Monday 31 August 2009

Germany: Lots of solar, too much CO2

Germany last week unveiled the world's second-largest solar power plant amid reports that the country won't reach its ambitious CO2-emissions reduction targets.

The giant solar power plant in Brandenburg is made up of 700,000 shiny photovoltaic modules that cover an area of roughly 210 soccer fields. Located on Soviet-era military training grounds, the 53-MW plant can produce power for an estimated 15,000 households. It is topped globally only by a 60-MW plant in southern Spain. America has a hand in this: Tempe, Ariz.-based First Solar operates the plant together with a German project developer. The consortium has invested more than $200 million.

Local officials hailed the plant as a further milestone in the positioning of Brandenburg as a renewable-energy champion. The eastern German state, once heavily reliant on dirty coal, today banks on the solar, wind and biomass industries to drive down its carbon dioxide emissions and boost job growth.

Some 40 percent of the electricity consumed in Brandenburg comes from renewable sources, and numerous top-notch wind, solar, biomass and biofuel companies have settled here, including First Solar, Conergy and Danish wind turbine maker Vestas.

Brandenburg is a neat example how to "green" a fossil-fuel-based economy. Germany has not yet succeeded in doing so on a larger scale -- while the country is among the world's top nations when it comes to installed renewable capacity, it also has an energy-intense industry that consumes a lot of natural resources.

That's one reason why Germany won't reach its ambitious targets to reduce emissions until 2020 by 40 percent compared with 1990 levels, according to a new study.

Only a 30-percent reduction is achievable, according to the study compiled by consultant EUTech for Greenpeace, Der Spiegel reports in its latest issue.

The German government's climate-protection plan, adopted in 2007, has been watered down because of industry lobbying, the magazine writes. Several energy-efficiency and CO2-reduction measures were not realized because of opposition from large companies. Moreover, the study cites the delay of offshore wind farm construction as one reason why the ambitious targets likely won't be reached.

In a bid to drive down emissions and reduce its dependency on oil imports, Germany just unveiled a strategy to make the country a world leader in sustainable mobility and have 1 million electric cars cruise its Autobahn highways by 2020.

"In 2030, this could be over 5 million. By 2050, traffic in towns and cities could be predominantly without fossil fuels," the National Electric Mobility Plan reads.

Source - Solardaily

China's solar making gains in West

Chinese solar industry companies have already played a major role in lowering the cost of solar panels by almost half over the last year, The New York Times reports.

In an effort to boost market share, China's largest solar panel manufacturer, Suntech, is selling solar panels in the United States at below the cost of materials, assembly and shipping, Shi Zhengrong, the company's chief executive and founder, told the Times.

Solar companies in the West, meanwhile, are facing a tough time competing with their Chinese counterparts, which benefit from lower operating costs and government support.

Last week Germany's Q-Cells announced plans to lay off 500 of its 2,600 employees because of declining sales. Behind Tempe, Ariz.-based industry leader First Solar, Suntech is now on course to surpass Q-Cells as the world's second-largest supplier of photovoltaic cells this year.

Domestically, China's solar companies have been on the receiving end of generous subsidies from their Chinese national, provincial and local governments since March. Incentives include land for operations and funds for research and development as well as low-rate loans from state-owned banks. Electricity and labor costs are low as well, with fresh engineering graduates earning around $7,000 a year.

China's solar companies are also receiving "lavish" government support, the Times reports, to build assembly plants in the United States. In so doing, they bypass U.S. protectionist legislation. Even with the $2.3 billion tax credit program to manufacturers of clean energy equipment announced by the U.S. departments of Energy and Treasury this month, the American solar industry will also have to compete with their Chinese counterparts stateside.

Suntech plans to announce within the next two months its plans to build a $30 million solar panel assembly plant in Phoenix or somewhere in Texas. "It'll be to facilitate sales -- 'buy American' and things like that," Steven Chan, the company's president for global sales and marketing, told the Times.

About 90 percent of the plant's 75 to 150 workers will be blue-collar laborers, welding together panels from solar wafers made in China.

Last week China's Yingli Solar also announced a "preliminary plan" to assemble panels in the United States.

To avoid U.S. opposition to solar imports, Chinese solar companies are encouraging their U.S. executives to join industry trade groups, as Japanese automakers did when setting up U.S. operations decades ago.

"I don't see Europe or the United States becoming major producers of solar products -- they'll be consumers," said Thomas M. Zarrella, chief executive of Merrimack, N.H.-based GT Solar International, a company that sells specialized factory equipment to solar panel makers worldwide, the Times reports.

Source - Solar Daily

The UK government hates solar panels

Politicians, like the rest of us, are always being urged to “think big”. But, for me, the most interesting issue over the next week or so is going to be rather different: is Ed Miliband big enough to think small?

