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Study charts course to 100% renewables by 2050
Sep 21, 2015 | PV-Tech
By Ben Willis
A world entirely powered by renewable energy is achievable by 2050 and is a scenario that is becomingly increasingly essential to prevent runaway climate change, a Greenpeace study has claimed. -
This U.S. Lab Just Agreed To Help China Use Even More Renewable Energy
Sep 18, 2015 | Think Progress
By Samantha Page
Leaders from U.S. and Chinese cities, along with Vice President Joe Biden and a special representative from China, gathered in Los Angeles this week to announce new commitments and targets for meeting carbon emission goals. Unsurprisingly, the event didn’t warrant a mention in Wednesday’s debate, where candidates only denounced diplomacy with China. -
Vice President Joe Biden wows crowd at SPI
Sep 21, 2015 | PV Magazine
By Edgar Meza
Biden unveiled a new White House grant program aimed at scaling up clean energy in 24 states across the country, targeting greater access to solar energy in rural and low-income neighborhoods and supporting efforts to reduce solar costs. -
PV module revenues set to peak in 2016 before next slowdown - IHS
Sep 21, 2015 | PV-Tech
By Ben Willis
PV module manufacturers are expected to see record revenues next year as the recovery for the industry that has been gathering pace in the last 18 months reaches its peak, according to IHS. -
85% of British power can be via renewables by 2030, says Greenpeace
Sep 20, 2015 | The Guardian
By Terry Macalister
Britain can produce 85% of its power via renewable energy by 2030 provided it undergoes significant changes in energy production and use, according to a new study by Greenpeace. -
Chile approaches 600MW of PV capacity
Sep 21, 2015 | PV-Tech
By Tom Kenning
Chile had 597MW of operational solar PV capacity at the end of August, up 46MW in the two months since the end of June when operational capacity stood at 553MW.
Industry News
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Study charts course to 100% renewables by 2050
Sep 21, 2015 | PV-Tech
By Ben Willis
A world entirely powered by renewable energy is achievable by 2050 and is a scenario that is becomingly increasingly essential to prevent runaway climate change, a Greenpeace study has claimed.
The latest in the environmental body’s ‘Energy [R]evolution’ series of reports, which it has published since 2005, contains for the first time a 100% renewable energy scenario.
The report said the shift in aspiration reflected in the report over the potential penetration of renewables worldwide was a consequence of the dramatic process made by in recent years by clean energy technologies, in particular solar and wind.
“Dynamic change is taking place in the energy sector. Renewable energies have become mainstream in most countries, and prices have fallen dramatically,” the report said.
“The report shows we could transform our energy supply, switching to renewables, which would mean a stabilisation of global CO2 emissions by 2020, and bringing down emissions towards near zero emissions in 2050.”
But for that ambition to be realised, a number of actions are required, the report said.
First and foremost is the agreement of a strong, legally binding emissions reduction target at the COP21 climate talks in Paris at the end of 2015. “The Paris climate agreement must deliver a long term vision for phasing out coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy by mid-century,” Greenpeace said.
Despite the big advances, led by solar and wind, in decarbonising power generation, the study said the big challenges would be in phasing out fossil fuel use in heating and transportation, particularly transportation.
On this, the Greenpeace study said a “technical revolution” was needed, meaning more R&D, particularly in aviation and shipping.
“But planes and ships could be powered using biofuels, hydrogen and synthetic fuels produced using electricity. So electricity demand will go up, but it will be generated with renewable energy,” the report said.
The report acknowledged the investment costs for the switch to 100% renewables would be huge – around US$1 trillion a year. But because reenewables need no fuel, it said the savings would be greater – US$1.07 trillion a year; eventually the costs of the transition would be met in full by the fuel cost savings, with a “cross-over” in this equation happening between 2025 and 2030.
“There are no major economic or technical barriers to moving towards 100% renewable energy by 2050. It just requires the political will to make the change,” the report concluded.
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This U.S. Lab Just Agreed To Help China Use Even More Renewable Energy
Sep 18, 2015 | Think Progress
By Samantha Page
Leaders from U.S. and Chinese cities, along with Vice President Joe Biden and a special representative from China, gathered in Los Angeles this week to announce new commitments and targets for meeting carbon emission goals. Unsurprisingly, the event didn’t warrant a mention in Wednesday’s debate, where candidates only denounced diplomacy with China.
