wind

Despite plunging oil prices, 2014 was a formidable year for renewables, according to two reports released in early 2015. According to the “Global Trends in Renewable Energy Investment 2015”—the annual report prepared by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the Frankfurt School-UNEP Collaborating Centre for Climate & Sustainable Energy Finance, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance—energy investments […]

Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz lauded the wind industry’s immense growth since 2008 at the American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA’s) WINDPOWER 2015 Conference and Exhibition in Orlando, Fla., but he cautioned that more was needed for a long-term low-carbon future.  “Wind generation has more than tripled in the U.S. in just six years, exceeding 4.5% of […]

Bills to eliminate incentives that have accelerated the expansion of wind power found momentum in Texas and Oklahoma last week.  Texas Moves to Nix RPS, CREZ The Texas Senate on April 14 approved, by a 21–10 vote, legislation that would end the state’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and its Competitive Renewable Energy Zone (CREZ) program. […]

A Gallup poll completed last month found that only 32% of adults in the U.S. worry a “great deal” about global warming or climate change, while 45% worry “only a little” or “not at all.” The survey was taken via telephone interviews conducted during the first week of March using a random sample of 1,025 […]

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released 2015 scheduled capacity additions and retirements on Mar. 10, and the news was not good for the coal industry. As has been the trend for several years, coal-fired generation accounts for the majority of expected retirements (12.9 GW of the nearly 16 GW total). However, most of the […]

The U.S. Census Bureau released data on Nov. 18 showing that revenues for electric power generation industries that use renewable energy resources grew 49% from 2007 to 2012, while fossil fuel electric power generation industry revenues decreased 6.7% during the same time period. Fossil fuel revenues continued to dwarf renewable totals, bringing in $79.7 billion […]

Fourteen members of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—including the U.S., China, the European Union (EU), and Japan—on Tuesday launched negotiations to eliminate tariffs or custom duties on wind turbines, solar products, and other environmental goods.  The first phase of negotiations between the 14 WTO members, which make up 86% of the global environmental goods trade, […]

The first offshore wind project proposed in federal waters off the West Coast garnered approval from the Department of Interior (DOI) on Wednesday to submit a formal construction plan. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) gave Principle Power the green light to submit a formal plan to build a 30-MW pilot project that will […]

The controversial federal production tax credit (PTC) bestowed on new wind farms of $0.023/kWh for the first 10 years of their operation expired on Tuesday, but the impact of that policy lapse isn’t immediately clear. Originally enacted in 1992, the federal renewable electricity PTC has been renewed and expanded numerous times—most recently by the American […]

America is blessed with long coastlines and relatively deep waters. But ironically, this has been a disadvantage to the U.S. offshore wind industry. Compared to more than 1,000 turbines that are already