The question arises because our precocious young Energy and Climate Change Secretary is about to publish plans for a tenfold increase in renewable energy in Britain in little over a decade. The strategy will show whether Mr Miliband has more faith in the British people or in (and I fully realise that this is saying something) possibly the most incompetent and obscurantist collection of civil servants in Whitehall.

Let me explain. For decades, Britain has generated its energy from big installations: whopping great fossil fuel power stations that belch out carbon dioxide to add to global warming; mammoth nuclear power stations with a shocking record of construction delays and cost overruns; oversized wind farms, sometimes plonked down in wholly inappropriate places.

But it’s becoming clear that an excellent way to generate renewable energy is on a small – even household – scale, through rooftop solar panels. Despite the initial cost, the “fuel” is distributed free by nature, without the need for long pipes or power lines, and costs little or nothing to tap once the installation has been paid for. Families gain greater independence, and possibly some income from selling the surplus to the grid.
Last year, a report backed by Lord Mandelson’s Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (as was) concluded that, with proper encouragement, nine million British homes could be using such “microgeneration” by 2020, producing the same amount of electricity as five nuclear power stations. After just another decade, it went on, this could prevent the emission of as much carbon dioxide as taking all of the country’s buses and lorries off the road.

Sounds great? Not to the official ear. Civil servants in successive energy departments have always hated the idea of microgeneration, and done all they could to stifle it.

And why? Because it means someone else – worse, millions of someone elses – make decisions instead of them. And, as every mandarin believes, the man from Whitehall knows best.

In fact, as Daily Telegraph readers know, the man – and (let’s not be sexist) the woman – from Whitehall usually knows worst. After all, these people who trust you so little are the same bunch of dunderheads who pressed unrelentingly for the building of the mixed-oxide nuclear plant at Sellafield.

This white dinosaur, which has cost the taxpayer £1 billion, was supposed to produce 120 tons of nuclear fuel a year, but managed only a total of 6.3 tonnes between its opening in 2001 and April this year. (But never mind – there are proposals to build another one to make up for it.)

There might conceivably be some excuse for all this arrogance, if ordinary people took irrational, random decisions. But, of course, they don’t.

Other countries have easily devised measures that have ensured a rapid expansion of microgeneration. Germany guarantees generous “feed-in tariffs” for selling home-generated solar electricity to the grid; as a result, in 2007, 130,000 solar roofs were installed, compared with 270 in Britain.

Even in Bangladesh, more than 200,000 poor families have installed solar cells with the help of microcredit loans, bringing power to their villages for the first time and making money by selling it to their neighbours.
British ministers condemned Germany’s successful scheme as “a regulatory nightmare”. Instead, they reluctantly offered families grants to help towards the cost of installation – slashing them back to below incentive levels as soon as they started to be taken up. But now, in a U-turn, Mr Miliband is poised to introduce feed-in tariffs.

Will they be good and generous enough to work? Not, I’ll bet, if the officials can help it: they could well scupper microgeneration again.

A Tory minister would not let them do it: David Cameron understands the importance of this, and the self-reliance and individual initiative it encourages fits in well with his party’s values. But does perhaps the most promising Labour politician of the same generation get it, too? We’ll soon know.

Renewable energy is just the job

Is this an encouraging straw in a chill wind? In the South West, it seems, green firms and jobs are growing “at a dramatic rate”.

A new report – snappily entitled the Economic Contribution of the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Sectors in the South West of England – surveyed 100 firms and found that their turnover had almost doubled over the last, recession-hit year, with the number of staff increasing by 40 per cent.

South Korea this week announced that it planned to create 1.8 million jobs over the next five years by developing solar power, hybrid cars and energy-efficient lighting. Barack Obama has promised to provide work for five million by investing in renewable energy, while David Cameron says: “Decarbonising Britain will help create hundreds of thousands of jobs.”

But will it work? Environmentalists brandish studies, like one from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that concludes that investing in green technologies employs nearly four times as many people as traditional investment. Sceptics repeatedly refer to a Spanish report that says that 2.2 jobs are lost for every new green one created.

In truth, no one knows. But green measures, like insulating buildings, are often particularly labour-intensive.
Renewable energy seems to provide at least three times as much work per dollar (or pound) as fossil fuels; recycling rubbish employs 10 times as many people as dumping it. So we may soon have a new term: “green-collar jobs”.

Green day? More like dirty brown
Sacré vert! Yesterday, as you may have noticed, was Green Britain Day. Except that it was actually organised by a nationalised French company, which boasts of being “one of the largest participants in the global coal market”.

The day aimed to urge us to “start living low-carbon lives” and to “start making changes” to “be part of a movement to reduce Britain’s carbon footprint”. Yet EDF proudly reports that it “imports around 30 million tons of physical coal a year”.

