks out his highlights. This year’s WEO has four scenarios, two of them new: an updated “Stated Policies Scenario” (STEPS: what governments have promised), the new “Delayed Recovery Scenario” (DRS: due to Covid), an updated “Sustainable Development Scenario” (SDS: what’s needed to meet the Paris targets), and the new “Net Zero Emissions … [Read more...]
Europe has enough Gas infrastructure. Why build more?
In early November a first vote is expected in the European Parliament on the Recovery & Resilience Facility’s €672.5bn budget. Esther Bollendorff at CAN Europe runs through the arguments against providing any funding for new gas infrastructure. She presents evidence to show that the EU is already oversupplied with gas import capacity, and all new fossil gas transmission projects have been rejected by the market since 2017. Solar and wind … [Read more...]
ELCC: how to measure grid stability as renewables are added
We cannot just swap 24/7 fossil fuel power plants for intermittent renewables. To prevent electricity shortfalls the capacity of a solar or wind plant must exceed that of the fossil fuel plant it replaces. But by how much? That’s the question that the Effective Load Carrying Capability (ELCC) metric is designed to answer. It’s not a new concept, but is now becoming very important. Mark Specht at the Union of Concerned Scientists explains the … [Read more...]
China’s new net zero emissions target for 2060: why now, and how?
China’s promise of peak emissions before 2030 and net zero by 2060 is a major and welcome step for the economic (and fossil fuel) powerhouse. Better still, the rest of the world doesn’t need to make concessions to get China to stick to the new target, says John Seaman at the IFRI Centre for Energy & Climate. That’s because an energy transition is in China’s interests. It wants and needs to be at the forefront of new energy technologies to … [Read more...]
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