The blades on massive wind turbines can be as long as a football field and as strong as a linebacker.
“They are designed not to break,” Julie Angulo told CBS News. “So, when your job is to break them, obviously it’s tough.”
Angulo’s company, Veolia, stores windmill blades at a quarry in the Missouri city of Louisiana, before it cuts used blades down to size and shreds them.
Cement makers use the shredded windmill blades as fuel instead of burning coal, cutting planet warming carbon emissions at the cement plant by nearly 30%.
What happens to windmill blades that aren’t recycled?
“What would, or what does happen, unfortunately, a lot of those end up in landfill,” Angulo said.
Most used windmill blades are buried in the ground because it’s cheaper, a black eye for green energy. By 2050, the world’s wind industry is expected to produce more than 47 million tons of blade waste each year, according to a University of Cambridge study.
Finding ways to recycle windmill blades and used solar panels is energizing the industry. One solar panel recycling plant in Yuma, Arizona, can process 7,500 panels a day. Solar is the fastest-growing source of energy in the U.S. Panels can last for 25 to 30 years, but more than 90% of used panels end up in landfills.
“There was no planning to handle the waste,” said Adam Saghei with We Recycle Solar. “It was just going to dumpsters, and you’re just creating a bigger problem that doesn’t need to be there.”
But with a tsunami of renewable waste coming, recyclers are ramping up to ride the wave.
Integrating Game Theory, Material Sciences and Exceptional Design, Campworks leads the model of sustainable living
BOULDER, Colo., March 22, 2023 (Newswire.com)
– Campworks, designer of the World’s First Fully Electric RV, the NS-1, withdraws from RV Market, electing to pioneer the Save The World Industry instead. Kristian Rene, Campworks Director of Community and Communication, states, “It has come to our attention that there are two impressive new players in the RV market, determined to electrify the industry. They come to the table with bigger battery banks, and a determination to dominate this market on an outdated premise that bigger is better.”
Campworks began production of the world’s first fully electric RV / teardrop trailer in early 2020. They have since redesigned their “Nomadic System,” to be the first personal, mobile infrastructure with power capable of recharging an electric vehicle, anywhere in the world. The NS-1 operates at peak efficiency, requiring less battery power to accomplish tasks like heating and cooling, expanding the utility of the whole system far beyond a weekend away. “We are always maximizing efficiency, which is different than just switching from fossil fuels to electric under the illusion of less emissions. We are decreasing consumption without sacrificing output, productivity or access,” Rene outlines, “and these design elements yield carbon-offsets and a tool for future building.”
“We wanted to design a better system of living,” Rene states. The Campworks NS-1 has an electrical system designed in partnership with the Navico Group, a division of Brunswick Corporation, utilizing the Fathom® e-power system, a complete lithium-ion power management system. “We needed an electrical system that operates the way a user expects from the grid. What we’ve learned is that people hate to be inconvenienced, the best products are ones that make life easier and more comfortable. We needed a partner who understood the ability to expand power access requires regeneration, thus literally and figuratively empowering the individual user; an individual who now owns and manages their own infrastructure.”
The Campworks team share expertise in environmental science and design, field medicine and scientific research, agriculture and global supply chain, off road / track racing, and automotive mechanics and tuning. Their interdisciplinary backgrounds brought them to the conclusion that if they want to save the world, they must integrate the best technologies available into a singular system. According to Rene, “We chose the camper platform because it’s the smallest habitable space and most people understand it’s meant to be recreational; we believe the future has to be fun and the work has to be worth doing if we want to see progress. We then modeled new energy storage and generation around one person world-building. We integrated heating and cooling, air purification, and water filtration and we optimized, then packaged, these processes into an autonomous, thermodynamically outstanding container. This is biophilic design at its best and it offers an experience that connects with, and helps to rebuild, nature.”
Campworks has bundled the essentials and programmed them to operate exactly as the user expects. This model provides the essentials of living and integrates methods to manage water, electricity and air, using less resources in an inspiring and effective methodology. “When using the NS-1, your energy and water use become a game. We’ve become so accustomed to resources being limitless that we’ve never learned to moderate our use,” Rene explains. “The NS-1 interior UI/UX design cultivates behavior that, at this point, purely for fun and recreation, mimics MindCraft-style-living to create new patterns of resource use, which ultimately, transfer into home life, potentially reducing consumption and waste generation unilaterally.”
“Our next steps include scaling this model into larger applications including forest service, farming and ranching, and environmental studies,” Rene outlines. “If we can work on climate change mitigation in a recreational format, we stand a chance of creating a new culture that’s highly proactive and actually moving towards net-zero. We’re not dreaming of the great American road trip. That’s an old story that ends after a week. We’re traveling the long-haul.”
NEW YORK (AP) — There are those for whom recycling and composting are not nearly enough, who have reduced their annual waste to almost zero, ditched their clothes dryer or given up flying, and are ready to take the next step in exploring the frontiers of sustainable living.
For Manhattanite Josh Spodek, that has meant going without a refrigerator, which he identified as the biggest source of electrical use in his Greenwich Village apartment.
Spodek began by deciding to go packaging-free, and one small step led to another. Now, he is living virtually grid-free in a city that in many ways is the epitome of grids.
“It was a mindset shift followed by continual improvement,” Spodek says. He first unplugged the fridge for three winter months, and then the next year for around six months (from November to early spring, when food generally kept for about two days on his windowsill). Now, he’s been fridge-free for over a year.
Spodek is quick to point out that he’s not against refrigeration in general, but views it as unnecessary for everyone to have running 24/7. In many parts of the world, he notes, refrigerators are a rarity.
“People in Manhattan lived without refrigeration until the mid 20th century,” he says, “so it’s clearly doable.”
Critics are quick to point out that this experiment should not be taken lightly.
“People’s lives can be at risk if certain foods go off. Certain dairy products go off very easily and quickly if you’re not careful,” says Frank Talty, founder and president of the New York-based Refrigeration Institute, which trains students to install and service refrigerators and air conditioners.
When he first unplugged his fridge, Spodek says, “I honestly wasn’t sure I could survive a week without it. I didn’t really have a plan for how I would get by without one. But I figured it wouldn’t kill me, and I could always plug it in again.”
Being a vegan without the need to refrigerate meat or dairy products certainly helps.
Skeptics — and there are many — point out that going without a refrigerator requires near-daily food shopping. For those with large families or who need to drive to get groceries, more frequent shopping trips could cancel out the energy savings. Not to mention, the inconvenience would be untenable for most.
“While using less energy is always laudable, most households could make more of an impact by switching to more efficient ways of heating and cooling their home, like a heat pump,” says Joe Vukovich, an energy efficiency advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
While refrigerators “used to be massively inefficient in the ’70s and ’80s, their energy efficiency has increased dramatically since then,” and continues to improve, he says. Many stores will also recycle old refrigerators, and some utility companies offer incentives for retiring older models.
Also, just using your fridge differently can make a difference, Vukovich says: Opening the door less frequently, for example, saves energy.
“I don’t want to say there’s no room for improvement, but the story of more environmentally friendly refrigerators is a massive success story,” Vukovich says.
Still, Spodek notes that refrigerators are typically on nonstop: “If everyone could live without a fridge for, say, two weeks over the course of the year, it would save an extraordinary amount of power.”
And they might learn something.
Beyond the energy savings, Spodek — who works as an executive coach, teaches leadership as an adjunct professor at New York University, and blogs and podcasts about his experiences — says that going fridge-free has improved his quality of life. He buys fresh produce at farmers markets, receives boxes of produce from a farm cooperative (CSA, or community-supported agriculture), keeps a stock of dried beans and grains, and has become adept at some fermentation techniques.
He cooks with an electric pressure cooker and, very rarely, a toaster oven, powering them with a portable solar panel and battery pack. Since he lives in a city apartment, that means schlepping the panel and battery pack up (and down) 11 flights of stairs a couple of times a day to the roof of his building.
It’s an exercise he describes as “almost spiritual.” When he’s climbing the stairs, he says, he thinks about people around the world who live without modern amenities. “Through doing this, I’m definitely learning more about their cultures than if I just flew somewhere for a week.”
Without a refrigerator, he also has learned to cook better and use a wider variety of seasonal produce.