I don’t know if there is a French word for “greenwash”, but the firm might care to look it up.
Just to add injury to insult, EDF’s logo for the day – a green Union flag – is remarkably similar to one used by a genuinely green energy company, Ecotricity. Dale Vince, its chief executive, says he asked the French company to stop using it.

As a result, he received a phone call from an Andrew Brown, followed the same day by a message from a lawyer saying it would cost £6 million to do so. So he’s now taking the French giant to court.
Andrew Brown? Doesn’t that ring a bell? Yes, it’s the Prime Minister’s brother – the First Sibling, we might call him – who just happens to be EDF’s PR chief.

So here’s an idea for the company. Why doesn’t it “start making changes now” by getting out of coal, the world’s dirtiest fuel?

Otherwise, it could try colouring the flag Brown.

Source - Telegraph

Save money over the long term with solar panels

Right now many UK homeowners are under the impression that the UK simply does not get enough sunshine for solar panels to be effective. However, new reports have shown that this is wrong. According to solar panel advisors, solar panels actually do not run off “sunlight” but off solar radiation.

Heat my Home, the renewable energy advisor, has now explained to many UK homeowners that solar panels will help them with their energy bills. This is due to the fact that solar panels do not need sun rays to produce energy but solar radiation.

Stuart Lovatt, from Heat my Home, goes on say that one of the most unique selling points of solar panels is their longevity. Solar panels are not things that are suppose to last just a few years. Stuart points out that a good quality system could last the average household 30 years easily. Thus, the long term benefits of buying solar panels is very easy to see.

Lovatt also points out that there are not many things that people can buy nowadays that have a 30-year life span. Thus, solar panels, due to their long lifespan, are a perfect investment for people who are thinking along the lines of retirement.

Current reports show that Germany is one of the biggest installers of solar panels in all of Europe. Not only that, but Germany has a very similar climate to that of the UK. Both areas receive about 60 percent of the solar radiation levels that the equator does.

Solar panels use to be more orientated toward people who wanted to go green. Now these are systems that are also orientated to people who want to save money over the long run by cutting down on their energy bills.

Source - Electric

Thursday 20 August 2009

Australia targets 20 percent renewable energy by 2020

Australia's government will ask the Senate Tuesday to approve plans to produce 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020 after the house rejected a proposed carbon trading scheme.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's centre-left Labour government passed the ambitious proposal to use green power to generate a fifth of the country's electricity in parliament's lower house late Monday.

But it faces a potential hurdle in the Senate, where independents hold the balance of power and can scupper the government's bid to have the renewables target in place before UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December.

The conservative opposition joined forces with the Greens and independent senators last week to reject an emissions trading scheme aimed at cutting carbon pollution by five to 25 percent over the next decade.

However, Greens senator Christine Milne indicated the renewables target would receive a warmer reception than the emissions scheme because it was the best option being put forward by the government.

"There's no way we're going to jeopardise it," she told public broadcaster ABC.

The renewables target, which works by forcing electricity companies to buy a portion of their power from renewable sources, will be submitted to the Senate on Tuesday and is expected to be voted on later this week.

The government originally bundled the emissions scheme and renewables target together in the same legislative package but was forced to separate them after its defeat in the Senate last week.

Rudd warned late Monday that the Senate risked damaging the economy if it rejected the emissions trading scheme again when it is re-submitted to the upper house in November.

"We'll be denying Australia a whole new set of economic opportunities for the future," Rudd told a business forum.

"We'll be also inviting the possibility of punitive tariffs being imposed on this economy in the future by other economies which join the cap-and-trade system of the future."

Source - Solar Daily

The rising costs of the UK’s green energy revolution

The UK government’s July energy white paper seeks to set out the criteria needed to meet the country’s ambitious green house gas reduction targets. The additional investment in green technology has been hailed as a revolution, but even the considerable economic cost is outweighed by the social cost, with more households facing fuel poverty as consumers’ energy bills will fund the proposed schemes.

The UK government’s Renewable Energy Strategy, which aims to increase the level of renewable generation in the country from 5.5% to 30% by 2020, has an associated cost of GBP4 billion each year. This amounts to between GBP57 billion and GBP70 billion over the lifetime of the scheme, with associated benefits from this outlay expected to be at most GBP5 billion over the same period.

The burden of recovering the remaining projected GBP65 billion cost will fall on domestic consumers and small businesses, with the reported additional cost being GBP249 per household, an increase on the average household energy bill of around 20%.

There are just under 25 million households in the UK, and four million of them are reportedly already in fuel poverty, which is classified as when a household spends in excess of 10% of disposable income on heating the home to an adequate level. A further increase in energy bills will undoubtedly see more households forced into fuel poverty. Even with schemes in place to mitigate the growth in the fuel bills of the fuel poor through energy efficiency savings, higher bills are inevitable and the social consequences are significant, with help not always available for those who need it most.