The new targets are part of the bigger U.S.-China partnership on climate, which Republican leaders have ridiculed for not requiring action from China. But one announcement made at the U.S.-China Climate-Smart/Low-Carbon Cities Summit points to real, tangible declines in China’s emissions, while offering U.S. scientists an opportunity to study the world’s biggest electrical grid. They are planning massive deployments, especially of solar and wind
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a Department of Energy project, will be working with China’s Energy Research Institute, part of State Grid of China, the largest utility in the world and seventh on the Fortune Global 500 list, to study and improve China’s electricity grid.
The partnership grew out of a Chinese initiative, after State Grid’s chairman approached NREL last year to kick off the relationship, John Barnett, manager of NREL’s International Program, told ThinkProgress.
“The head of this enormous utility is thinking beyond the present,” Barnett said. “The air quality issues in China — and many other countries — have gotten more and more attention, and there is pressure on the utility to design a progression to a less polluting grid.”
That means decreasing China’s use of coal, and increasing its use of renewables. “They are planning massive deployments, especially of solar and wind,” Barnett said.
NREL’s agreement with State Grid focuses on three key areas, Barnett said: power system planning and operation support, energy systems integration, and market design. On the U.S. side, the research lab will have access to huge amounts of data as China changes how its electricity is produced, transmitted, and used.
China is the largest global emitter of greenhouse gases, and a large portion comes from burning coal for electricity. For reference, an 8 percent reduction in coal use over the first four months of the year resulted in a nearly 5 percent drop in the country’s overall carbon emissions — equal to the total amount emitted in Great Britain over the same time period.
The sheer scale of the electricity grid in China offers unique opportunities, for deployment of green technologies and for research. One Chinese solar company predicts that China will install 17.8 gigawatts (GW) of solar capacity this year. The United States just passed the 20 GW milestone for all installations.
This growth is possible because China has roughly 1.3 billion people — all of whom have access to electricity, according to the World Bank.
“China has enormous deployment of renewables,” Barnett said. Data on what works and what doesn’t will help inform U.S. policymakers as renewable energy deployment increases here. The United States gets about 7 percent of its electricity from renewable resources such as wind and solar.
“At present, this seems like a good opportunity to work with this enormous utility that says it wants to greatly reduce its carbon emissions, which we see as in our national interests and global interests,” Barnett said.
Addressing climate change has been a key priority for the Obama administration, both at home and abroad. The recently released Clean Power Plan, which limits acceptable amounts of carbon emitted from power plants, is one way the administration is seeking to reduce the country’s carbon footprint and meet its international commitments, especially in the lead up to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris in December. If China — and, say, India — don’t succeed in transitioning to clean energy, their carbon emissions will swamp whatever everyone else does
Naysayers, including Republican congressional leadership and presidential candidates, contend that American action will not only have negative economic impacts, but also that it is fruitless without action from other countries. While the economic impacts of the Clean Power Plan and other mechanisms deployed to reduce carbon are highly debatable, it is certainly true that, as a worldwide issue, other major carbon emitters need to reduce their impact to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.
“If you look at global carbon emissions, if China — and, say, India — don’t succeed in transitioning to clean energy, their carbon emissions will swamp whatever everyone else does,” Barnett said.
But, it seems, China is making significant steps forward. Last December, presidents Xi and Obama announced a climate pledge, which calls for the United States to reduce emissions by 26 to 28 percent below its 2005 level in 2025 and for China to a peak CO2 emissions by or before 2030 and get 20 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2030. In 2014, China’s carbon emissions went down for the first time in history.
“The biggest chunk [of reduction] was in the power sector,” David Sandalow, a fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University and a former official at the Department of Energy, told ThinkProgress. “The power sector is — ballpark — 70 percent coal or 80 percent coal, and coal use has been declining.”
In addition to huge investments in wind, solar, and transmission, half of the nuclear plants under construction in the world are in China, he said.
But while research and deployment projects bode well for China’s transition to renewable energy, it’s unclear how far the partnership will reach. State Grid’s chairman is pushing for a globally integrated grid — but security issues might stand in the way of that (admittedly, far-off) plan.
“One potential constraint on the U.S. and Chinese cooperation with respect to smart grid technology is cyber security issues,” Sandalow said. “The cyber security issue has become one of the biggest, if not the biggest, tension in the bilateral relationship between the U.S. and China.”
Obama is expected to address cyber security issues when Xi visits Washington, D.C. later this month.