“In the winter, it’s just beets and carrots and potatoes and onions, plus dried beans and grains. I realized that that’s how cuisine happens. You take what you have and you make it taste good,” he says. “And now I just have to eat what I buy before it goes bad, or pickle it so it lasts a bit longer.”
Other aspects of his efforts to live more sustainably: Spodek says he has not taken out the trash since 2019 (he hasn’t produced enough non-compostable, non-recyclable waste to fill it yet) and hasn’t flown since 2016 (his parents live nearby).
While it might not change the world if one person consumes a bit less power by unplugging their fridge, Spodek notes that, as with the Zero Waste movement, “What I do does matter.”
“Setting an example for millions of people so that they see that this is even possible? That’s huge.”
According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, renewable sources of energy like hydropower, wind and solar will account for 24% of the nation’s energy supply in 2023, more than double what it was a decade ago.
The number is being driven by an increase in generating capacity from wind and solar and the retirement of coal and nuclear plants — and a dramatic drop in prices in recent years.
While big states like California, Texas and Washington lead the way on total renewable energy generation, one small state has been leading in a different way.
In 2015, Hawaii became the first state to pass a law saying all electricity would come from renewable sources by 2045.
Jeff Mikulina is an environmentalist in Hawaii who pushed for the clean energy standard. Initially, the idea was not well received.
“The governor at the time called me Harry Potter, which I thought was a bit of an honor. We kept on pushing,” Mikulina said.
For example, in 2013, the state got less than 1% of its electricity from solar. By 2021 that number grew to 17.5%. While 5.1% of that comes from solar farms, 12.4% comes from things like rooftop solar, on private homes.
“It’s been fantastic that the adoption of rooftop solar over the last 10 or 15 years in Hawaii,” Mikulina said. “Now we have nearly 100,000 mini power plants on people’s rooftops statewide,” he added.
The progress toward 100% renewal energy in Hawaii is ahead of schedule and has led to other noticeable changes like the closure of the state’s last remaining coal plant in 2022.
But the state is still heavily reliant on oil imported from places like Libya and until recently Russia, the cost of electricity has also gone up and many of the easier steps have already been taken.
Mikulina says it’s worth the continued effort.
“The bottom line is we need to get off fossil fuel as fast as possible. And it’s not a question of, can we achieve it? It’s a moral question that we must,” Mikulina said.
Solar panels create electricity on the roof of a house in Rockport, Massachusetts, U.S., June 6, 2022. Picture taken with a drone.
Brian Snyder | Reuters
When Josh Hurwitz decided to put solar power on his Connecticut house, he had three big reasons: To cut his carbon footprint, to eventually store electricity in a solar-powered battery in case of blackouts, and – crucially – to save money.
Now he’s on track to pay for his system in six years, then save tens of thousands of dollars in the 15 years after that, while giving himself a hedge against utility-rate inflation. It’s working so well, he’s preparing to add a Tesla-made battery to let him store the power he makes. Central to the deal: Tax credits and other benefits from both the state of Connecticut and from Washington, D.C., he says.
“You have to make the money work,” Hurwitz said. “You can have the best of intentions, but if the numbers don’t work it doesn’t make sense to do it.”
Hurwitz’s experience points up one benefit of the Inflation Reduction Act that passed in August: Its extension and expansion of tax credits to promote the spread of home-based solar power systems. Adoption is expected to grow 26 percent faster because of the law, which extends tax credits that had been set to expire by 2024 through 2035, says a report by Wood Mackenzie and the Solar Energy Industry Association.
Those credits will cover 30 percent of the cost of the system – and, for the first time, there’s a 30 percent credit for batteries that can store newly-produced power for use when it’s needed.
“The main thing the law does is give the industry, and consumers, assurance that the tax credits will be there today, tomorrow and for the next 10 years,” said Warren Leon, executive director of the Clean Energy States Alliance, a bipartisan coalition of state government energy agencies. “Rooftop solar is still expensive enough to require some subsidies.”
California’s solar energy net metering decision
Certainty has been the thing that’s hard to come by in solar, where frequent policy changes make the market a “solar coaster,” as one industry executive put it. Just as the expanded federal tax credits were taking effect, California on Dec. 15 slashed another big incentive allowing homeowners to sell excess solar energy generated by their systems back to the grid at attractive rates, scrambling the math anew in the largest U.S. state and its biggest solar-power market — though the changes do not take effect until next April.
Put the state and federal changes together, and Wood Mackenzie thinks the California solar market will actually shrink sharply in 2024, down by as much as 39%. Before the Inflation Reduction Act incentives were factored in, the consulting firm forecast a 50% drop with the California policy shift. Residential solar is coming off a historic quarter, with 1.57 GW installed, a 43% increase year over year, and California a little over one-third of the total, according to Wood Mackenzie.
For potential switchers, tax credits can quickly recover part of the up-front cost of going green. Hurwitz took the federal tax credit for his system when he installed it in 2020, and is preparing to add a battery now that it, too, comes with tax credits. Some contractors offer deals where they absorb the upfront cost – and claim the credit – in exchange for agreements to lease back the system.
Combined with savings on power homeowners don’t buy from utilities, the tax credits can make rooftop solar systems pay for themselves within as little as five years – and save $25,000 or more, after recovering the initial investment, within two decades.
“Will this growth have legs? Absolutely,” said Veronica Zhang, portfolio manager of the Van Eck Environmental Sustainability Fund, a green fund not exclusively focused on solar. “With utility rates going up, it’s a good time to move if you were thinking about it in the first place.”
How to calculate installation costs and benefits
Here is how the numbers work.
Nationally, the cost for solar in 2022 ranges from $16,870 to $23,170, after the tax credit, for a 10-kilowatt system, the size for which quotes are sought most often on EnergySage, a Boston-based quote-comparison site for solar panels and batteries. Most households can use a system of six or seven kilowatts, EnergySage spokesman Nick Liberati said. A 10-12 kilowatt battery costs about $13,000 more, he added.
There’s a significant variation in those numbers by region, and by the size and other factors specific to the house, EnergySage CEO Vikram Aggarwal said. In New Jersey, for example, a 7-kilowatt system costs on average $20,510 before the credit and $15,177 after it. In Houston, it’s about $1,000 less. In Chicago, that system is close to $2,000 more than in New Jersey. A more robust 10-kilowatt system costs more than $31,000 before the credit around Chicago, but $26,500 in Tampa, Fla. All of these average prices are as quoted by EnergySage.
The effectiveness of the system may also vary because of things specific to the house, including the placement of trees on or near the property, as we found out when we asked EnergySage’s online bid-solicitation system to look at specific homes.
The bids for one suburban Chicago house ranged as low as $19,096 after the federal credit and as high as $30,676.
Offsetting those costs are electricity savings and state tax breaks that recover the cost of the system in as little as 4.5 years, according to the bids. Contractors claimed that power savings and state incentives could save as much as another $27,625 over 20 years, on top of the capital cost.
Alternatively, consumers can finance the system but still own it themselves – we were quoted interest rates of 2.99 to 8.99 percent. That eliminates consumers’ up-front cost, but cuts into the savings as some of the avoided utility costs go to pay off interest, Aggarwal said.
The key to maximizing savings is to know the specific regulations in your state – and get help understanding often-complex contracts, said Hurwitz, who is a physician.
Energy storage and excess power
Some states have more generous subsidies than others, and more pro-consumer rules mandating that utilities pay higher prices for excess power that home solar systems create during peak production hours, or even extract from homeowners’ batteries.
California had among the most generous rules of all until this week. But state utility regulators agreed to let utilities pay much less for excess power they are required to buy, after power companies argued that the rates were too high, and raised power prices for other customers.
Wood Mackenzie said the details of California’s decision made it look less onerous than the firm had expected. EnergySage says the payback period for California systems without a battery will be 10 years instead of six after the new rules take effect in April. Savings in the years afterward will be about 60 percent less, the company estimates. Systems with a battery, which pay for themselves after 10 years, will be little affected because their owners keep most of their excess power instead of selling it to the utility, according to EnergySage.
“The new [California rules] certainly elongate current payback periods for solar and solar-plus-storage, but not by as much as the previous proposal,” Wood Mackenzie said in the Dec. 16 report. “By 2024, the real impacts of the IRA will begin to come to fruition.”
The more expensive power is from a local utility, the more sense home solar will make. And some contractors will back claims about power savings with agreements to pay part of your utility bill if the systems don’t produce as much energy as promised.