While the economic penalties are clear to see, the benefits of the renewable strategy are less tangible. The term green industrial revolution is widely touted but this will be a significant investment with little in the way of increased output. Fundamentally, regardless of the source, the power obtained from a plug socket will be the same. There will be no step-change increase in industrial output to help fund the investments, as was the case during the industrial revolution.

That is not to say that the government’s ambition to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is unwise or unnecessary. However, the best of intentions do not resolve the fact that households and small businesses that are already struggling in difficult economic times will be further burdened by the need to pay for the proposed schemes. The ability of renewable sources to provide unsubsidized energy at a competitive price is questionable and alternatives are available. Efficiency improvements in combined cycle gas turbines would certainly offer a lower level of emissions than existing generations, at a fraction of the cost of a heavily renewable portfolio.

Source - Istockanalyst

Sunday 16 August 2009

Trina Solar Records Excellent Results At Desert Knowledge Solar Centre

Trina Solar has announced that its monocrystalline modules recorded one of the highest average outputs in terms of actual electricity generated at Desert Knowledge Australia Solar Centre ("Desert Knowledge") in Alice Springs, Australia.

Based on independent and ongoing test data collected by Desert Knowledge at its demonstration site from December 1, 2008 to July 31, 2009, the Company's modules consistently held the top two position compared to modules from several leading European, Japanese, and American brands under the harsh Australia desert environment.

Performance comparison was made based on similar system size operating at full capacity and fixed ground mount installation.

Combining high performance with superior value, Trina Solar is dedicated to reducing the cost of solar provided electricity to accelerate the adoption of clean and efficient energy technologies.

Desert Knowledge is a 3.1 million Australian Dollars public initiative that showcases and demonstrates a range of solar power technologies in commercial-scale installations.

This is the first organization in Australia to publicly showcase a broad range of large scale solar installations.

Approximately fourteen different manufacturers and suppliers were chosen to demonstrate their technologies at Desert Knowledge's site.

Source - Solar Daily

Clean energy cash-back scheme for solar panels

Households which contribute electricity from renewable sources to the UK National Grid are to receive payments under a new government feed-in tariff scheme, labelled the “Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme”.

Back in 2008 the UK Government outlined policies in “The UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, National strategy for climate and energy” White Paper designed to significantly reduce carbon emissions in the country by 35% by 2020 and by at least 80% by 2050. Now, as part of its recently released Renewable Energy Strategy designed to contribute to achieving these targets, the Secretary of State of Energy and Climate Change, Ed Miliband, has announced that a feed-in tariff rate will be introduced in the UK for suppliers of renewable energy who feed energy back into the grid.

The Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme is a more user-friendly term for feed-in tariffs (FITs), which other countries such as Germany have used so successfully to promote small as well as large-scale renewable energy production over the last decade. The UK Government’s decision to introduce FITs is intended to simplify the incentives for using renewable energy sources, since the current system – the Renewable Obligation (RO) – is a very lengthy and complex system designed for energy professionals who generate electricity on a large scale (50kW+). The Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme has therefore been designed to benefit micro-generators (households, communities and businesses with installations of up to 50kW), while larger installations of 50kW-5MW will be offered the choice of either the FIT or the RO scheme.

In a recent media interview, Mr Miliband told the BBC that the plan to give payments to households for contributing electricity to the National Grid will mean “we can harness people’s enthusiasm for getting involved” in tackling climate change and that “individuals and communities can both play their part in the kind of clean energy revolution that we need.”

The planned FITs will vary from one type of renewable to another, although exact rates still have to be agreed and implemented. Climate change minister, Joan Ruddock, has confirmed that the new scheme will come into effect from April 2010 for most renewable sources, but has warned that plans for a similar renewable heat incentive scheme for technologies such as solar and biomass heaters would be more complicated to develop and as such will not come into effect until April 2011.

The key now is to wait and see at what level the UK Government establishes the FITs, as previous experience in other countries has shown that setting them too low can lead to a lack of take-up of renewables, while excessively high limits become economically unsustainable and politically sensitive. Charles Hendry MP, the conservative shadow minister for energy, for example, welcomes the Clean Energy Cash-back Scheme, but shares the view that judgement should be reserved until the government confirms the level at which the new tariffs will be set. “It would be a tragedy if having got a [feed-in tariff] mechanism in place it was not set at the right level that solar and other technologies need,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mike Childs, campaigns director at Friends of the Earth, believes such schemes could play a significant part in meeting the UK’s climate change targets, although he points out that “payments have to be generous enough to reward people for investing in green power”.

Source - The Renewable Energy Magazine

Six years away from an energy crisis

The good news for Britain’s energy supply is that the sheer scale of the recession has cut our electricity demand and carbon emissions. An impending energy security crunch has been postponed.

