Preview Newsletter
Rockefeller Smart Power India Media Monitoring 8/14/2017
-
Foreign Solar Firms Gain Unexpected Support in Tariff Fight
Aug 13, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Erin Ailworth
This article discusses the global solar energy market, and how growth of the industry in China and India might hedge the U.S. out of the field. While this is bad news for the United States, it is good news for India. -
This Simple Box Serves Up Running Water And Clean Electricity In Remote Locations
Aug 11, 2017 | Fast Company
By Ben Schiller
This article discusses a new renewable energy technology that is providing power and clean water to communities in Africa. -
India's Wild Energy Trends Raise Doubts Over Coal's Future
Aug 9, 2017 | Associated Press
By Katy Daigle
This article discusses the coal industry in India and its expected decline as solar and wind capacity increase. This reporter is a good media contact to have for future reference.
Global News
-
Foreign Solar Firms Gain Unexpected Support in Tariff Fight
Aug 13, 2017 | Wall Street Journal
By Erin Ailworth
A fight is brewing over possible trade protections for U.S. solar equipment and is uniting disparate groups, including green-energy advocates and conservative free-trade policy organizations.
The U.S. International Trade Commission this week will hear initial arguments, for and against, a petition filed by bankrupt solar-panel maker Suniva Inc. to levy a 40-cent per watt tariff on imported solar cells, the piece of equipment that converts sunlight into electricity. The company has also asked the ITC for a minimum price of 78 cents a watt, including the 40-cent tariff, on solar panels made by foreign manufacturers.
The ITC will make a final recommendation to the Trump administration by November.
Without that help, “we will be extinct,” said Matt Card, Suniva’s executive vice president of commercial operations. “I would like nothing more than to compete on a level playing field.”
A glut of low-cost solar panels—mainly manufactured in Asia—have pushed prices down in recent years. The phenomenon has hurt Suniva, which filed for chapter 11 protection in April and closed two manufacturing facilities in Michigan and Georgia. But low-cost Asian imports have been a boon for U.S. solar installers, helping spur the adoption of rooftop solar panels, according to the trade group Solar Energy Industries Association, or SEIA.
A bipartisan group of 16 senators and 53 congressmen sent letters on Friday to the ITC urging it reject any new tariffs. “Increasing costs will stop solar growth dead in its tracks,” the Senate letter said.
Suniva and its co-petitioner, SolarWorld Americas Inc., say that the tariff would boost domestic manufacturers and force overseas rivals to move plants to the U.S., potentially creating more than 100,000 new jobs across the industry. “Unless we want to give away renewable energy to China, now is the time to take a stand,” said Tim Brightbill, a lawyer representing SolarWorld.
By SEIA’s estimate, taxing imported solar cells would result in more expensive solar equipment, thereby hurting demand for renewable energy and causing the sector to shed 88,000 jobs nationwide—or one-third of the current U.S. solar-industry workforce. “We think it is too blunt an instrument to use, especially in this case,” said Abigail Ross Hopper, chief executive of SEIA.
The American Legislative Exchange Council, which advocates for free markets, and other conservative policy groups, including the Heritage Foundation, are supporting the coalition’s efforts to thwart a new tariff. “The government should not be expected to bail out a few companies that just couldn’t compete,” said Sarah Hunt, director of ALEC’s Center for Innovation and Technology.
Suniva, which is majority-owned by a company based in Hong Kong, and SolarWorld, whose German parent filed for insolvency earlier this year, both blame their financial troubles on Asian manufacturers dumping cheap solar panels into the market. A report issued earlier this month by staff at the International Trade Commission said nearly 30 U.S. solar-production facilities have been closed since 2012.
In the past five years, the total cost to install solar systems has fallen nearly 70%, even before federal subsidies are factored in, according to SEIA.
Home solar installations have taken off in states from California to Massachusetts, with 7.4 gigawatts of residential solar capacity in the U.S. in 2016, more than double the capacity that existed in 2014, federal data show.