“You have to do your homework before you sign,” Hurwitz said. “But energy costs always go up. That’s another hidden incentive.”
Save A Lot Solar contractors install LG Electronics solar panels on a home in Hayward, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022.
David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images
The California Public Utilities Commission on Thursday passed a proposal that will reduce compensation provided to households for the surplus electricity their rooftop solar panels contribute to the electric grid.
Utilities and consumer groups have argued the incentive payments have unfairly favored wealthier consumers and harmed poor and low-income households. But solar companies and renewable advocates have said that lowering the compensation would slow solar installations and hinder the state’s goals to address climate change.
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The proposal, which California utility regulators unveiled last month, willchange a net metering policy by paying solar owners for extra power at a lower rate, which is determined by the cost the utility would need to spend to purchase clean power from an alternative source. The solar industry has said the plan would amount to a 75% cut in average payment rates to customers.
Today’s unanimous vote by the five-member commission was monitored across the country, since California is widely viewed as a leader in the renewable energy buildout. The impact of today’s decision will likely extend beyond the state and have implications for the solar industry nationwide, particularly companies in the residential solar space like Sunrun, SunPower, Sunnova, and Tesla.
More than 1.5 million homes, businesses and other utility customers in California have rooftop solar panels. The utilities commission estimates that these installations can collectively produce 12 gigawatts of electricity.
The proposal would have no impact on existing rooftop solar customers and would maintain their current compensation rates, and would also encourage consumers to install batteries with their solar panels, the commission said.
Affordable Clean Energy For All, a nonprofit funded by California’s utilities, has argued that the rooftop solar program is outdated and that utilities have to pass along the costs of subsidies, creating higher bills for millions of customers who don’t install solar, including those least able to pay for electricity costs.
However, solar companies have argued that the existing net metering system is necessary to spur people to choose rooftop solar.
The changes to the state’s solar incentive program could cut California’s solar market in half by 2024, according to a report released earlier this year from energy research firm Wood Mackenzie.
“This misguided decision, which undervalues solar’s numerous benefits for all Californians, will dim the lights on the growth of solar in the Golden State,” said Laura Deehan, state director for Environment California, following the vote.
Roger Lin, an attorney at the Center for Biological Diversity’s energy justice program, said in a statement that the commission “has taken a step backward by widening the divide between those who can afford solar and those who can’t.”
“It’s an affront to low-income communities who are hit by the climate crisis first and worst, and we’ll do everything we can to convince the commission to fix the deep flaws in its proposal,” Lin said.
California, which is grappling with wildfires and drought fueled by climate change, has a goal to transition to 100% renewable energy by 2045.
As a bullet train speeds by in the background, a liquid hydrogen tank towers over solar panels and hydrogen fuel cells at Panasonic’s Kusatsu plant in Japan. Combined with a Tesla Megapack storage battery, the hydrogen and solar can deliver enough electricity to power the site’s Ene-Farm fuel cell factory.
Tim Hornyak
As bullet trains whiz by at 285 kilometers per hour, Panasonic’s Norihiko Kawamura looks over Japan’s tallest hydrogen storage tank. The 14-meter structure looms over the Tokaido Shinkansen Line tracks outside the ancient capital of Kyoto, as well as a large array of solar panels, hydrogen fuel cells and Tesla Megapack storage batteries. The power sources can generate enough juice to run part of the manufacturing site using renewable energy only.
“This may be the biggest hydrogen consumption site in Japan,” says Kawamura, a manager at the appliance maker’s Smart Energy System Business Division. “We estimate using 120 tons of hydrogen a year. As Japan produces and imports more and more hydrogen in the future, this will be a very suitable kind of plant.”
Sandwiched between a high-speed railway and highway, Panasonic’s factory in Kusastsu, Shiga Prefecture, is a sprawling 52 hectare site. It was originally built in 1969 to manufacture goods including refrigerators, one of the “three treasures” of household appliances, along with TVs and washing machines, that Japanese coveted as the country rebuilt after the devastation of World War II.
Today, one corner of the plant is the H2 Kibou Field, a demonstration sustainable power facility that started operations in April. It consists of a 78,000-liter hydrogen fuel tank, a 495 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell array made up of 99 5kW fuel cells, 570kW from 1,820 photovoltaic solar panels arranged in an inverted “V” shape to catch the most sunlight, and 1.1 megawatts of lithium-ion battery storage.
On one side of the H2 Kibou Field, a large display indicates the amount of power being produced in real time from fuel cells and solar panels: 259kW. About 80% of the power generated comes from fuel cells, with solar accounting for the rest. Panasonic says the facility produces enough power to meet the needs of the site’s fuel cell factory — it has peak power of about 680kW and annual usage of some 2.7 gigawatts. Panasonic thinks it can be a template for the next generation of new, sustainable manufacturing.
“This is the first manufacturing site of its kind using 100% renewable energy,” says Hiroshi Kinoshita of Panasonic’s Smart Energy System Business Division. “We want to expand this solution towards the creation of a decarbonized society.”
The 495kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell array is made up of 99 5KW fuel cells. Panasonic says it’s the world’s first site of its kind to use hydrogen fuel cells toward creating a manufacturing plant running on 100% renewable energy.
Tim Hornyak
An artificial intelligence-equipped Energy Management System (EMS) automatically controls on-site power generation, switching between solar and hydrogen, to minimize the amount of electricity purchased from the local grid operator. For example, if it’s a sunny summer day and the fuel cell factory needs 600kW, the EMS might prioritize the solar panels, deciding on a mixture of 300kW solar, 200 kW hydrogen fuel cells, and 100kW storage batteries. On a cloudy day, however, it might minimize the solar component, and boost the hydrogen and storage batteries, which are recharged at night by the fuel cells.
“The most important thing to make manufacturing greener is an integrated energy system including renewable energy such as solar and wind, hydrogen, batteries and so on,” says Takamichi Ochi, a senior manager for climate change and energy at Deloitte Tohmatsu Consulting. “To do that, the Panasonic example is close to an ideal energy system.”
With grey hydrogen, not totally green yet
The H2 Kibou Field is not totally green. It depends on so-called grey hydrogen, which is generated from natural gas in a process that can release a lot of carbon dioxide. Tankers haul 20,000 liters of hydrogen, chilled in liquid form to minus 250 Celsius, from Osaka to Kusatsu, a distance of some 80 km, about once a week. Japan has relied on countries like Australia, which has greater supplies of renewable energy, for hydrogen production. But local supplier Iwatani Corporation, which partnered with Chevron earlier this year to build 30 hydrogen fueling sites in California by 2026, has opened a technology center near Osaka that is focused on producing green hydrogen, which is created without the use of fossil fuels.
Another issue that is slowing adoption is cost. Even though electricity is relatively expensive in Japan, it currently costs much more to power a plant with hydrogen than using power from the grid, but the company expects Japanese government and industry efforts to improve supply and distribution will make the element significantly cheaper.
“Our hope is that hydrogen cost will go down, so we can achieve something like 20 yen per cubic meter of hydrogen, and then we will be able to achieve cost parity with the electrical grid,” Kawamura said.
Panasonic is also anticipating that Japan’s push to become carbon-neutral by 2050 will boost demand for new energy products. Its fuel cell factory at Kusatsu has churned out over 200,000 Ene-Farm natural gas fuel cell for home use. Commercialized in 2009, the cells extract hydrogen from natural gas, generate power by reacting it with oxygen, heat and store hot water, and deliver up to 500 watts of emergency power for eight days in a disaster. Last year, it began selling a pure hydrogen version targeted at commercial users. It wants to sell the fuel cells in the U.S. and Europe because governments there have more aggressive hydrogen cost-cutting measures than Japan. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a so-called Hydrogen Shot program that aims to slash the cost of clean hydrogen by 80% to $1 per 1 kilogram over 10 years.
Panasonic doesn’t plan to increase the scale of its H2 Kibou Field for the time being, wanting to see other companies and factories adopt similar energy systems.
It won’t necessarily make economic sense today, Kawamura says, “but we want to start something like this so it will be ready when the cost of hydrogen falls. Our message is: if we want to have 100% renewable energy in 2030, then we must start with something like this now, not in 2030.”
Wind turbines in the Netherlands. A report from the International Energy Agency “expects renewables to become the primary energy source for electricity generation globally in the next three years, overtaking coal.”