The bad news is that the recession will almost certainly delay investment in Britain’s energy infrastructure and encourage complacency.

Energy security is no longer something that we can take for granted. This week more than 100 people were arrested in Nottingham over a suspected plan to disrupt a nearby power station. Will there will be more disruptions at other coal-fired power stations or against new nuclear developments now that we know more about where they will be sited?

For the past two decades we have had ample reserves to absorb the shocks: now the margins are beginning to wear thin. Many of the existing power stations were built in the 1970s or earlier. All the coal-fired stations are more than 30 years old, as are most of the nuclear ones. They are all coming to the end of their lives and their reliability is inevitably beginning to suffer. Although significant numbers of gas power stations have been added, North Sea gas and oil supplies have been depleted at breakneck speed. After decades as an energy exporter, Britain now relies increasingly on imports of gas and coal.

Fast-forward to 2015 and the energy position could be precarious. By then the remaining coal power stations will be facing closure because of the pollution control requirements of the EU directive on large combustion plants. By then all except one of the existing nuclear stations will also be closed or facing closure. Having to replace so much coal and nuclear capacity in such a short period is unprecedented – except perhaps in wartime.

And at the same time because of the EU Renewables Directive the Government has committed itself to a crash programme to increase wind’s share of electricity generation from the current 5 per cent to perhaps 35 per cent by 2020. But not only will wind power do little to combat global climate change (the big issue is the projected increases in coal burn in China, India and developing countries), it is also expensive and may even reduce the security of supply. It is uncertain too. Few think that wind supply on this scale will be achieved – though, unsurprisingly, few politicians will admit this in public.

What will fill the gap and at the same time back up the intermittent wind? The answer appears to be gas, gas and more gas. We will be lucky if even a single new nuclear station comes on stream by 2020. The carbon emissions from new coal stations will need to be sequestrated underground, and that technology is not likely to be commercially available until well after 2020. So before 2020 it would have to be “unabated” coal – which sits uncomfortably with the climate change objectives.

The chances of enough gas stations being built on time are not looking good, so the gas will have to be imported, and at a time when across Europe everyone is dashing for gas too. The Russians are not increasing investment in new gas resources and doubts remain about their ability to meet Europe’s demand. Liquefied natural gas will be used to plug this gap, but the sources of supply are quite limited and again lots of other countries (especially the US and Japan) will want it too.

The scale of the investment required to plug the energy gap while pursuing renewables is enormous. The cost of building not only power stations, but also new transmission networks and gas storage facilities, fitting smart meters, developing an offshore wind industry and implementing energy efficiency measures will run to tens of billions, possibly more than £100billion in the next decade. Though the recession has brought a breathing space on the demand side of the equation, it has markedly worsened investment on the supply side. The credit crisis has made it harder and more expensive to finance investment; just when the investment is needed, finance has dried up.

This matters not only for customers – though they are likely to be paying a lot more. The rest of the economy depends on energy supply. Have a bit too much and we pay a small premium. Have too little and we pay a lot. These costs are the real burden on the economy and they are felt long before any physical interruption in supply. We should worry less about the lights going out and more about the costs to the economy of running our energy system on the edge.

Russia’s interruptions of its gas supplies to Europe for three weeks in January was another warning, as well as performance failures at our existing nuclear power stations. These may be isolated instances, but our vulnerability to such events indicates that all may not be entirely well with our energy systems.

Source - The Times

How long do solar panels last?

Solar photovoltaics slowly lose their generating capacity. Although some solar panels are still working satisfactorily 40 years after installation and 30 with solar hot water, the conventional view is that most will dip below 80% of their rated capacity within about 20 years. This will vary slightly between manufacturers and between different types of silicon.

The length of life of a photovoltaic unit is a critical element in the financial assessment of solar power. Cash payback may take well over a decade in northern Europe, even with substantial subsidies, such as the proposed new UK tariffs. So adding even a few years of expected life can mean a major difference to the viability of a project.

Recent evidence from Japan suggests that life expectancy is longer than expected.[1] A company that reuses old panels reports that it has tested 330 panels made in 1984. 90% of these units can still generate 80% or more of their initial output. The industry expects that products made today will be even more durable than those made in the 1980s. The backing materials used to create the solar panels should be less susceptible to discolouration. So typical lives of thirty or more years can probably be assumed.

These findings are important because they will improve the financial assessments of solar installations and, as importantly, because they will encourage banks to lend more money against the security of the panels because they are expected to last longer. Put another way, if the bank was forced to seize solar panels because the debtor failed to make payments, these panels would have a longer expected future life and thus be worth more to alternative owners. This makes banks more comfortable and we can expect that they will eventually agree to lend more and require repayment more slowly.

