Renewable Energy News

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/10/body-biomass-in-the-us-finding-our-carrot-and-stick.jpg" /pOpening discussions at the International Biomass Conference Expo (BBI) in Minneapolis elicited some strong opinions about the big challenges facing biomass in the U.S., and what can be done to overcome them -- and where we can look for guidance to do it. Panelists comments could generally be defined around several key policy issues that need resolution: carbon tax, RFS, and tax credits./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-pace-financing-concept-provides-hope-for-renewable-energy-projects.jpg" /pSolar-energy installations are set to receive record loans this year through a U.S. municipal finance tool modeled after one that backed $17 billion of sewers and sidewalks in the past decade./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-utility-gets-ready-for-more-local-energy-in-hawaii.jpg" /pHawai’an solar advocates are celebrating after the island state’s largest utility, Hawai’ian Electric (HECO) filed a plan with the public utility commission to take a “proactive approach” to adding more distributed solar to their grid system. Utilities across the country typically use “conservative blanket limits” on the amount of renewable energy /p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-boosting-solar-cells-with-nanowires.jpg" /pSolar module makers are struggling even as cost points are at a bare minimum (and arguably unsustainably so) — and yet lower prices persist, especially in lower-end crystalline silicon (c-Si) modules. However, there is still improvement to be made in efficiency, says Dave Epstein, CEO of Sol Voltaics. More efficient panels can both be sold at higher prices and installed with fewer panels to reduce the cost profile of an entire project. The economics improves for everyone./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/8/body-asia-report-solar-in-emerging-asia.jpg" /pSolar PV demand from countries in "emerging" Asia and Central Asia will ramp at a 28 percent annual pace from 2013-2017 to 3 gigawatts (GW) of demand by 2017, up from just 723 MW in 2012, as the region reaches beyond solar lighting and residential schemes and embraces more large-scale ground-mounted PV installations, according to NPD Solarbuzz./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-poland-plans-to-cut-subsidy-for-renewables-as-deficit-grows.jpg" /pPoland plans to cut renewable-energy subsidies after an economic slump boosted the budget deficit, the deputy economy minister said./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-sunnovations-launches-monitoring-tools-for-solar-water-heating.jpg" /pA Virginia startup is launching a monitoring system that it says will not only enable homeowners keep track of the performance of their solar water heaters but also help states craft more effective incentives for installing those systems./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-americans-want-more-emphasis-on-solar-wind-natural-gas.jpg" /pNo fewer than two in three Americans want the U.S. to put more emphasis on producing domestic energy using solar power (76%), wind (71%), and natural gas (65%). Far fewer want to emphasize the production of oil (46%) and the use of nuclear power (37%). Least favored is coal, with about one in three Americans wanting to prioritize its domestic production./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-recruiting-amidst-the-winds-of-change.jpg" /pWind power has seen dramatic growth in recent years and remains a highly topical and highly politicised sector. It plays an important role in Europe's economy, contributing to its gross domestic product (GDP) and job creation. Ernst Young, for example, estimates that for every €1 million invested in wind, twenty-one jobs are created./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-nrg-introducing-solar-with-battery-storage-for-homeowners.jpg" /pNRG Energy keeps making waves—in energy. The energy supplier, which owns gigawatts of electric generation, including solar, wind, natural gas and coal facilities across the U.S., recently started going a lot smaller, offering residential solar photovoltaic installations through its subsidiary, NRG Residential Solar. Now it plans to offer PV systems/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/9/body-renewables-provide-82-of-new-us-electrical-generating-capacity-in-1q2013.jpg" /pAccording to the latest "Energy Infrastructure Update" report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's Office of Energy Projects, renewable energy sources (i.e., biomass, geothermal, solar, water, wind) accounted for 82 percent of all new domestic electrical generating capacity installed in the first three months of 2013 for a total of 1,546 MW./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/8/body-solar-energy-for-and-by-the-people-mosaic-gets-100m-approval-for-california-investments.jpg" /pHow do we get to 100 percent clean energy? At Mosaic, we believe the fastest way is to allow more people to participate in building the clean energy economy.   In the video above, produced by Mosaic’s good friends at Green For All, we lay out our vision for a future of abundant clean energy, for and by the people. Mosaic has just been approved to o/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/8/body-back-to-basics-video-what-is-geothermal-energy-anyway.jpg" /pGeothermal energy is the Earth’s own renewable energy.  All other renewables and in fact, all other forms of energy, hinge on the sun: wind power, solar power, even fossil fuels wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the sun.  (And neither would we, of course.) If you are even slightly knowledgeable about geothermal energy, you probably understand that i/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/8/body-vestas-wind-power-showing-signs-of-a-strong-recovery.jpg" /pFor the past two years, Vestas Wind Systems has struggled. Last year the company announced it was cutting more than 3,000 jobs in order to try to stay solvent. An oversupply of wind turbines on the market forced turbine prices down over the past years. This plus uncertainty around the U.S. production tax credit, increased competition from Chinese companies and a tightening of the European renewable energy market have all added up to difficult times for the giant wind turbine manufacturer./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/4/body-new-survey-republican-voters-support-action-on-clean-energy-climate-change.jpg" /pThe Republican Party is not known for taking action on climate change, or even for acknowledging its existence. Republican voters across the country evidently do not feel the same way. A recently released national survey conducted by the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication and the Yale Project on Climate Change Communica/p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/4/body-market-trends-renewables-growth-shifting-from-europe-to-emerging-markets.jpg" /pTriodos Investment Management BV, an arm of Dutch lender Triodos Bank NV, plans a clean-energy fund focused on emerging markets as growth in the industry shifts away from Europe./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/4/body-100-percent-renewable-vision-building.jpg" /pIncreasingly countries and regions are leapfrogging timid renewable targets and moving toward full 100 percent integration of renewables into electricity supply. Some thought leaders, politicians, and advocates are moving even further, suggesting 150 percent, even 300 percent renewable electricity generation to meet not only electricity supply but also heat and transport./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/4/body-ten-clean-energy-stocks-for-2013-march-update.jpg" /pWhile the broad market of small stocks as measured by my benchmark the iShares Russell 2000 Index (IWM) managed to turn in a small 2% gain in March for the third month in a row, clean energy stocks repeated February's performance, giving back more of January's spectacular gains. My clean energy benchmark, the Powershares Wilderhill Clean Energy Index (PBW), declined 3.2% to end the quarter up 5.5% for the year, while IWM closed up 12.2% for the first quarter./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/4/body-rps-attacks-go-against-the-march-of-history.jpg" /pLast week in Phoenix, I watched the very conservative governor of Arizona, Jan Brewer, deliver a brief keynote speech to open the second day of the CleanTech Future conference put on by CleanTech Connections and the Arizona Commerce Authority. Nineteen floors above the impressive solar PV arrays at Arizona State University's downtown campus across the street, Brewer extolled the virtues of solar and other clean energy as a business boon for her state./p

img hspace="10" vspace="5" align="left" src="http://www.renewableenergyworld.com//assets/images/story/2013/4/3/body-energy-storage-series-why-we-need-it-and-why-we-dont.jpg" /pIt's almost a cliché that there's a "friendly debate" pitting utilities against renewable energy. But concerns on the utility side of the table are real: intermittency, potential destabilization at the feeder level, non-baseload, and peaks in generation that don't necessarily match demand peaks. Today's power infrastructure involves unpredictability in both supply and demand that is extremely difficult to manage. The choice comes down to two options: over-generate so as to not undersupply, or find ways to better match up supply and demand./p