Renewables

The political impasse stalling investments in renewables in Australia was breached in mid-May after lawmakers reached an agreement to revise the renewable energy target (RET). After months of intense wrangling, the Coalition and Labor parties struck a deal to cut the RET to 33,000 GWh from the current 41,000 GWh. That figure is far more […]

For decades, renewable energy sources—primarily wind and solar—have been touted as the answer to continued reliance on fossil fuels. The technology has substantially improved, reducing unit costs, and state-imposed requirements have increased demand, enabling increased production to be sustainable. This expansion has come with the recognition that it also has environmental consequences. Wind farms threaten […]

Despite its apparent environmental benefits and strong government backing, generating power from landfill gas hasn’t gained traction for a variety of reasons in the U.S. Will the Clean Power Plan bolster this “dirty” renewable power source?  For the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the only clean thing about landfills—those engineered dumps that entomb America’s infinite […]

Beacon Power to Supply Flywheels for Hybrid Alaska Energy Storage Project. Beacon Power on May 26 said it will supply flywheels for a hybrid energy storage project in Anchorage, Alaska, as part of an agreement

Australian firm Carnegie Wave Energy, operator of the Perth Wave Energy Project—the world’s first commercial-scale, grid-connected wave energy array—is on target to take its CETO technology to the next stage with a four-fold improvement on a dollar-per-MW basis, CEO Greg Allen said. The Perth Wave Energy Project employs three 10-meter-diameter buoys that generate about 5% […]

At least 25 of the European Union’s (EU’s) 28 member nations are on track to meet renewable energy targets, putting the bloc well on its way to meet its legally binding target of producing 20% of its energy with renewables by 2020, a new report shows.  The European Commission’s (EC’s) 2015 report released on June […]

Oregon-based utility and Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary PacifiCorp filed plans this month to shut down nearly 3 GW of its coal generation by 2033 as it moves toward greater integration with the California energy market. PacifiCorp’s 2015 Integrated Resource Plan (IRP), which it has filed with regulators in Oregon, Washington, California, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho, contains […]

At the annual Power-Gen Europe Conference held in Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven called for greater leadership as Europe tackles de-carbonization, distributed energy, and market integration. She began her presentation by highlighting one of the biggest changes to Europe’s power markets: The May 20 decision to […]

In contrast to the bitter partisanship that has paralyzed Congress for the past few years—especially with respect to energy policy—the Obama administration’s first Quadrennial Energy Review (QER) received a mostly warm welcome from House GOP members, who echoed its concerns with the state of the nation’s energy infrastructure during a hearing on June 2. “Many […]

This interview with Dr. Fatih Birol, Chief Economist, Director of Global Energy Economics and Executive Director (starting September 2015), International Energy Agency (IEA) was conducted by Global Business Reports in May 2015. It has been edited for style and length and is a web-only supplement to the sponsored report “Power in Turkey” appearing in the […]