Mischa Keijser | Image Source | Getty Images
Renewables are on course to overtake coal and become the planet’s biggest source of electricity generation by the middle of this decade, according to the International Energy Agency.
The IEA’s Renewables 2022 report, published Tuesday, predictsa major shift within the world’s electricity mix at a time of significant volatility and geopolitical tension.
“The first truly global energy crisis, triggered by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has sparked unprecedented momentum for renewables,” it said.
“Renewables [will] become the largest source of global electricity generation by early 2025, surpassing coal,” it added.
According to its “main-case forecast,” the IEA expects renewables to account for nearly 40% of worldwide electricity output in 2027, coinciding with a fall in the share of coal, natural gas and nuclear generation.
The analysis comes at a time of huge disruption within global energy markets following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.
The Kremlin was the biggest supplier of both natural gas and petroleum oils to the EU in 2021, according to Eurostat. However, gas exports from Russia to the European Union have slid this year, as member states sought to drain the Kremlin’s war chest.
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As such, major European economies have been attempting to shore up supplies from alternative sources for the colder months ahead — and beyond.
In a statement issued alongside its report, the IEA highlighted the consequences of the current geopolitical situation.
“The global energy crisis is driving a sharp acceleration in installations of renewable power, with total capacity growth worldwide set to almost double in the next five years,” it said.
“Energy security concerns caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have motivated countries to increasingly turn to renewables such as solar and wind to reduce reliance on imported fossil fuels, whose prices have spiked dramatically,” it added.
In its largest-ever upward revision to its renewable power forecast, the IEA now expects the world’s renewable capacity to surge by nearly 2,400 gigawatts between 2022 and 2027 — the same amount as the “entire installed power capacity of China today.”
The IEA expects electricity stemming from wind and solar photovoltaic (which converts sunlight directly into electricity)to supply nearly 20% of the planet’s power generation in 2027.
“These variable technologies account for 80% of global renewable generation increase over the forecast period, which will require additional sources of power system flexibility,” it added.
However, the IEA expects growth in geothermal, bioenergy, hydropower and concentrated solar power to stay “limited despite their critical role in integrating wind and solar PV into global electricity systems.”
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Fatih Birol, the IEA’s executive director, said the global energy crisis had kicked renewables “into an extraordinary new phase of even faster growth as countries seek to capitalise on their energy security benefits.”
“The world is set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the previous 20 years,” Birol said.
The IEA chief added that the continued acceleration of renewables was “critical” to keeping “the door open to limiting global warming to 1.5 °C.”
The 1.5 degree target is a reference to 2015′s Paris Agreement, a landmark accord that aims to “limit global warming to well below 2, preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius, compared to pre-industrial levels.”
Cutting human-made carbon dioxide emissions to net-zero by 2050 is seen as crucial when it comes to meeting the 1.5 degrees Celsius target.
Earlier this year, a report from the International Energy Agency said clean energy investment could be on course to exceed $2 trillion per year by 2030, an increase of over 50% compared to today.
It’s not just cars that will be going through energy transition in the years ahead. The parking lots where EVs recharge are a growing focus of construction efforts linked to climate change and carbon reduction.
A law approved in France last month requires that parking lots with 80 or more spaces be covered by solar panels within the next five years. For the biggest parking lots, those with more than 400 spaces, three years has been granted to have at least half of the parking lot’s surface area covered by solar.
Similar renewable energy design ideas are expected to gain more market share in the U.S. if not necessarily through a federal mandate.
“You’ll see a lot of the same stuff that you’re seeing in France and other countries, but it probably won’t necessarily play out the same way, in terms of federal action versus state action,” said Bill Abolt, vice president and lead of energy business for infrastructure consulting firm AECOM.
As local and state governments create mandates for renewable energy deployment, and the federal government takes an incentive-based approach to encourage climate technology through measures like the Inflation Reduction Act, major corporations are making their own commitments to solar power.
Target, Home Depot, Walmart and renewable energy
Target revamped one of its California stores with solar panel carports this spring. Home Depot is making efforts to have all of its stores use only renewable energy by 2030, while Walmart hopes to achieve this by 2040. These efforts won’t only come through producing renewable power on-site — procurement of renewable energy from utility-scale projects is among strategic options to meet these goals — but investing in solar power for store locations will become more prevalent.
“You have a lot of significant companies that have stepped up and made commitments to renewable energy and similar things with local governments and institutions. So, there’s no doubt that that level of investment has accelerated the development of technology, the deployment of more cost effective solar,” Abolt said.
The cost to install solar has dropped by more than 60% over the past decade, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association.
“There’s no doubt that the cost curve of solar gets better and better all the time and will continue to do so. Private business has done a lot, and we’re seeing even more private investment likely to happen as a result,” Abolt said.
Global commercial real estate company CBRE is partnering with renewable energy company Altus Power to work with clients including many Fortune 500 companies on solar projects.
“The topics that are top of mind for these corporations right now are decarbonization and energy efficiency and energy resiliency,” said Lars Norell, co-founder and co-CEO of Altus Power. “The No. 1 answer is building-sited clean energy,” he said.
Norell said it has now become possible for businesses of all sizes to consider renewable energy projects.
“Something that Walmart or IKEA or Amazon does, smaller family-owned businesses come to us and say ‘Should we do the same thing? Could our roof hold solar?’ The answer in almost all those cases is absolutely yes,” he said.
Public expectations and pressure from boards are key factors in why major corporations tend to act quicker than smaller companies when it comes to renewable energy. “In many cases, smaller companies don’t have quite such an audience that is expecting them to act, but many of them are acting sort of out of self-interest or because they would like to save money,” Norell said.
Solar carports and rooftop solar are the primary solar designs being adopted in the world of commercial real estate.
“We find that there is almost no debate around the wisdom of putting solar in a parking lot,” Norell said. “We believe that rooftop solar and carport solar are going to be easier for most communities to not only accept but embrace as a way to make clean energy.”
In recent years, an increasing number of solar projects have been built over commercial parking lots, and state governments have created incentives specifically for solar carports, including the 2018 Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target, and the Maryland Energy Administration Solar Canopy Grant Program, which provides funding to incentivize the use of solar carports and parking garages, with EV chargers included on site. It has provided up to $250,000 per solar carport project, creating an incentive for commercial businesses to invest in the projects.
“Increasing power prices and more government support, like in France where they mandated it, we think will mean that more parking lots are going to have carports,” Norell said.
Commercial retail centers and logistics buildings are prime targets for solar. Commercial retail centers, like grocery stores, consume higher levels of energy and often feature big parking lots. Logistics buildings like warehouses feature large rooftops that are optimal places to implement rooftop solar energy.
Altus Power forecasts that most buildings will have a solar power system over the next decade.
With the growing production and consumption of EVs — the International Energy Agency reported that U.S. electric car sales doubled in market share to 4.5% in 2021, reaching 630,000 EVs sold — solar-powered commercial businesses become more beneficial to consumers requiring EV chargers in parking lots.
The same will be the case for warehouses and distribution centers.
“Once we start getting good at having electrical-powered van fleets and trucks, all those trucks come to those logistical buildings, and that’s an excellent spot to put up fleet chargers, so that when the truck is busy … we take the opportunity to charge its electrical battery as well,” Norell said. “We can charge it with clean electricity because we’re making solar power on the roof, and that’s then going into the truck.”
LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A former coal-fired power plant in New Jersey was imploded Friday, and its owners announced plans for a new $1 billion venture on the site, where batteries will be deployed to store power from clean energy sources including wind and solar.
The move came as New Jersey moves aggressively to adopt clean energy, including its push to be the East Coast leader in offshore wind energy.
Starwood Energy demolished the former Logan Generating Plant, with the head of New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities pushing a ceremonial button; the actual explosives used in bringing the structure down were triggered by a licensed demolition contractor.
Logan is one of two former coal-fired power plants that the company decided in March to shutter and tear down under an agreement with the state and a local utility. The other is the former Chambers Cogeneration Plant in Carneys Point, which has yet to be dismantled.
They were the last two coal-fired power plants operating in the state until they closed three months ago, and both will host battery storage projects, said Himanshu Saxena, CEO of Starwood, a Greenwich, Connecticut, private equity investment firm specializing in energy infrastructure projects.
“This is the end of coal in this state,” Saxena said.