Utility companies, cities and big corporate users have also started to boost efforts to build large solar farms. In 2016, 72% of solar capacity installed in the U.S. was utility-scale, according to SEIA. Those projects would suffer the most from a new tariff on foreign-made solar cells because of their thin profit margins, said Hugh Bromley, an analyst with Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/foreign-solar-firms-gain-unexpected-support-in-tariff-fight-1502629200
-
This Simple Box Serves Up Running Water And Clean Electricity In Remote Locations
Aug 11, 2017 | Fast Company
By Ben Schiller
But Cecchini, who is Italian, doesn’t feel the startup is yet at a point where it can ramp up sales and production, and get itself on stable financial footing. Selling one unit at a time isn’t particularly profitable (including after-sales) and it doesn’t get enough Off Grid Boxes out there in the world. “We’re looking for the next system to scale,” he says. “The idea came three years ago and, yeah, we’re kind of struggling to make it bigger. Back in Italy, it’s not easy to find the right financing strategy, mentors, and accelerator programs.”Off Grid Box was recently selected for the 2017 cohort of the Mass Challenge accelerator program, in Boston, where Cecchini will hone a new business model. Instead of selling units to cool guys and NGOs, it now plans to install them where they are needed and then charge end-customers for access. For a few cents a day, people will able access clean water and clean power at a station continually attended by local people. “The new model is pay-as-you-go micro-payments, local contractors, and local empowerment,” Cecchini says.
The new business model is getting a thorough test in Rwanda, where the startup plans to install units in 18 villages. The government has commissioned 14 contractors to work on rural electrification, and Off Grid Box is partnered with three of them so far, Cecchini says. By 2020, it hopes to be serving 420,000 end-customers.
“The new model is pay-as-you-go micro-payments, local contractors, and local empowerment.” [Image: Off Grid Box]Inside the container is a five-stage micro-filtration tank that takes in dirty water and produces an odorless, transparent, bacteria-free drinkable water, Cecchini says. A family of four pays 12 U.S. cents (100 Rwandan Francs) to fill up with enough water for the day. At the same time, each unit has solar panels sufficient to allow 300 families battery packs subsidized by the startup. These hold enough power to run three LED lights for four hours and to charge two mobile phones.
While in the U.S., Cecchini is signing up impact investors and donors, who can monitor their projects remotely and online. Each installation costs about $15,000–which comes out of a joint financing pool. He thinks the units can generate 10% profitability and that there will be further revenue opportunities to grow the business in the future. Ideally, the boxes will become community hubs, with Wi-Fi and associated commercial activity. “Once we add connectivity and we have people attending all day, we have a strong financial business model. The Wi-Fi opens up services that could be backed by venture capital.”
https://www.fastcompany.com/40449777/this-simple-box-serves-up-running-water-and-clean-electricity-in-remote-locations
-
India's Wild Energy Trends Raise Doubts Over Coal's Future
Aug 9, 2017 | Associated Press
By Katy Daigle
Within the wild energy market of the world's second-most populous nation, predictions are proving tricky. India had been projected to become a carbon-belching behemoth, fueled by thermal power plants demanding ever more coal for decades to come.
Now, some analysts are saying that may not happen.
In the last two years, coal consumption has slowed to its lowest level in two decades, even with the economy growing at a steamy 7 percent annual pace. Thermal power plants have been running below full capacity for years and as of June were operating at only 57 percent of total capacity, the lowest level ever.
India is the world's third-largest carbon emitter and relies on coal-fired power plants to produce most of its energy. With a population of 1.3 billion and a fast-industrializing economy, those energy needs had been forecast to soar. So signs that the country's appetite for burning more coal may be close to sated would be welcome news, given fears of a looming escalation in climate-warming carbon emissions.
"India's future coal demand could actually be near flat," said Tim Buckley, the Asia energy finance director for the Cleveland-based Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "The technology-driven changes are happening faster than predicted."
A similar correction is under way in China, where officials and analysts have had to walk back earlier predictions that its annual coal needs would peak in 2030. Instead, the International Energy Agency says China's coal use - and emissions - topped out in 2013.
