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Global News

Energy Department Closes Office Working on Climate Change Abroad
Jun 15, 2017 | New York Times
By Brad Plumer

Trump closes Office of International Climate and Technology. Global implications.
A Plan to Tackle a Changing Climate
Apr 12, 2017 | Huffington Post
By John Roome

The World Bank's plan following the Paris Agreement.
Nev. Restored Net Metering. Is it a National Model?
Jun 16, 2017 | E&E Climatewire
By Benjamin Storrow

Nevada restores net metering. Paves way for integration of solar energy into national grid.

India News

Solar: The Catalyst for Economic Growth and Improved Health in the World’s Most Rural Locations
Jan 7, 2016 | Huffington Post
By Cathy Zoi

Need for solar energy growth in India.
India Ranks Fourth Globally in Wind Power Installation: Economic Survey
Jan 31, 2017 | Economic Times
By PTI

Growth of wind power in India.

Global News

Energy Department Closes Office Working on Climate Change Abroad

Jun 15, 2017 | New York Times

By Brad Plumer

The Energy Department is closing an office that works with other countries to develop clean energy technology, another sign of the Trump administration’s retreat on climate-related activities after its withdrawal from the Paris agreement this month.
The 11 staff members of the Office of International Climate and Technology were told this month that their positions were being eliminated, according to current and former agency employees. The office was formed in 2010 to help the United States provide technical advice to other nations seeking to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The small office also played a lead role preparing for the annual Clean Energy Ministerial, a forum in which the United States, China, India and other countries shared insights on how best to promote energy efficiency, electric vehicles and other solutions to climate change.
Word of the closing came right before Rick Perry, the energy secretary, attended the latest Clean Energy Ministerial meeting in Beijing on June 6 to 8, agency employees said.
The Energy Department did not respond to a request for comment.
In May, President Trump released a budget for 2018 proposing the “elimination of climate change initiatives” within the Energy Department, including the international climate office. While the budget will require congressional approval, Mr. Perry has authority to reorganize parts of the Energy Department before lawmakers decide on spending levels.
The office is the only one in the Energy Department to have “climate” as part of its name.
The Trump administration has scaled back the federal government’s involvement on global warming on a number of fronts, scrubbing mentions of “climate change” from a variety of agency websites and unwinding climate regulations at the Environmental Protection Agency.
Closing the Office of International Climate and Technology could make cooperation on clean energy with other countries much harder, said Graham Pugh, who headed the office from 2011 to 2014. While both the State and Energy Departments still have separate programs to engage with China, Brazil and other countries, the office being eliminated specialized in applying the agency’s technical expertise to other nations’ efforts to advance clean energy projects.
The office played an important role, for instance, in helping India develop its own lighting efficiency standards and start a program to purchase LED lamps in bulk for consumers. “That program will lead to massive savings in terms of avoided carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution,” said Jonathan Elkind, who was an assistant secretary for the Energy Department’s Office of International Affairs during the Obama administration.
“Unfortunately there is an incredible dissonance between the declared interest of this administration to continue to lead on clean energy, and their actions,” Mr. Elkind said.Graphic: How 2016 Became Earth’s Hottest Year on Record
Scott Pruitt, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, said a day after President Trump announced the withdrawal from the Paris accord that the United States would continue to engage with other nations on climate change by sharing clean energy technology.
“We need to export the technology and natural gas to those around the globe, India and China, and help them learn from us on what we’ve done to achieve good outcomes,” he said.
It is possible that other ongoing technology-sharing initiatives spearheaded by the Energy Department, like collaboration with China to develop carbon capture for its coal plants, will survive. But Mr. Pugh said the shutdown of this office made it far less likely that new opportunities for cooperation on energy technology would emerge.
The annual Clean Energy Ministerial will continue, as the previous energy secretary, Ernest J. Moniz, transferred responsibility for leading that forum to a new secretariat housed within the International Energy Agency headquarters last July.
Other changes to the Energy Department being contemplated by the Trump administration, like sweeping reductions in spending on research into renewable energy, nuclear power and carbon capture, will still require approval by Congress. Even some Republican lawmakers have expressed opposition to those proposed cuts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/15/climate/energy-department-closes-office-working-on-climate-change-abroad.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fclimate