The closures are part of the latest wave of coal-burning units to be retired as states try to fight climate change by requiring more carbon-free sources of electricity.
“Wind doesn’t always blow; solar doesn’t always shine,” he said. “We need systems where you can store the energy. You have to build battery storage products.”
The plant, on the banks of the Delaware River in the Philadelphia suburbs of southern New Jersey, began operating in 1994.
Shortly before 11 a.m. Friday, an emergency siren sounded, indicating the imminent detonation of explosives placed strategically at the base of the plant’s smokestack and in a larger nearby building.
A series of loud blasts rang out, and concussive waves of pressure radiated from the site as the structures began to crumble into a heap of smoke and dust.
Saxena said he has a long history with power generation and environmental concerns.
“I worked at a coal plant in India; there were no scrubbers,” he said, referring to emissions-control equipment. “You went in with a white shirt and came out with a black shirt.”
Environmental and public interest groups including the Sierra Club pushed Atlantic City Electric to end an agreement that locked rate-payers into what the Sierra Club termed above-market electricity rates, and to end the operation of the two plants.
“More utilities need to recognize the changing landscape and that they have a responsibility to reduce carbon pollution,” said Ramon Cruz, national president of the Sierra Club, adding he hopes the deal will be a model for other states and companies.
Atlantic City Electric estimates that termination of the agreement will save ratepayers $30 million through 2024.
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Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC
LOGAN TOWNSHIP, N.J. — A former coal-fired power plant in New Jersey was imploded Friday, and its owners announced plans for a new $1 billion venture on the site, where batteries will be deployed to store power from clean energy sources including wind and solar.
The move came as New Jersey moves aggressively to adopt clean energy, including its push to be the East Coast leader in offshore wind energy.
Starwood Energy demolished the former Logan Generating Plant, with the head of New Jersey’s Board of Public Utilities pushing a ceremonial button; the actual explosives used in bringing the structure down were triggered by a licensed demolition contractor.
Logan is one of two former coal-fired power plants that the company decided in March to shutter and tear down under an agreement with the state and a local utility. The other is the former Chambers Cogeneration Plant in Carneys Point, which has yet to be dismantled.
They were the last two coal-fired power plants operating in the state until they closed three months ago, and both will host battery storage projects, said Himanshu Saxena, CEO of Starwood, a Greenwich, Connecticut, private equity investment firm specializing in energy infrastructure projects.
“This is the end of coal in this state,” Saxena said.
The closures are part of the latest wave of coal-burning units to be retired as states try to fight climate change by requiring more carbon-free sources of electricity.
“Wind doesn’t always blow; solar doesn’t always shine,” he said. “We need systems where you can store the energy. You have to build battery storage products.”
The plant, on the banks of the Delaware River in the Philadelphia suburbs of southern New Jersey, began operating in 1994.
Shortly before 11 a.m. Friday, an emergency siren sounded, indicating the imminent detonation of explosives placed strategically at the base of the plant’s smokestack and in a larger nearby building.
A series of loud blasts rang out, and concussive waves of pressure radiated from the site as the structures began to crumble into a heap of smoke and dust.
Saxena said he has a long history with power generation and environmental concerns.
“I worked at a coal plant in India; there were no scrubbers,” he said, referring to emissions-control equipment. “You went in with a white shirt and came out with a black shirt.”
Environmental and public interest groups including the Sierra Club pushed Atlantic City Electric to end an agreement that locked rate-payers into what the Sierra Club termed above-market electricity rates, and to end the operation of the two plants.
“More utilities need to recognize the changing landscape and that they have a responsibility to reduce carbon pollution,” said Ramon Cruz, national president of the Sierra Club, adding he hopes the deal will be a model for other states and companies.
Atlantic City Electric estimates that termination of the agreement will save ratepayers $30 million through 2024.
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Follow Wayne Parry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/WayneParryAC
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Arizona-based First Solar Inc. has selected Alabama as the site of a more than $1 billion factory that will manufacture modules that generate solar power, the company announced Wednesday.
First Solar said in a statement that the plant, to be located in Lawrence County in the Tennessee Valley region, will create more than 700 jobs.
The factory is part of a previously announced plan to increase First Solar’s U.S. manufacturing capacity to more than 10 gigawatts by 2025, the company said. It already has three factories in Ohio, one of which is expected to begin production next year.
First Solar describes itself as the only major solar manufacturer that has headquarters in the United States and is not making components in China. The project will bring the company’s total investment in U.S. manufacturing to more than $4 billion, it said.
A bill signed by President Joe Biden in August will direct spending, tax credits and loans to bolster technology like solar panels; consumer efforts to improve home energy efficiency; emissions-reducing equipment for coal- and gas-powered power plants; and air pollution controls for farms, ports and low-income communities.
First Solar CEO Mark Widmar said that legislation “has firmly placed America on the path to a sustainable energy future” and the new plants will help with the transition toward cleaner energy, which supporters say will help stem climate change.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that the plant will be in Lawrence County.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The nation’s largest public utility has proposed building a $216 million solar farm project in Kentucky atop a capped coal ash storage pit at one of its coal-fired power plants.
The federal Tennessee Valley Authority voted Thursday to advance the initiative at Shawnee Fossil Plant in Paducah. The utility called it a first-of-its-kind pilot project that would convert land used as a waste heap for the byproduct of burning coal for power into a solar farm that would help produce 100 megawatts. Officials say the model could ultimately be used at other closed Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash sites, with a capacity of 1,000 megawatts combined if they were to pursue that expansion.
The solar initiative is among the changes unveiled by the utility in recent years to adjust operations to combat global warming. Environmental advocates, however, have continued to note that TVA’s efforts still fall short of the goal by President Joe Biden’s administration for a carbon pollution-free energy sector by 2035.
“Moving quickly on this solar cap installation option at the Shawnee site allows us to move further and faster, as we build out towards our renewable generation goals while we balance the affordability, reliability and resiliency that our customers depend on,” Don Moul, TVA’s chief operating officer, said during a board meeting Thursday in Starkville, Mississippi.
TVA has said installing the solar panels at the 300-acre coal ash site, which is in the process of being closed, would not compromise the turf used to cap the waste. The project can tap into the transmission infrastructure already in place at the plant, which burns coal to generate approximately 8 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to supply 540,000 homes. Additionally, TVA officials are looking into whether the new federal Inflation Reduction Act could help the project along.
Pending environmental and regulatory reviews, the project could be operational within two years, Moul said.
Amy Kelly, Tennessee’s representative on the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Campaign, said the group is “encouraged by TVA’s initiative to place cheaper, reliable and clean solar power on the closing ash ponds at Shawnee.” But she also said “it is also critical that TVA clean up the toxic mess left behind from more than six decades of burning coal.” She said TVA should move toward further solar development, noting that the utility manages almost 300,000 acres of land.
Kelly said the coal ash is in unlined pits at Shawnee, contaminating groundwater. TVA spokesperson Scott Brooks said that when its groundwater monitoring shows “corrective action is necessary,” the utility takes those steps outlined in the federal coal ash rule and state rules.
Kelly also said renewables should be considered, instead of natural gas, as they wind down work at aging coal power plants. Switching to natural gas is under consideration for TVA’s Cumberland and Kingston coal plants in Tennessee, though final decisions haven’t been announced yet.
TVA already has plans to add 10,000 megawatts of solar power to its system by 2035. It has sought requests for proposals for up to 5,000 megawatts of carbon-free energy before 2029. TVA has also teamed up on projects with several prominent industrial customers who want their operations tied to renewables. In addition, it is developing small module nuclear reactors and infrastructure to support electric vehicles.
But critics have said TVA is still falling short on its climate change obligation. During a September hearing, Democratic U.S. Sen. Ed Markey of Massachusetts expressed “frustration with TVA” and said it’s “kind of disgusting” that TVA brags about figuring out nuclear power plants, but “energy efficiency, or wind or solar, eludes the scientists, eludes the management.”
TVA has set a goal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2035, compared to 2005 levels. TVA CEO Jeff Lyash has said TVA will not be able to meet the 100% reduction goal without technological advances in energy storage, carbon capture and small modular nuclear reactors, instead aiming for 80%. The utility has its own aspirational goal of net zero emissions by 2050.
There are enough TVA nominees selected by Biden currently awaiting the Senate’s confirmation to make up a new majority on the board.