The rate of increase in coal consumption in India is now the slowest it's been since 2000, apart from an anomalous 1 percent rate of growth in 2011. Last year, it dropped to 1.5 percent from the decade's average of 6 percent. This year, it's slightly higher at 2.8 percent.
The slowdown is expected to continue, partly due to manufacturing output dropping to 7.9 percent in fiscal 2016-17, after an average of 9 percent for 2004-08 and a high of 12.3 percent in 2006-07.
But there are other important factors at play, including fast progress in adding renewable energy capacity and new measures to improve energy efficiency.
Buckley lays out a scenario where India's coal consumption might come close to peaking within the next decade, if not sooner. It assumes GDP growth would remain around 7 percent, with growth in electricity demand steady at 6 percent due to slow growth in manufacturing, low profitability of power distribution, and political obstacles to raising rates and ending consumers' electricity subsidies.
Energy Minister Piyush Goyal has pledged to reduce grid transmission losses by going after leakage and theft. Reducing those losses from 24 percent today to 15 percent within a decade, would mean an improvement of about 1 percent each year - meaning India would need just 5 percent more electricity to meet the 6 percent annual pace of growth in demand, if that were the only mitigating factor.
But thanks to plunging costs for solar and wind energy, and high enthusiasm for hydropower, renewable energy generating capacity is expanding by 20 GW a year, toward a goal of 175 GW by 2022. Buckley calculates that could cut annual growth in coal demand further down to as little as 2.5 percent.
By washing coal before it's burned, India's power plants now burn less to produce the same amount of power. India is also now policing rail shipments more rigorously to reduce coal theft. And new plants are required to use so-called supercritical technology that further raises the efficiency of coal burned while also reducing pollution.
Thanks to such efficiency boosting measures, the amount of coal needed to deliver a 6 percent rate of growth in electricity demand will drop even further, and may be near flat, Buckley says.
Other analysts agree the trends are encouraging.
"Energy efficiency in India is moving much faster than anybody thought," said Ajay Mathur, director of The Energy and Research Institute in New Delhi.
So far, India's government and industry officials have said little about these trends. For years, the country argued in global climate talks that it should have the unfettered right to expand its coal power generation to aid its development and raise hundreds of millions of people out of poverty.
"It's a simple matter of not wanting to close those options," said Ashish Fernandez, a coal industry analyst for Greenpeace. "Power companies don't want to jump the gun and abandon coal because they want options. But if you look at investments, almost none of them are talking about building coal-fired power plants."
"The writing is on the wall. We could be looking at peak coal in India within five to 10 years," he said.
India's coal mining giant Coal India Ltd. is already worried. Last month, it hired KPMG to draft a roadmap for its future growth beyond 2030.
The Indian coal sector is at a "cross-roads today," the tender document says. "While it has performed well in the last several years, the potential for performance of the sector needs to be assessed in light of multiple changes in the energy sector."
The company's former chairman, Partha Bhattacharyya, told an energy workshop last month in Singapore that Coal India should be working on finding alternative uses for its coal as demand from the power sector wanes. He noted China is coal to make fertilizers and methanol, and South Africa to make oil and chemicals.
Current forecasts by the International Energy Agency and other analysts say India's coal consumption will climb by 4-5 percent a year through 2030.
The country has only ever used at most 160GW of its 190GW of coal-fired generating capacity, and given current trends, there is no need for any more coal plants for at least 10 years, the government says.
But it plans to continue with 50 GW worth of projects already underway, while retiring some 34 GW in old, heavily polluting plants.
In those 10 years, improved battery technology that would enable weather- and time-dependent solar and wind power to serve as round-the-clock power sources could help reduce coal use further, according to Mathur, of The Energy and Research Institute.
Battery prices have already fallen by two-thirds, he said. If they drop by another 50 percent in the next decade, solar power with battery storage will be cheaper than coal-fired power.
"I've got my fingers, my toes, everything is crossed" for that to happen, Mathur said. "I believe that it will."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_INDIA_PEAK_COAL_ASOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-08-09-02-05-35
Global News
Add recipients
Suggested