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A Plan to Tackle a Changing Climate

Apr 12, 2017 | Huffington Post

By John Roome

When the rains came to Senegal’s capital and largest city, Dakar, in 2009, the people in Cite de Soleil were up to their chests in water. Even today you can still see the water marks on the walls. People who live there today still talk of the stench, the diarrhea, and the chest ailments suffered by the children.
Travel along the coast and the impact of increased erosion on tourism spots is all too evident. Go inland and you see people having to cope with significant droughts and shorter growing seasons. It’s all too evident that people, particularly poor people, are already suffering the effects of weather-induced stresses.
And looking forward, the climate models suggest that this will only get worse with more extreme rainfall likely in Dakar, stronger coastal erosion, reduced fishing opportunities, and more extreme drought conditions inland.
Senegal is trying to tackle these issues, often with the help of the World Bank. One project is putting in place infrastructure to help manage the floods. It seems to be paying off. People say that when the rains came in 2014, the water washed away quickly. They were able to return to their neighborhoods and reinvest in housing. An agricultural project is helping people use new varieties of seeds with a shorter growing season.
These examples illustrate the importance for people and countries for more action to help them adapt to a changing climate. And it’s experiences like these that influenced the thinking behind the World Bank Group’s new Climate Action Plan, with its emphasis on rebalancing our work, with a greater focus on the need to build up the resilience of people and countries to adapt to a changing climate.
At its heart, it’s an action plan that’s intended to help the 140 developing countries who work with the World Bank Group deliver on their ambitious promises in the historic Paris agreement reached last December on climate change. As part of the Paris process, countries committed to implement their national plans, known as NDCs - Nationally Determined Contributions - to put help curb global warming.
Soon leaders will gather in New York to formally sign the agreement. The agreement’s main aim is to keep the global temperature rise well below two degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit the temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
To reach those goals, we know we must bend the curve of emissions. That’s why in our action plan, we’ve laid out a target to help developing countries add 30 gigawatts of renewable energy over the next five years- enough to power 150 million homes - to the developing world’s energy capacity.
And it’s why we’re aiming to invest US$1 billion to promote energy efficiency and resilient building in cities responsible for two-thirds of the world’s energy consumption. We will also work with over 30 cities to come up with lower carbon city plans to help deal with the influx of people to urban areas.
We all know that such changes will require massive amounts of private sector investment. That’s why we’re aiming to mobilize $25 billion more in commercial financing for clean energy over the next five years. It’s also why IFC, our private sector arm plans to increase its climate financing by 50 percent to $3.5 billion per year by 2020 and why it plans to increase its mobilization of private finance to $13 billion a year by 2020. And it’s why too, we’ll continue to help countries to axe damaging fossil fuel subsidies and put a meaningful price on carbon pollution, which has the potential to redirect trillions of dollars of investment into a cleaner greener future.
But between now and when the Paris agreement comes into force in 2020, it will be vital to do more - as the experiences of Senegal illustrate - to help developing countries adapt to the changing climatic conditions impacting so many people.
We know if we don’t act, climate change threatens to drive 100 million more people into poverty in the next 15 years. We have to boost people’s resilience so they can cope with the changing climate. And with natural disasters on the rise, we’ve recognized the need to do more.
We’re working for universal access to early warning systems. So by 2020, the goal is to provide 100 million more people in 15 developing countries access to early warning systems. We’re also expanding sovereign risk disaster financing and aim to provide 50 million more people with social protection to better to cope when disaster strikes.
We’ll be developing tools to help cities become more resilient, piloting a new approach in 15 cities by 2020 integrating a number of elements such as infrastructure development and investment, land use planning, and disaster risk management. And we’ve set a target to quadruple funding over five years to make transport systems more resilient to climate change.
But as we all know, and our plan recognizes, we can’t overlook one of the most basics of human needs - food. With a changing climate, we need climate smart agricultural systems. We’ll be developing investment plans for at least 40 countries by 2020. We’ll be working to boost high efficiency and low energy use irrigation schemes to help farmers grow crops and also help spur greater use of hybrid crops that can withstand different climate patterns in the future. We will also work to restore degraded lands, to protect communities in at-risk deltas and coastal zones, and support investments in forests in ways that both provide livelihoods to poor people and protect valuable carbon sinks.
Climate-smart land use can not only put more money in the pockets of farmers, but can also increase food production. More than one billion people on the planet are now undernourished, and the world needs to produce at least 50 percent more food by 2050, in tougher climatic conditions. So our ability to feed the world’s future population depends on us all becoming climate smart.
To get the kinds of impact we all aspire to, will need action at scale. So as well as our own increased climate financing, we will work to help governments not only translate their own ambitious national plans into reality but also build climate resilience into their overall policy-making, planning and budgeting systems. And we will be collaborating even more with other partners to increase our impact.
It’s a tough and ambitious agenda, but we know that without such action now, we will not be able to deliver on our ambition to eliminate extreme poverty and increased shared prosperity. We owe it to the children in Senegal and elsewhere around the world.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-roome/a-plan-to-tackle-a-changi_b_9663740.html