TVA power provides electricity to local power companies serving 10 million people in Tennessee and parts of six surrounding states.
NEW DELHI — Supply chains, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the impact of COVID-19 were top of mind for U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as she prepared to meet with Indian leaders Friday in New Delhi.
For too long, countries around the world have been overly dependent on risky countries or a single source for critical inputs, she told the technology sector leaders during a visit to the Microsoft India Development Center on the outskirts of New Delhi.
Citing Russia’s leveraging of energy supplies, Yellen said President Vladimir Putin’s strategy was “an example of how malicious actors can use their market positions to try to gain geopolitical leverage or disrupt trade for their own gain.”
She said Russia had previously been a long-time, reliable energy partner. “But for the better part of this year, Putin has weaponized Russia’s natural gas supply against the people of Europe,” she said.
Cooperation among friendly countries will help diversify supply chains away from China, which currently dominates over 80% of global solar panel production, Yellen said.
China’s strict “zero-COVID” policy has also affected global supply chains with widespread lockdowns in major financial and manufacturing hubs.
Apple announced Sunday that customers will have to wait longer to get its latest iPhone models after anti-virus restrictions were imposed on a contractor’s factory in central China.
The United States is pursuing an approach called “friend-shoring” to diversify away from countries that present geopolitical and security risks to the supply chain. “To do so, we are proactively deepening economic integration with trusted trading partners like India,” Yellen said.
“Technology companies like Amazon and Google are investing in India and Vietnam. Apple recently announced that it was shifting some iPhone manufacturing from China to India,” she said.
New supply chains already are developing across regions from Asia to the European Union, she added.
Yellen is scheduled to meet India’s Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman later Friday.
Yellen will discuss the U.S. partnership with India establishing an economic framework in the Indo-Pacific “to increase economic integration with trusted trading partners and mitigate geopolitical risks,” the U.S. Treasury Department said. Also on the agenda are India’s G-20 presidency in 2023, climate change, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the ongoing economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Later Friday, she will also participate in the U.S.-India Economic and Financial Partnership dialogue and meet with executives from major Indian companies and U.S. companies operating in India.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the Asia-Pacific region at https://apnews.com/hub/asia-pacific
Minnesota-based Pineapple Energy has acquired SUNation Energy, a solar power and battery systems installer headquartered in Ronkonkoma.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Founded 19 years ago, SUNation offers a range of solar energy solutions including residential, commercial, battery storage, and roofing, and currently services over 12,000 PV systems. Since its inception, the company has installed more than 275,000 solar panels in nearly 8,000 projects, representing about 92 megawatts of carbon-free solar power, according to a company statement.
SUNation generated $48 million in revenue in the 12 months ending Sept. 30. The acquisition is expected to triple Pineapple’s annual revenue.
SUNation founder Scott Maskin will continue to manage SUNation on Long Island and will appointed to Pineapple’s board of directors. SUNation’s Chief Growth Officer Jim Brennan will move into a strategic role at Pineapple, leading the corporate development function, where he will help execute the strategic vision for both organic and M&A-driven growth, according to the statement.
“SUNation Energy is elated to join the Pineapple Energy family,” Maskin said in the statement. “Almost 20 years ago we set out to change the way our friends and neighbors powered their homes and businesses. Through the years we’ve seen many companies come and go, mostly because they forgot who was most important, the customer. We are so fortunate to find a team that shares the same core values and goals as SUNation.”
Pineapple Energy is focused on growing local and regional solar, storage, and energy services companies nationwide. Its portfolio of brands includes Hawaii Energy Connection, E-Gear, Sungevity, and Horizon Solar Power, which provides homeowners and small businesses an end-to-end product offering spanning solar, battery storage, and grid services.
“We’re thrilled to announce the SUNation acquisition, which is a fantastic complement to our Hawaii Energy Connection and E-Gear acquisitions which closed alongside our merger into a publicly traded company earlier this year,” Kyle Udseth, CEO of Pineapple Energy, said in the statement. “This acquisition is an indication of the growth potential inherent in our strategy of consolidating and building a nationwide solar, battery storage and home energy management business. We believe the acquisition will give us more scale, increase our revenue substantially, and move us toward achieving the important goal of reaching cash flow positive in 2023.”
A guard walks between photovoltaic panels at a solar farm in Pavagada, Karnataka, India, February 24, 2022.
Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg via Getty
New Delhi — When the COP27 United Nations climate conference kicks off this weekend in Egypt, India will likely approach the international gathering with a well-earned boast about its success in going green and an appeal for more help to continue down that path. But despite significant strides that one analyst says have made India the only nation with anything to brag about, it may find an international community with little appetite for generosity.
Ahead of the climate summit, and clearly aiming to impress, India has set itself tougher targets for cutting carbon dioxide emissions and increasing its clean energy generation capacity by 2030, largely off the back of significant progress in its solar power industry.
Setting the bar higher
As all nations were asked to do ahead of COP27, India submitted its updated “nationally determined contributions” (NDCs) to the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) in August.
Under the terms of climate treaties signed by the COP nations, every country must submit its own goals for reducing emissions and explain how they’ll be met — and every year the nations are expected to show progress and make their goals more ambitious. With India’s new NDCs, it has pledged to reduce the intensity of the emissions from its national economic output by 45% by 2030, compared to its 2005 level. The target was previously set at 30%.
The country has also added a new target: It has pledged to create a “carbon sink,” to absorb the equivalent of 2.5 to 3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2030, through mass-tree planting.
Besides these official commitments, the Indian government also released an ambitious draft National Electricity Plan (NEP) in September. The plan is a policy document released every five years that guides the power sector’s expansion.
This year’s plan seems to exceed commitments made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 in Glasgow last year. The NEP aims to achieve 57% renewable capacity by 2027 and 68% by 2032. It also plans for a 24% increase in solar power production targets for 2027 compared to the previous plan.
A solar powerhouse?
India has set its ambitious targets based largely on significant progress made in its solar energy sector. The country has a current solar energy generation capacity of 59 gigawatts. That makes it the fifth-highest producer, behind the U.S. and China, but given the country’s solar capacity growth rate of 47% annually between 2016 and 2021, many hope to see it emerge quickly as a global hub for solar energy.
In September, online retail giant Amazon announced its first three solar farm projects in India, which it said would produce a total of 420 megawatts of clean energy. The company will also set up 23 new solar rooftop projects on its fulfilment centers across 14 Indian cities.
“This indicates the fact that corporates are now really embarked on their decarbonization journeys,” said Sumant Sinha, founder, chairman and CEO of ReNew Power, which is developing one of the solar farms for Amazon, a 210 MW plant in Rajasthan.
A file photo from June 2021 shows workers inside a solar photovoltaic panel manufacturing facility at Central Electronics Ltd. in Ghaziabad, India.
Sakib Ali/Hindustan Times/Getty
“Almost a quarter of our new capacity is being directly picked up by corporates. A couple of years ago, this was just two or three percent,” he told CBS News. “They are doing it for two reasons: One is that they want to decarbonize their own operations, and two, because it’s cheaper for them.”
Several other major global corporations are also investing in India’s solar industry. Netherlands-based SHV Energy, a big player in the oil and gas industry, has acquired a majority stake in Sunsource Energy, one of the top solar companies in India, and Malaysia-based Petronas has also acquired a leading solar rooftop company in India.
Solar panel arrays are seen on the rooftops of apartment buildings in Bengaluru, India, February 21, 2022.
Dhiraj Singh/Bloomberg/Getty
Indian entrepreneurs are also investing in medium and micro-scaled solar power projects, and the government is backing a solar energy program for the country’s vast agricultural sector, paving the way for the installation of 3.75 million solar-powered irrigation pumps over the next three years.
“There is no way you can exclude India from the energy mix in the global scenario from now on,” Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, CEO of the National Solar Energy Federation of India, told CBS News. “I believe India will end up achieving the solar capacity target of 350 GW earlier than 2030.”
Touting success, and seeking help
India emits more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than every other individual nation apart from China and the U.S. With a growing economy and some 1.35 billion people, it has faced pressure from more developed countries to phase out coal and end subsidies for oil and gas.
While India’s energy transition is happening at an impressive rate, it argues that abandoning fossil fuels too quickly would risk its economic development, and in a nation where so many remain mired in poverty, it can’t afford that option. At least not without significant financial help from wealthier nations.