In a coincident development, the UK Department for Energy and Climate Change has announced that its feed-in tariffs for solar PV will actually run for 25 years, not the 20 envisaged in its July 2009 consultation document. This will also substantially improve the attractiveness of investment in PV systems.

Source - Scitizen

Thursday 6 August 2009

Government 'set to miss its own emissions targets'

The Government is still producing 2.7 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year and is not doing enough to meet its own targets on emissions, MPs will warn today.

The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) said the Government had cut emissions from its offices – by far the biggest source – by 6.3 per cent on 1999 levels – just half of its target of a 12.5 per cent cut by 2010-11.

The report welcomed improvements in some areas, such as government road vehicles, where emissions have been cut by 10.3 per cent. However, road travel accounts for a relatively small percentage of overall emissions.

The report also claimed that under the new Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) scheme, which begins in April 2010, the Government could have to pay money to private sector firms if it does not improve its performance.

The scheme will require about 5,000 organisations to buy "allowances" costing £12 a tonne for all the CO2 they emit each year, and be judged on how much they are doing to cut their emissions.

The money for purchasing allowances will go into a central pot and those cutting their emissions the most will get their original payment back plus a bonus, while those doing worst will be penalised by getting less back than they paid in.

"The consistent thread is that the Government has talked a good game but when it comes to the actual achievements, the picture is rather more mixed," said the EAC chairman Tim Yeo. "In too many areas, like emissions of carbon dioxide from offices, it [the Government] has made little or no progress and in others it is backsliding.

"What is clear is that, given there has only been a six per cent reduction over nine years, the chances of getting an 80 per cent reduction by 2050 would require a dramatic improvement.

"Our impression is that there is a very patchy approach across government. I have not seen any evidence that we have a change in the Government's thinking yet. We need a strong commitment at the top to drive through a process of change."

Source - The Independent

Laid off auto workers learn to install solar panels

In a crowded classroom at Henry Ford Community College, laid off auto workers are learning how to install and manage solar panels.

The class is part of a new alternative energy technology program the college created to help retrain the hundreds of thousands of people affected by the collapse of the auto industry.

"Everybody is scrambling," said Linda West, director of workforce development at the suburban Detroit college.

Money is tight. Enrollment is up. But the hardest part is trying to figure out what kind of training to provide so those people "can have a hope of getting a job," West said.

Sean Peppers, 37, has spent nearly two decades working in auto supplier plants but has not been called for a single interview since he was laid off from his engineering job in January.

He hopes the alternative energy degree will help him find work at a plant building parts for wind turbines, or solar panels, or anything that is not a car.

"I was trying to get out of automotive before I was kicked out of automotive. You could see the writing on the wall," Peppers said.

"But there's not a whole lot of options when your experience is totally for automotive."

Most of the 65 students taking the alternative energy classes are getting their tuition paid through an state program which provides scholarships to Michigan residents who are unemployed or earning less than 40,000 dollars a year.

They are the lucky ones.

The two year-old No Worker Left Behind program has so far helped retrain around 78,000 people. There were more than 740,000 actively looking for work in June, as Michigan's unemployment rate hit 15.2 percent.

The state recently extended unemployment benefits to 79 weeks because so many people have been out of work for so long.

In the past ten years, Michigan has lost half its manufacturing jobs as Ford, General Motors and Chrysler saw their share of US auto sales slide from 70 to 45 percent.

"We feel like the guy who made horseshoes when the Model T (Ford) came out," said student Brandon VanPoppelen.

VanPoppelen, 32, was laid off from three different jobs in four years after the housing market boom went bust.

He is hoping the certificate program will help him make the switch from selling construction materials to doing energy efficiency consulting or installation.

But he is worried about the guys he knows who were happy framing a house or making 15 or 20 dollars an hour in a factory, who do not know how to do anything but work with their hands.

Now, he says, their only options seem to be working for minimum wage in soul-crushing jobs like manning a fast-food drive-through window.

"It's emasculating," he said.

They cannot provide for their families and they cannot see a way out. So they get frustrated. And they drink.

"What do they want us to do? I'll be fine, but not everybody can be an engineer," VanPoppelen said. "There's got to be middle class manual work."

The state has "multiple strategies" for retraining its workforce, drawing new employers and diversifying its economy, said Andy Levin, deputy director for Michigan's department of energy, labor, and economic growth.

Green jobs are a major focus of the state's outreach program as it tries to capitalize on its strengths in advanced manufacturing and chemical engineering.

The state is also working with employers to design programs to train workers to fill specific needs and have revised its adult education programs to ensure that literacy and language skill training is job-oriented.

"We simply can't serve everybody," he admits.

The state's resources are too thin to extend training to everyone who wants it and to help community colleges develop new curriculums.

And a lot of the people who used to make a good income working with their hands will simply have to adjust to earning a lot less.