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Nev. Restored Net Metering. Is it a National Model?

Jun 16, 2017 | E&E Climatewire

By Benjamin Storrow

The unlikely scene that unfolded in Las Vegas yesterday looked like this: There was Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican, seated before a table resembling a solar panel, ready to sign a bill restoring net metering in Nevada.
Tesla Inc.'s red logo highlighted the scene. It was attached to a warehouse wall, serving as a backdrop. Nearby, a crowd of solar advocates, environmentalists and state lawmakers looked on.
"I believe, humbly, it will be a national model across the country," the governor told the crowd. "I'm as competitive as it gets, and I want Nevada to truly be a leader in energy policy."
The gathering followed an 18-month roller-coaster ride that kicked net metering out of the state, leading to an exodus of solar installers. In response, there was a legislative blitz by renewable energy advocates in Carson City, the state capital. Lawmakers sent 11 green-shaded bills to the governor's desk for approval.
In the midst of all that action, voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to deregulate the state's power market.
The question now is: Can Nevada serve as a model for how to integrate rooftop solar into the grid, less than two years since it all but banned the practice?
The early returns are promising for the solar industry.
Tesla, Sunrun Inc. and Vivint Solar Inc., all national installers, have said they intend to resume work in the Silver State. Speaking at the bill signing yesterday, Tesla Chief Technology Officer J.B. Straubel said the company is already stocking shelves with new panels, hiring staff and preparing to resume operations. He estimated that the company has a backlog of more than 1,000 customers interested in installing panels on their homes.
"This is not something that is going to take days, weeks, months," Straubel said.
Such a scene would have been difficult to imagine in December 2015 when the Public Utilities Commission voted to end net metering — as the credits paid to panel-owning homeowners for power sent back to the grid are called.
Solar advocates and former regulators say the turnaround provides a series of lessons for greens and state officials as they attempt to integrate a growing amount of renewables onto the grid.
First, advocates focused on the economic benefits delivered by the industry.
Solar installers slashed more than 2,600 jobs in the wake of the PUC's decision, as residential solar installations ground to a halt. Campaigners in Carson City made job creation a central plank in their campaign to restore net metering. The push showed in the final legislative tally (the bill passed unanimously in the state Senate and with two votes against it in the General Assembly). It was also evident in Sandoval's remarks yesterday.
Having a governor who is inclined to advocate for renewables helped. Sandoval expressed displeasure with the PUC's ruling against net metering at the time. But his focus on jobs was telling. In his remarks, the governor cited the economic boost of major solar installers returning to the state, saying, "This is hundreds, if not thousands, of jobs."
Second, solar advocates focused on consumer choice.
They stressed that homeowners should be presented with the opportunity to go solar. Consumers, they argued, should be free to choose an option that can help reduce their monthly electric bills.
Finally, promoting a local resource to create jobs resonated with lawmakers, said Assemblyman Chris Brooks, a Democrat who once owned a rooftop solar firm and spearheaded the clean energy push in Carson City. Solar is that local resource. Nevada lacks a coal, oil or natural gas industry.
"A lot of folks would say, and you would be surprised, 'Las Vegas has so much sun; why aren't we putting solar on every roof in Nevada?'" Brooks said. "People across the state, from many different demographics, many different socio-economic situations, all said, 'Why don't we use more solar?'"
The final bill establishes a gradually declining reimbursement rate for solar owners as more homeowners install panels. Consumers in the first 80 megawatts of newly installed capacity will receive 95 percent of the retail rate of electricity for surplus power sent back to the grid.
That rate will fall with every additional 80 MW of residential solar installed, eventually settling at a rate of 75 percent. The bill also contains provisions guaranteeing consumers' right to energy storage, along with measures addressing workplace safety and consumer protection.
Rebecca Wagner, a former PUC commissioner who stepped down shortly before the contentious 2015 vote, said the law represents a logical compromise in a debate often dominated by hyperbole.
Rooftop solar was never likely to lead to a "utility death spiral," as its detractors often argued. At the same time, she said, the final bill acknowledges the cost associated with increasing the number of homeowners generating their own power and sending it back to the grid.
"Today is very significant with the governor signing the net-metering bill," Wagner said. "I've never seen this sort of progress in my 20 years in energy policy in Nevada."
Her advice to state regulators grappling with similar issues elsewhere: Listen to consumers.
"People feel strongly about clean energy and access to clean energy. I don't think that's ginned up. I think it's real," Wagner said. "You're always concerned about rates for everyone else. There is a path forward, a measured approach."
But questions still remain.
NV Energy Inc., the state's incumbent utility, has largely stayed out of the legislative debate. The utility had argued in the past that net metering represents a cost shift, transferring more of the grid's costs to non-solar-owning customers. A spokeswoman for NV Energy said yesterday that the utility is crafting a new rate for solar owners, as the legislation requires. She declined to comment further.
It remains unclear if Sandoval will sign two other measures that would boost the industry, including a proposal to increase the state's renewable portfolio standard to 40 percent by 2030 and a community solar bill. The governor faces a deadline today for making a decision on both.
A larger question, perhaps, concerns the fate of Nevada's power market. A second vote in 2018 will be needed to confirm last November's result, which saw voters overwhelmingly back deregulation of the state's power market at the polls.
"To me, if you're trying to achieve an outcome through policy like advancing renewables or storage, it's easier under a traditional regulatory mechanism," Wagner said.
But that's a question for the future. After two years of near-constant debate, most were just content to celebrate yesterday.
"I'm really excited," Wagner said.
https://www.eenews.net/climatewire/2017/06/16/stories/1060056148