“India’s energy needs will grow, which means that in the short run, its emissions almost certainly will also grow, whether [for] five or 10 years, that is unclear,” Navroz Dubash, a professor with the India-based Centre for Policy Research, told CBS News. He said that for the next decade or two, India should stress that it is “committed to a low-carbon future, but one that allows us to develop and meet our energy needs.”
An Indian shopkeeper sits near solar panels placed outside his stall in a temporary settlement along the Yamuna river in New Delhi, on World Sustainable Energy Day, June 22, 2022.
Pankaj Nangia/Anadolu Agency/Getty
India has a relatively good report card to show off at the upcoming COP27 summit, and it will tout the success of its energy transition thus far to seek more global funding to decarbonize and mitigate the dangerous impacts of climate change, experts told CBS News.
“India has demonstrated that in the past, it has been able to add more clean energy alternatives and has set up huge ambitions,” Vibhuti Garg, an energy economist at the Institute for Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), told CBS News.
“India is the only country that has something to show as progress at COP27,” said Subrahmanyam Pulipaka, CEO of the National Solar Energy Federation of India. “Our renewable energy generation has not decreased but increased, even during the COVID pandemic and [Ukraine] war.”
At the last year’s COP26 in Glasgow, Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought $1 trillion in climate finance for India over the coming nine years, to help it meet its 2030 targets.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers a speech during the COP26 climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, Nov. 2, 2021.
Robert Perry/EPA/Bloomberg/Getty
India did see an increase in renewable energy investments last year compared to previous years, but Garg, the IEEFA economist, said the country would need “about two to three times more investment to meet the 2030 target.”
A recent report by the New York-based Asia Society Policy Institute estimated that India would need $10.1 trillion in investments to achieve its pledge of complete carbon neutrality by 2070.
But with the Ukraine war creating huge disruptions in the global energy supply chain and fueling geopolitical uncertainty, it’s not clear if developing countries like India will be able to secure significant new financial commitments at COP27.
Already developed nations have broken a promise they made at COP15 to ringfence $100 billion annually to help developing countries decarbonize and deal with the impacts of climate change.
“And now that some of these developed countries are facing crises like rising prices of food and fuel in their own countries, things are becoming worse,” Garg told CBS News. “So, I don’t know how much finance they are going to make available to other countries to help them transition.”
CANBERRA, Australia — A young bar-tailed godwit appears to have set a non-stop distance record for migratory birds by flying at least 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) from Alaska to the Australian state of Tasmania, a bird expert said Friday.
The bird was tagged as a hatchling in Alaska during the Northern Hemisphere summer with a tracking GPS chip and tiny solar panel that enabled an international research team to follow its first annual migration across the Pacific Ocean, Birdlife Tasmania convenor Eric Woehler said. Because the bird was so young, its gender wasn’t known.
Aged about five months, it left southwest Alaska at the Yuko-Kuskokwim Delta on Oct. 13 and touched down 11 days later at Ansons Bay on the island of Tasmania’s northeastern tip on Oct. 24, according to data from Germany’s Max Plank Institute for Ornithology. The research has yet to be published or peer reviewed.
The bird started on a southwestern course toward Japan then turned southeast over Alaska’s Aleutian Islands, a map published by New Zealand’s Pukoro Miranda Shorebird Center shows.
The bird was again tracking southwest when it flew over or near Kiribati and New Caledonia, then past the Australian mainland before turning directly west for Tasmania, Australia’s most southerly state. The satellite trail showed it covered 13,560 kilometers (8,435 miles) without stopping.
“Whether this is an accident, whether this bird got lost or whether this is part of a normal pattern of migration for the species, we still don’t know,” said Woehler, who is part of the research project.
Guinness World Records lists the longest recorded migration by a bird without stopping for food or rest as 12,200 km (7,580 miles) by a satellite-tagged male bar-tailed godwit flying from Alaska to New Zealand.
That flight was recorded in 2020 as part of the same decade-old research project, which also involves China’s Fudan University, New Zealand’s Massey University and the Global Flyway Network.
The same bird broke its own record with a 13,000-kilometer (8,100-mile) flight on its next migration last year, researchers say. But Guinness has yet to acknowledge that feat.
Woehler said researchers did not know whether the latest bird, known by its satellite tag 234684, flew alone or as part of a flock.
“There are so few birds that have been tagged, we don’t know how representative or otherwise this event is,” Woehler said.
“It may be that half the birds that do the migration from Alaska come to Tasmania directly rather than through New Zealand or it might be 1%, or it might be that this is the first it’s ever happened,” he added.
Adult birds depart Alaska earlier than juveniles, so the tagged bird was unlikely to have followed more experienced travelers south, Woehler said.
Woehler hopes to see the bird once wet weather clears in the remote corner of Tasmania, where it will fatten up having lost half its body weight on its journey.
CANBERRA, Australia — Australian and Singaporean leaders announced Tuesday what they described as a world-first agreement to cooperate in transitioning their economies to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outlined their so-called Green Economy Agreement between the two countries after an annual meeting in the Australian Parliament House.
The agreement has 17 components that cover facilitating trade and investment in green services, harmonizing standards and building green growth sectors through collaboration between business.
Australia has committed to reducing its emissions to net-zero by 2050 and Singapore is considering adopting the same target.
Albanese described Singapore as “one of the most innovative economies in the world,” while Australia had the potential to become a “renewable energy superpower” due to its vast open spaces and relatively small population.
The agreement “will support clean energy innovation, unlock business opportunities and create jobs, and help deliver our mission’s targets while positioning Australia as a renewable energy superpower,” Albanese said.
Lee foreshadowed further cooperation in cross-border electricity trade and “sustainable aviation” through what he described as the “world’s first such agreement.”
”These are all areas which are of interest to Singapore and to Singapore businesses and we hope with a Singapore-Australia GEA they’ll be able to move forward,” Lee said.
“But we also hope with this GEA will encourage other countries to look at what we have been able to do and to ask whether some of this may not make sense to them to do with Singapore or to do with each other,” Lee added.
Singapore is already planning to use solar power from northern Australia transmitted by a 4,200-kilometer (2,600-mile) submarine cable.
Singaporean company Sun Cable plans to start construction in 2024 of the 30 billion Australian dollar ($19 billion) Australia-Asia PowerLink project that will include 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres) of solar panels near the northern Australian city of Darwin.
Albanese described the export of Australian solar power to Singapore as an “ultimate win-win.”
“If this project can be made to work — and I believe it can be — you will see the world’s largest solar farm, you will see the export of energy across distances … (and) the production of many jobs here in Australia, including manufacturing jobs,” Albanese said.
SAINT-NAZAIRE, France (AP) — French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday called for a “massive acceleration” of renewable energy development in his country, including offshore wind farms and solar power, via a new plan that seeks to bring lagging France closer to the energy policies of its European neighbors.
The move comes amid a major energy crisis in Europe aggravated by Russia’s war in Ukraine. Macron wants France to gain more independence in terms of electricity production.
“The war changed everything… it disrupted the European model, because many countries were depending on Russian gas for (energy) production. And clearly, for the first time, energy has become a weapon of war, ” Macron stressed in his speech in Saint-Nazaire, a port in western France.
Macron went on a boat Thursday morning to visit France’s first offshore wind farm off its Atlantic coast.
He then detailed a range of measures to accelerate renewable energy projects. A bill will be presented next week at a Cabinet meeting.
“We need a massive acceleration,” Macron said. “I want us to go at least twice as fast for renewable energy projects. … “our neighbors often managed to do more, better and, above all, faster.”
Macron’s new strategy comes as a long-term response to the energy crisis, but it won’t help in dealing with shorter-term challenges. France and other European countries fear electricity shortages this winter as Russia has choked off the supplies of cheap natural gas that the continent depended on for years to run factories, generate electricity and heat homes.
France’s energy strategy has long relied on developing nuclear power — based on imported uranium— which provides about 67% of French electricity, more than any other country.
Macron announced at the beginning of the year plans to build six new nuclear reactors and to extend the life of its existing nuclear plants as part of the country’s strategy to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming.
But relieving France’s dependence on global gas and oil also involves boosting renewable energy, he said.
France had previously set a goal to increase its renewable energy sources to 23% by 2020 — but only managed to reach 19%. That leaves the country in 17th position in the European Union, below the average of 22% in the bloc of 27 countries, according to latest statistics.