"The biggest plurality of jobs are going to be service sector jobs, which are low wage," Levin said.

Unless, he said, unions manage to do for service workers what they did for auto workers so many years ago.

Source - Solar daily

Renewable Sources Soar To Over 11 Percent Of US Energy Production

According to the latest issue of the "Monthly Energy Review" by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, production of renewable energy for the first third of 2009 (i.e., January 1 - April 30) was six percent higher compared to the same time period in 2008.

Moreover, in April 2009 alone, renewable energy sources accounted for 11.1 percent of domestic energy production and exceeded the amount contributed by nuclear power.

More specifically, domestic energy production for the first four months of 2009 totaled 24.394 quadrillion Btu's (quads) of which renewable sources (biofuels, biomass, geothermal, solar, wind, water) accounted for 2.512 quads.

In April 2009 alone, though, total U.S. energy production was 5.980 quads with .664 quads (11.1%) coming from renewable sources; nuclear power provided .620 quads (10.4%).

For the first four months of 2009, U.S. renewable energy production was comprised of hydropower (34.6%), wood + wood wastes (31.2%), biofuels (19.0%), wind (9.3%), geothermal (4.7%), and solar (1.2%).

Most of these sources grew compared to the first third of 2008 with wind expanding by 34.5%, biofuels by 14.1%, hydropower by 8.2%, and geothermal by 2.6%. The contribution from solar sources remained essentially unchanged while wood + wood waste declined by 4.9%.

Total U.S. energy consumption fell 5.7% during the first four months of 2009 compared to the same period in 2008 with fossil fuel use accounting for almost the entire decline.

"As Congress continues to debate energy and climate legislation, it would do well to take note of the clear trends in the nation's energy mix," said Ken Bossong, Executive Director of the SUN DAY Campaign.

"Fossil fuel use is dropping sharply and nuclear power is barely holding on to its market share while month-after-month the mix of renewable energy sources continues to set ever-higher records."

Source - Solar daily

UK has become too dependent on imported energy

The UK should take a more “interventionist” approach to ensure new nuclear reactors are built — and in greater numbers — than currently planned, according to a report commissioned by Prime Minister Gordon Brown released on Wednesday.

The report by Malcolm Wicks, the former energy minister appointed by Gordon Brown as his special representative for international energy issues, said that “the time for market innocence is over” and that the government needs to do more to safeguard electricity and gas supplies.

The report, ‘Energy Security: a national challenge in a changing world’, recommended that the UK should generate 30 to 40 per cent of its electricty from nuclear power stations by 2030 – up from the current 13 per cent.

Mr Wicks said that the UK has become too dependent on increasingly imported natural gas for its energy needs and argues that state intervention is needed to accelerate plans to build a new fleet of nuclear power stations.

“The era of heavy reliance on companies, competition and liberalisation must be re-assessed,” he said. “We must still rely on companies for exploration, delivery and supply but the state must become more active: interventionist, where necessary.”

Other recommendations from the report include:

- Prioritizing Norway, Qatar and Saudi Arabia as the most significant bilateral relationships to UK energy security. Relationships built on a broad base including diplomatic, development and cultural collaboration will provide a firm basis on which to pursue the UK’s energy security goals.

- The UK should remain at the forefront in developing and demonstrating CCS technology.

- The UK should continue to ensure that energy efficiency is at the heart of energy dialogues with its global partners.

- The Government should do what it can to support EU work to promote diversification of routes and sources of gas supply into Europe including through the use of EU diplomacy to influence third countries where they are better placed to do this than the UK bilaterally.

The Government should do what it can to support EU work to promote diversification of routes and sources of gas supply into Europe including through the use of EU diplomacy to influence third countries where they are better placed to do this than the UK bilaterally.

The future is looking greener for investors as ambitious government targets for generating renewable energy are providing fund managers with new opportunities.

More than 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity could eventually be derived from renewable sources, according to the latest estimates, compared with just 5.5 per cent today. This would be twice the government’s legally-binding target of 15 per cent by 2020.

Much of this is expected to come from wind power but other sources, including biomass and tidal power, will also increasingly be drawn upon. The government plans to invest £100bn in the renewable energy sector, which could involve the creation of as many as 500,000 jobs. It has also set out new plans for reducing carbon emissions to help tackle climate change.

Fund managers say this increased commitment, together with a similar focus from the US, plus stronger moves towards clean energy from China, is welcome news for an industry that has been slow to take off – and has suffered more than others in the recent downturn.

Edward Guinness, one of the managers of Guinness Asset Management’s Alternative Energy Fund, says green energy companies were trading at a premium to the market before the downturn but were hit hard last year, particularly as funding dried up.

His fund lost 40 per cent in the year to the end of June, according to total return figures from Lipper.