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India News

Solar: The Catalyst for Economic Growth and Improved Health in the World’s Most Rural Locations

Jan 7, 2016 | Huffington Post

By Cathy Zoi

Late last year my colleagues and I visited a remote village in rural Rajasthan, India. We were greeted by village leaders offering fresh flower garland necklaces while a joyous collection of enthusiastic, young boys beat drums and tins of all sizes in the background. Following a few moments of warm “Namastes,” we were escorted up the path to a terrace adjacent to the village’s central building where we participated in a town hall meeting. To discuss what? Bringing electricity for the first time to this community of 400 families.
Solar is the solution. Solar panels are the fastest-to-deploy, most cost-effective and cleanest electricity option available to bring electricity to villages like this one and provide essential, basic services, including clean water, pumps, light, refrigeration, and connectivity. To many of us in developed countries, the simple concept of light is taken for granted. Flip a switch, right? In many parts of the developing world there are no “switches” - to get light, you must burn diesel or kerosene, both of which produce harmful emissions. In fact, kerosene lamps lead to 1.5 million deaths per year - more than five times the annual malaria deaths. Simply replacing those kerosene lamps with solar-powered lamps would save more lives than eliminating malaria.
My company, SunEdison Frontier Power, is in the business of building solar-powered mini-grids in villages like this one. We design, construct and operate rural utilities that offer communities light, water pumping, phone charging, refrigeration, connectivity and other modern amenities. Children can study at night. Water can be purified. Medicines and food can be kept cold. Businesses can expand their operating hours. While this has terrific community benefits, both in terms of human health and the economy, it isn’t charity. The villagers and local businesses - in this case a flour mill and several shops - pay us for the power they consume. And at the town hall meeting in Rajasthan that day, there was overwhelming support for doing just that: the town agreed that the solar-powered mini-grid should be built. We will be starting construction early next year.
Access to non-polluting electricity in the developing world is mission-critical for enabling health and preventing disease, as well as in facilitating commerce. Over 1.3 billion peopleare completely without power; another billion have electricity for just a few hours a day. The economic upshot is clear: a recent International Monetary Fund report names “severe” electricity shortages as a significant contributor to Sub-Saharan Africa’s reduced economic growth. The sooner the developing world gains greater access to cost-effective clean energy, the quicker these issues will be alleviated. And it all starts with solar power.
In many remote areas, solar power is now more cost effective than diesel or kerosene. With solar now cheaper than kerosene, we can eradicate kerosene lamp deaths and remove the health impacts of burning fuel inside and around homes. By offering cost-effective electricity we can deliver other essential services and catalyze the growth of local economies - without waiting for power plants and transmission lines to be built. It takes only a few months to power a village with a solar mini-grid, whereas extending the electrical grid frequently takes several years.
Just as remote areas leapfrogged wire phone lines for mobile phones, solar can leapfrog the old way of providing electricity by skipping the capital-intensive, centralized power plants and long-distance transmission infrastructure. Solar has been used for decades, often paired with batteries, for a range of remote applications, from telephone stations on mountain tops to villagers requiring water pumping. Today a local solar mini-grid can help provide reliable internet services as well, supporting businesses, clinics, schools and families.
