The UK is the first country in the EU to have started a “capacity market”. Under this scheme, the UK government offers payments to electricity suppliers for making “backup capacity” available. The first auction, held in December for capacity in 2018/2019, has resulted in contracts for £931 million for UK power generators. According to Mike Parr, Director of energy consultancy PWR, most of this money is wasted. He says the scheme is overgenerous … [Read more...]
New clean energy investment surges 12% in 2014
New investment in the global clean energy sector rose 12% last year to $274.2 billion, the highest annual investment volume since 2011, reports Clean Energy Pipeline, the online financial news and data service dedicated to the clean energy sector in a report released on 21 January. … [Read more...]
Deutsche Bank: solar at grid parity in most of world by 2017
Investment bank Deutsche Bank is predicting that solar systems will be at grid parity in up to 80 per cent of the global market within 2 years, and says the collapse in the oil price will do little to slow down the solar juggernaut. Giles Parkinson of the Australian-based website Reneweconomy.com reports. … [Read more...]
Failure to liberalise energy retail markets jeopardizes Energy Union
The liberalisation and integration of European energy retail markets is still far from complete, conclude Simona Benedettini of Italian consulting firm Lear and Carlo Stagnaro of the Italian think tank Bruno Leoni Institute on the basis of extensive research. According to Benedettini and Stagnaro retail competition is still weak in many EU member states. Moreover, there are still large regulatory differences between countries which prevent the … [Read more...]
viEUws VIDEO: Top 5 Environment – All you need to know for the Latvian EU Presidency
In this special briefing for viEUws.eu, Brussels-based journalist Sonja van Renssen identifies the top 5 environment issues that will be discussed by the European institutions under the Latvian EU Presidency. … [Read more...]
Eon sells Italian coal and gas power plants
Eon, Germany’s largest energy company, has decided to sell its Italian coal and gas generation assets to Czech energy company Energetický a Průmyslový Holding (EPH). … [Read more...]
Business and policy: Paris 2015 needs the best of both worlds
Global climate negotiations have hardly led to tangible climate policy tools over the last five years. The latest UN Climate Summit in Lima was no exception. By contrast, both businesses and local and regional authorities are developing plenty of new initiatives. Could the crucial 2015 conference in Paris take a cue from these alternatives? And to what extent do business initiatives need a supranational climate deal? Rolf de Vos from energy … [Read more...]
Wind industry shake-up as policy uncertainty drives 25% of suppliers out of business
More than 120 suppliers have collapsed or stayed out of the wind business in the past two years, including 88 from Asia, 23 from Europe and 18 from North America, as the result of a "prolonged market contraction". That is the major conclusion to come out of the 2015 edition of the annual Global Wind Supply Chain Update published by FTI Consulting. … [Read more...]
viEUws VIDEO: Top 5 energy issues for the Latvian EU Presidency
In this special briefing for viEUws.eu, energy journalist Hughes Belin picks out the top 5 energy issues that will be discussed by the European institutions under the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the European Union. … [Read more...]
UK capacity market: success for new gas, old coal
A new government policy designed to ensure the UK's future energy supply appears to have successfully incentivised companies to build over two gigawatts of new gas power, to sit alongside nine gigawatts of coal and biomass power. It should ensure the UK will have at least 48.6 gigawatts of fossil fuel power stations available in 2018. … [Read more...]
Governments can reshape the energy business: they are the biggest users
In our energy system we treat electricity as a commodity, which is sold by the unit, writes Walt Patterson, Associate Fellow at Chatham House. This provides an incentive to suppliers to maximise consumption – which is why our user-technology is so wasteful. But according to Patterson, electricity is not a commodity, it’s a process in infrastructure. What matters is not the functioning of some ‘electricity market’ but long-term investment in this … [Read more...]
Why Chile’s mines run on renewables – and Australia’s don’t
Unbelievable but true: the Chilean mining industry is increasingly run on renewable energy, which will soon be bigger than conventional power sector in Chile, and cost-competitive. The Chileans ought to thank the Chinese for this, writes Australian professor John Mathews, whose new book, The Greening of Capitalism, has just been published by Stanford University Press. Mathews adds that Australian miners should take a cue from their Chilean … [Read more...]
Emission trading now a major new source of low-carbon finance in the EU – but will it stay that way?
Last year for the first time many of the CO2 allowances in the EU Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) were auctioned rather than handed out for free. Surprisingly perhaps, the EU member states used much more of the ETS revenues for low-carbon development than EU law suggests they should. This suggests that the ETS could become a major source of low-carbon finance in the future, writes Emil Dimantchev, senior analyst at Thomson Reuters. But Dimantchev … [Read more...]
Ukraine’s coal power plants need a planned phase out, not CCS
There are discussions in Ukraine about equipping coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and storage (CCS) to make them conform to EU climate rules. But according to Oleg Savitsky, climate and energy campaigner at the National Ecological Center of Ukraine, this is not a good idea. Ukraine has a vast overcapacity of obsolete coal power plants that should be closed down, not kept alive. That would also help the country get rid of the massive … [Read more...]
What came out of Lima
Hundreds of country negotiating teams have been meeting in Lima, Peru over the past two weeks for the latest round of international climate negotiations. Mat Hope of The Carbon Brief gives an excellent overview of the results and discusses next steps. Overall conclusion: international climate negotiations have taken a step forward, but only a very small step. … [Read more...]
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