A number of other renewable energy funds, most of which have been set up in the past couple of years, have had an equally difficult run. Lipper’s rankings show that, over the same period, BlackRock’s New Energy Investment Trust, the Premier Renewable Energy trust and the Jupiter Green Investment Trust all saw negative returns of at least 30 per cent.

But new opportunities now look to be arising, particularly in wind power .

“The area where government policy is really having an impact on our investing is on the wind side,” says Guinness. “The UK has much better resources in this area than in solar, and the government wants to make it easier to get planning permission.”

His fund typically invests in companies that derive at least 50 per cent of their business from either the manufacture and development of renewable energy generation or the improvement of energy efficiency.

Guinness says solar stocks performed well last month as demand started to pick up following a difficult 18 months, in which the prices for solar panels halved. The lower prices should trigger stronger growth, he says, while providers should also receive a boost from cheaper raw materials, lower manufacturing costs and improved subsidies.

Luciano Diana, portfolio manager of the Pictet Clean Energy fund, says wind power is more attractive than solar because it is much cheaper. He claims that, for the first time, there is a real push to new energy around the world.

“For a long time, it has just been Europe supporting it but now there is a big push from the US and also Chinese packages dedicated to cleaner energy,” he says.

Fund managers say much of the new government investment will be captured by the large utilities.

The Association of Investment Companies argues that moves to combat climate change should prove beneficial to some of the big utility and infrastructure investment companies.

John Murray, chairman of Ecofin, which invests in the utility and infrastructure sectors, says utilities have been largely oversold in recent months as investors have moved back into cyclical and recovery stocks. As a result, some companies in the sector are looking the cheapest they have been since 2003.

But, he points out: “Unlike in 2003, the fundamentals of the global utility sector are generally sound. Balance sheets are in relatively good shape and the utilities are proving that they are able to access long-term capital markets.”

Source - Power Engineering

The future is bright for solar panels

The future is looking greener for investors as ambitious government targets for generating renewable energy are providing fund managers with new opportunities.

More than 30 per cent of the UK’s electricity could eventually be derived from renewable sources, according to the latest estimates, compared with just 5.5 per cent today. This would be twice the government’s legally-binding target of 15 per cent by 2020.

Much of this is expected to come from wind power but other sources, including biomass and tidal power, will also increasingly be drawn upon. The government plans to invest £100bn in the renewable energy sector, which could involve the creation of as many as 500,000 jobs. It has also set out new plans for reducing carbon emissions to help tackle climate change.

Fund managers say this increased commitment, together with a similar focus from the US, plus stronger moves towards clean energy from China, is welcome news for an industry that has been slow to take off – and has suffered more than others in the recent downturn.

Edward Guinness, one of the managers of Guinness Asset Management’s Alternative Energy Fund, says green energy companies were trading at a premium to the market before the downturn but were hit hard last year, particularly as funding dried up.

His fund lost 40 per cent in the year to the end of June, according to total return figures from Lipper.

A number of other renewable energy funds, most of which have been set up in the past couple of years, have had an equally difficult run. Lipper’s rankings show that, over the same period, BlackRock’s New Energy Investment Trust, the Premier Renewable Energy trust and the Jupiter Green Investment Trust all saw negative returns of at least 30 per cent.

But new opportunities now look to be arising, particularly in wind power .

“The area where government policy is really having an impact on our investing is on the wind side,” says Guinness. “The UK has much better resources in this area than in solar, and the government wants to make it easier to get planning permission.”

His fund typically invests in companies that derive at least 50 per cent of their business from either the manufacture and development of renewable energy generation or the improvement of energy efficiency.

Guinness says solar stocks performed well last month as demand started to pick up following a difficult 18 months, in which the prices for solar panels halved. The lower prices should trigger stronger growth, he says, while providers should also receive a boost from cheaper raw materials, lower manufacturing costs and improved subsidies.

Luciano Diana, portfolio manager of the Pictet Clean Energy fund, says wind power is more attractive than solar because it is much cheaper. He claims that, for the first time, there is a real push to new energy around the world.

“For a long time, it has just been Europe supporting it but now there is a big push from the US and also Chinese packages dedicated to cleaner energy,” he says.

Fund managers say much of the new government investment will be captured by the large utilities.

The Association of Investment Companies argues that moves to combat climate change should prove beneficial to some of the big utility and infrastructure investment companies.

John Murray, chairman of Ecofin, which invests in the utility and infrastructure sectors, says utilities have been largely oversold in recent months as investors have moved back into cyclical and recovery stocks. As a result, some companies in the sector are looking the cheapest they have been since 2003.

But, he points out: “Unlike in 2003, the fundamentals of the global utility sector are generally sound. Balance sheets are in relatively good shape and the utilities are proving that they are able to access long-term capital markets.”

Source - Financial Times