Despite France’s thousands of kilometers (miles) of coastline, only the Saint-Nazaire offshore wind farm, with its 80 turbines, has emerged so far. Macron set the goal to build about 50 similar wind farms by 2050 in France.
He also hopes to multiply by 10 the amount of solar energy that is produced, and to double the power from land-based wind farms in the same period.
New measures will aim at reducing the delays in building and launching offshore wind farms from 10-12 years now to about six years, and big solar farms from 6 years to 3 years, Macron said.
The new bill will also aim at providing connections to the grid as soon as a new facility is ready — instead of a delay of up to three years now.
Other planned measures include building solar farms on vacant land along highways, railways and in car parks.
Solar parks will also be encouraged on agricultural lands under certain conditions — including keeping them small to preserve fields for the food industry.
The bill will need to guarantee money for local communities to see local benefits from the energy shift, Macron said.
Macron added he hopes to take the “same approach” for nuclear energy, accelerating and simplifying procedures to build new reactors more quickly.
At the moment, about half of France’s 56 nuclear reactors, all operated by EDF, are shut down for usual maintenance and, in some cases, to repair corrosion problems. The government said this month that EDF committed to restart all of them by this winter.
The French government has warned that a worst-case scenario could lead to rolling power cuts in French homes, and officials have presented an “energy sobriety” plan targeting a 10% reduction in energy use by 2024.
First 100% Directly Connected, Time Shifted, Solar Energy Powered Indoor Rock Concert in North America
Press Release –
Sep 12, 2022
SUMMERSIDE, Prince Edward Island, September 12, 2022 (Newswire.com)
– The City of Summerside and BluWave-ai completed the first 100% time-shifted solar energy powered concert in North America. This feat took place on the first stop of the 2022 Canadian Tour of globally renowned Canadian musician, Bryan Adams, at the Credit Union Place in Summerside, Prince Edward Island, Canada from 8-11 pm on Tuesday, August 31st. The concert was run indoors at night leveraging solar and battery solutions. This milestone for BluWave-ai and Summerside is building off of their shared project, the Canadian Smart Grid AI Center of Excellence at the City of Summerside, announced earlier this year.
Leveraging the BluWave-ai energy optimization platform running in the cloud, BluWave-ai Edge and BluWave-ai Center, the partners were able to predict solar production during the day of August 31st. Through this, they could store sufficient solar capacity in a 890 kWh battery to cover the projected energy demand of the concert such as lighting, audio equipment, and air conditioning. With a day of immense solar fluctuations, the system was able to operate the building in advance of the concert while storing enough solar energy to drive the concert in the evening.
Once the concert started, the automated platform took over to detect the increased load created by the concert and peripheral elements and managed the stored solar energy to supply the concert load over the 3 hour period.
Below is how the system played out on concert day:
The AI platform left enough battery capacity unfilled during the night of August 30th to August 31st to fill the battery with solar production at the Summerside CUP on the day of the Bryan Adams concert, August 31st.
From approximately 8:00 am to 12:00 pm AST the battery was loaded with 496kWh of coincidental solar produced energy by setting thresholds. This way, solar generated over capacity was moved to the battery for the concert in the evening while the rest of the facility could run on a combo of Summerside Wind Power and regular grid power.
Baselining of the overall facility power usage from 8:00 pm to 11:00 pm AST on days without a concert showed the electricity load. During this time averaged 718.5 kWh for the facility with no concert.
During the 3 hour concert the facility used 1173 kWh. The total incremental energy from the concert was 454.5 kWh compared to regular days.
During the concert the BluWave-ai system delivered 496kWh of time-shifted green solar power via the battery or an average of 165kW per hour more, covering the entire needs of the concert and associated climate control.
To showcase the performance of the BluWave-ai Canadian Smart Grid Center of excellence which works with Summerside’s wind farm, solar array, battery storage, grid connection, and smart metering assets, the cloud-based AI optimization platform was able to deliver a 100% solar powered concert with less than 24 hours to configure, commission, and operationalize to support the new demand of the system to support the green rock concert.
In November 2021, BluWave‐ai and the City of Summerside announced the completion of the first-end to-end AI‐optimized grid in North America, the first industry proof point of a scalable system applicable to entire regions and countries for transitioning energy networks toward maximizing the use of renewable assets. In 2021, BluWave-ai was awarded a major contract to advance Summerside’s system utility manager software to integrate a new 26‐megawatt Solar and Battery project.
The test during the Bryan Adams August 31st concert used a subset of the Summerside smart grid and AI control system to manage operations, perfectly matching solar powering the concert load.
“As a testament to the robustness and flexibility of the BluWave-ai energy optimization platform, and with very short notice, the system was able to manage energy use at the arena to supply the concert with 100% solar energy,” said Devashish Paul, CEO of BluWave-ai. “Once the constraints were identified, the automated platform took over. This proved a compelling use case for time-shifting solar energy which is applicable for large commercial enterprises, electric vehicle fleets and for supporting the grid with demand response and resiliency without resorting to diesel backup generators and shows another example of our company’s live real-time deployments on streaming data and renewable energy assets.”
“Summerside is committed to growing our net zero economy and leading PEI’s Clean Tech Innovations has invested in the smart grid, building renewable energy generation and creating the CUP Arena microgrid with the solar and battery energy storage system from Samsung C&T. We brought in BluWave-ai as a partner to set up the Canadian Smart Grid AI Center of Excellence and provide the AI-enabled control of the city smart grid,” said Mike Thususka, Summerside Director of Economic Development. “To showcase our capabilities as a leading North American municipality, we decided to deliver a 100% green solar energy concert experience at our arena. We continue to invest in our green future and by 2023 with the Sunbank solar and storage facility, Summerside will be running off 70% renewable energy with an eye to hit 100% in the very near future. Industries setting up operations in Summerside may be eligible for various clean tech and first customer experiences using Summerside’s leading edge infrastructure which we demonstrated at the concert working with our partners BluWave-ai.”
“SDTC has been a proud supporter of BluWave-ai’s data-driven AI technology since 2018,” said Leah Lawrence, President of SDTC. “What better way to showcase the power of this homegrown Canadian innovation than by running a major concert event from one of our country’s rock icons off of solar energy! Congratulations to the team at BluWave-ai and the City of Summerside for leading the way in making the entertainment industry more sustainable as we move towards Net Zero.”
Even following a partially cloudy day, Summerside and BluWave-ai delivered a 100% solar energy power for the Bryan Adams concert by time shifting solar energy over-production to the evening and matching it to the concert load. This proved that the entertainment and sports events industry can run their events without depending on elaborate carbon-emitting diesel generation backup systems for resiliency when solar powered batteries can be connected to events. In Summerside’s case, the battery and solar generation are on site. For concert locations without this capability, batteries can be charged off-site and moved to the venue by electric trucking rather than by installing diesel generators moved by diesel-powered trucks, enabling a similar 100% clean operation.
To learn more about decarbonizing your city, utility or enterprise applications, please contact info@bluwave-ai.com.
BluWave-ai Research Note: According to existing public documentation of equivalent sized or larger solar installations at sporting and entertainment facilities across North America, none of the facilities which exceed Summerside’s solar capacity have sufficient storage capacity to run a 3 hour 400+ kWh concert event with purely stored, locally generated solar energy.
About Summerside
Summerside has long presented a compelling case for business investment with easy market access, lower costs and sophisticated infrastructure, along with international partnerships, make Summerside’s value proposition extremely attractive. The city has quietly created a unique environment in which local and international brands can access an experienced workforce, world‐class infrastructure, and a supportive and engaging business community, along with pro‐business government support. Underpinned by investments in low‐carbon energy and technological innovation, Summerside’s latest developer opportunities are founded on solid and secure ROI principles.
About BluWave-ai
BluWave-ai is focused on driving the proliferation of renewable energy and electric transportation worldwide. Our solutions apply artificial intelligence (AI) cloud software to optimize the cost, carbon footprint and reliability of different energy sources, both renewable and non-renewable, in real-time. This lets our customers – utilities, fleet operators and electricity system operators to improve their energy-related decision making in planning and in live systems to decrease costs and carbon footprint. Every day our employees come to BluWave-ai with the mission to decarbonize the planet by using hardware assets more efficiently with AI software while we build the world’s premier renewable energy and transport electrification AI company based in Canada.