As a global society it is in our collective best interest for the developing world to “develop” in a way that is economically and environmentally sustainable. We want to improve health, build economies and save lives. We want to do this as fast, effectively and cheaply as possible. Looking at the numbers, these objectives add up to solar as an answer. As countries continue to work through the best ways to address climate change, we are hopeful that they realize that reducing greenhouse gas emissions needn’t mean stifling growth or compromising health in developing economies. The opposite is true. Reducing carbon, improving health, enabling commerce and securing access to clean energy are not mutually exclusive; they are in fact, inextricably intertwined.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cathy-zoi/solar-the-catalyst-for-economic-growth_b_8919532.html

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India Ranks Fourth Globally in Wind Power Installation: Economic Survey

Jan 31, 2017 | Economic Times

By PTI

India has attained the fourth position globally in installed wind power capacity after China, US and Germany as a result of various steps in the "right" direction, the Economic Survey said today.
With the legal framework in place for the International Solar Alliance (ISA), the brainchild of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and launched during the UN climate summit in Paris, ISA will be a "major" international body headquartered in India, it added.
"As a result of various actions in the right direction, India attained 4th position in global wind power installed capacity after China, USA and Germany," it said.
It said that currently, India's renewable energy sector is undergoing transformation with a target of 175 GW of renewable energy capacity to be reached by 2022.
In order to achieve the target, the major programmes on implementation of Solar Park, Solar Defence Scheme, Solar scheme for Central Public Sector Undertakings, Solar photovoltaic (SPV) power plants on canal bank and canal tops, solar pump, solar rooftop among others have been launched in recent years.
"A capacity addition of 14.30 GW of renewable energy has been reported during the last two and half years under Grid Connected Renewable Power, which include 5.8 GW from Solar Power, 7.04 GW from Wind Power, 0.53 GW from Small Hydro Power and 0.93 GW from Biopower," it said.
As on October 31, 2016, India achieved 46.3 GW gridinteractive power capacity, 7.5 GW of gridconnected power generation capacity in renewable energy, and small hydro power capacity of 4.3 GW.
In addition, 92,305 solar pumps were installed and Rs 38,000 crore worth of Green Energy Corridor is being set up to ensure evacuation of renewable energy.
With India's initiative, ISA envisaged as a coalition of solar resourcerich countries to address their special energy needs, will provide a platform to collaborate on addressing the identified gaps through a common and agreed approach.
"24 countries have signed the Framework Agreement of ISA after it was opened for signature on November 15, 2016. ISA is expected to become intergovernmental treatybased organization that will be registered under Article 102 of the UN charter after 15 countries ratify the Agreement.
"With legal framework in place, ISA will be a major international body headquartered in India," it said.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/india-unlimited/24x7-power/india-ranks-fourth-globally-in-wind-power-installation-economic-survey/articleshow/57253151.cms

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