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Vice President Joe Biden wows crowd at SPI
Sep 21, 2015 | PV Magazine
By Edgar Meza
Biden unveiled a new White House grant program aimed at scaling up clean energy in 24 states across the country, targeting greater access to solar energy in rural and low-income neighborhoods and supporting efforts to reduce solar costs.
Vice President Joe Biden praised the U.S. solar industry in a powerful speech at last week’s Solar Power International trade show in Anaheim, California.
Speaking to a crowd of several thousand at the Anaheim Convention Center on Sept. 16, Biden said since he and President Barack Obama took office and put the solar investment tax credit (ITC) in place from 2008 through 2016, solar power had increased 20-fold, grown jobs 86% to 174,000 and expected to reach 210,000 jobs by the end of 2015.
The vice president also announced a $120 million competitive grant program to further support solar energy development and use.
“Just imagine how much more we can do. How many jobs, imagine how many fewer cases of premature death, heart attack, childhood asthma, imagine the net savings to consumers and taxpayers,” Biden exclaimed. “Folks, because of you, we are on the cusp of something huge here.”
The new grant program is aimed at scaling up clean energy in 24 states across the country, targeting greater access to solar energy in rural and low-income neighborhoods and supporting efforts to reduce solar costs.
The United States solar industry continues to grow dramatically, surpassing 20 GW of total operational solar PV capacity during the second quarter of this year. According to GTM Research and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) Q2 2015 U.S. Solar Market Insight Report, the U.S. installed 1,393 MW of PV last quarter, signaling both annual and quarterly growth.
Last year, the solar industry added jobs 10 times faster than the rest of the economy and solar represented 40% of all new electric generating capacity brought online in the first half of 2015. Since the beginning of 2010, the average cost of a solar electric system has dropped by 50%, according to the White House.
“It's within reach,” said Biden, adding that the successful growth of solar energy in the U.S. is a tribute to the marketplace. “This isn’t a government mandate. This is the market working.”
The vice president added, “If we stay at it, we can make it faster and more affordable for Americans to choose cleaner and more affordable energy.”
Biden reiterated his support for the ITC extension and argued against the current $5 billion annual tax credit to the oil industry.
“Anybody having a problem getting oil out of the ground today? They don’t need that tax credit.”
Biden pointed out that half the amount of the oil tax credit would cover the solar tax credit extension.
Biden's attendance at SPI marked the the first time a sitting vice president delivered remarks at a solar power conference in North America.
"Vice President Biden addressing Solar Power International shows just how far we've grown as an industry,” said SEIA President and CEO Rhone Resch.
Following his speech at SPI, Biden attended the U.S.-China Climate Leaders Summit in Los Angeles.
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PV module revenues set to peak in 2016 before next slowdown - IHS
Sep 21, 2015 | PV-Tech
By Ben Willis
PV module manufacturers are expected to see record revenues next year as the recovery for the industry that has been gathering pace in the last 18 months reaches its peak, according to IHS.
Figures from the market research firm’s PV Module Intelligence Service indicate that module revenues will hit a record US$41.9 billion in 2016, exceeding the previous record set in 2010 by 4%.
Strong demand in a number of markets, a stable pricing environment and a fresh wave of new capacity expansions have all created favourable conditions for module manufacturers after several years of intesnse competition, IHS said.
In the final quarter of 2015, module shipments are expected to rise 29% year over year to 18.7GW in the quarter.
That growth is expected to continue into 2016, when total module shipments are expected to exceed those seen in 2015 by 10%, according to IHS.
“Compared to prior years, this period of strong growth in solar installation demand, coupled with tight supply, will support relatively robust pricing,” said Edurne Zoco, senior principal analyst for IHS Technology. “In fact average annual prices are forecast to decline significantly less than in previous years.”
But after 2016, PV’s growth trajectory looks less positive, with a slowdown in global demand for modules expected, and a consequential drop in module prices of around 9%. IHS said one of the factors contributing to this scenario is the likely decline in the US market in 2017 if the reduction in the federal investment tax credit goes ahead as planned at the start of that year.
“This year and next year will mark a climax in the recovery of the solar PV sector, after a period of intense price reductions and margin compression, when average gross margins fell into the mid single digits or lower,” Zoco said.
“Even so, the predicted slowdown in global demand in 2017 – on the back of a decline in the United States – is likely to challenge these suppliers once again, since manufacturing capacity additions are set to dangerously outpace industry demand. Competition will intensify, which will lead to accelerating declines in prices and gross margins, for the first time since 2012.”
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85% of British power can be via renewables by 2030, says Greenpeace
Sep 20, 2015 | The Guardian
By Terry Macalister
Britain can produce 85% of its power via renewable energy by 2030 provided it undergoes significant changes in energy production and use, according to a new study by Greenpeace.
The study attempts to counter the argument that only fossil fuels and nuclear power can keep the lights on for the next few decades. It foresees wind leaping from today’s level of 13 gigawatts (GW) of wind farms in operation – enough to power around 10 million homes – to a level of 77GW in 2030, with solar rising from just more than 5GW to 28GW.
However, the renewables drive would need to be accompanied by a 60% reduction in demand for domestic heating through a home insulation programme and other initiatives, according to the report by energy system analysts, Demand Energy Equality.
“For a long time the government and the fossil fuel industry have peddled the argument that renewables can’t keep the lights on if the wind’s not blowing. This hasn’t been based on evidence, but out of date instincts seemingly from staring out the window to see how windy it is,” said Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace.
“For the first time, we have the evidence showing it is possible to keep the power system working and decarbonise the electricity system. We need to go for renewable energy with the help of new smart technology and reducing demand for power too.
“It is hugely ambitious but definitely doable, and it will take the same kind of enthusiasm and financial support from government, normally the sole preserve of the nuclear and fossil fuel industries.”
The plan, which would require a major change in government policies, envisages fossil fuels playing a role via combined gas-fired heat and power projects. Many homes and buildings would also need to move away from gas-fired boilers to their own ground source heat pumps or an electricity source.
The report is published in the run up to the UN-sponsored climate change talks in Paris and at a time when the Conservative government has axed a series of green subsidy schemes to wind and solar on the grounds of cost.
The feasability of decarbonising the UK’s power generation system, which was dependent for a long time on carbon-heavy coal, has long been argued over. Few believe that carbon dioxide can be eliminated entirely from energy production, or at least in the short term.
In 2014, around 30% of UK electricity was generated by coal-fired power plants, 30% by gas, 19% by nuclear and around the same amount by renewables, according to the Department of Energy and Climate Change.
The new analysis shows a low-carbon energy sector is possible but only if our relationship with energy changes at the national, household and personal level.
There would have to be a huge increase in building efficiency and in the use of smart meters, so that demand could be dialled down when needed.
The cost of the transformation programme is not spelled out, but the Greenpeace report notes that a similar study done in 2011 by Poyry consultants for the parliamentary climate change committee produced a price tag of between £126bn and £227bn to achieve 65% renewable penetration by 2030.
Wind would play the greatest role in energy production in the new low carbon world envisaged by Greenpeace. The 55GW of offshore wind and 22GW of onshore wind would require a significant increase in investment.
The wind lobby group RenewableUK said there was no reason why more wind farms should not be built. “There is no technical or logistical barrier to the UK installing up to 55GW by 2030, but it needs political will – a supportive policy framework from government, especially sufficient financial support allocated in the offshore wind pot,” said a spokesman.
David Infield, a professor of electrical engineering at University of Strathclyde, who had read the Greenpeace report, said it was a serious document that deserved attention.
“This is a useful report dealing with the complex issue of absorbing high penetrations of renewable power generation in line with achieving challenging reductions in carbon emissions,” he said.
The big difference is that the energy department’s forecasts are based on what it believes is feasible under certain circumstances by 2050, rather than the 2030 time period used by Greenpeace. This makes a huge difference in mobilising capital and undertaking the work necessary.
The Greenpeace study has ruled out nuclear because of the financial and environmental cost of building new plants, such as Hinkley Point C, and dealing with the legacy of their waste. Equally, carbon capture technology – where carbon dioxide is stored underground as soon as it is emitted – has been excluded as it is deemed an unproven method.
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Chile approaches 600MW of PV capacity
Sep 21, 2015 | PV-Tech
By Tom Kenning
Chile had 597MW of operational solar PV capacity at the end of August, up 46MW in the two months since the end of June when operational capacity stood at 553MW.
Figures from Chile's renewable energy research institute Centro para la Innovación y Fomento de las Energías Sustentables (CIFES) reported that there are also 2.1GW under construction, up from 1.84GW at the end of June.
There are 9.8GW of solar PV approved with environmental qualification, but not yet being built. Meanwhile there are 3.7GW of PV projects in qualifying stages.
Chile also has of 110MW Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) under construction.
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