Renewable Energy:  Week in Review

As the weeks go by, tabulating the most interesting renewable energy news and stories is becoming almost overwhelming.  So much going in all over the world that it is very hard to keep up.  This is actually very heartwarming.  Activity means progress!  Despite the differing opinions between developed  and emerging countries (i.e. American footprint versus emerging countries wanting more), it is nice to see that almost all countries are very pro-active in their renewable energy efforts. 

The following are highlights for the week June 15-21, 2009 in renewable energy.

Technology

Renewable Energy’s Gridlock Problem
...hurdles facing renewable energy, transmission usually gets the most attention...everybody agreed transmission was the key to renewable-energy development...

The Next Solar Frontier: Distributed Inverter Architecture
...advocates of distributed architecture say that the central inverter has two primary shortcomings... the weakest panel in each string eliminates the benefits of better functioning panels...

Renewable Energy Used to Make Drinking Water From Air Humidity
...The saline solution then gets sucked up into an elevated tank by a vacuum. Solar energy heats the solution, which is thinned by the water it has absorbed...

High-Altitude Winds Hold Sky-High Promise for Meeting Electricity Needs
...You’ve heard of commercial wind turbines in farm fields, offshore turbines on the water, even small wind turbines on the rooftops of homes, but high-altitude winds are also being studied as a potential energy source...

Using solar power for making ice
(India) ...students of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, have undertaken an experimental project to make ice using solar power...

Trends

Positive News for Minnesota Wind Energy Industry
...The prospect of renewable energy from wind holds great possibility for Minnesotans, especially in terms of economic benefits from locally-generated wind profits and job creation...

Europe Looks to Africa for Solar Power
... European project known as Desertec ... aims to harvest the sun’s energy — using a method known as concentrating solar power, or C.S.P. — from the vast North African desert and deliver it as electricity, via high-voltage transmission lines, to markets in Europe....

As wind power grows, a push to tear down dams
...rise of wind farms in the Pacific Northwest is seen by some as an opportunity to help save the wild salmon, by removing dams that have impeded their spawning...

Electric Power Monthly
.... Conventional hydroelectric power provided 6.5 percent of the total, while other renewables (biomass, geothermal, solar, and wind) and other miscellaneous energy sources generated the remaining 3.9 percent of electric power ...

Government and Legislation

Air Force Seeking Biomass Plant on Texas Base
..The Air Force is seeking proposals from private contractors to fund, design, construct, operate, and maintain the biomass energy plant.  Feedstocks will be municipal solid waste and/or biomass...

Government Requests for Solar Systems
...Numerous federal agencies are actively seeking services and materials related to solar power...

General Services Adminstration Requests Proposals for Renewable Energy Certificates
...U.S. General Services Administration ("GSA") has issued a request for proposal for renewable energy certificates ("RECs") for GSA Regions and other federal agencies...

Net-Zero Energy Commercial Building
...Department of Energy ("DOE") expects to establish net-zero energy performance for all U.S. commercial buildings by 2050. DOE  has issued a funding opportunity announcement...

Nebraska Passes Legislation Governing Wind Leases
...legislature recently passed a bill amending existing state law governing wind easements, wind options, or wind leases or lease options entered into in the state for the purpose of wind energy development...

Taiwan enacts renewable energy law
...passed the Renewable Energy Development Statute, covering renewable energies including solar, biomass, geothermal, oceanic, wind, hydraulic and hydrogen. The statute will come into force as soon as November 2009...


Senate Committee Approves Broad Energy Package
...Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee voted 15-8 to approve a sweeping energy bill today after months of work, sending the measure to the Senate floor...

Anger as green energy Bill on backburner
(Australia) POWER generation companies yesterday slammed the shelving of the expanded Renewable Energy Target Bill until at least August...

Government To Guarantee Loans For Nuclear Power Plants
...The U.S. Energy Department is planning to award $18.5 billion in loan guarantees for the construction of new nuclear power plants to four utilities...

Wind power pushed
...Massachusetts is searching for every blustery nook and cranny it can find, from the tops of former dumps to a vast military reservation, as it whips up its push for wind energy production...

Clever Financing Gets California Back On Track
...California ... implementing a tax-credit bond program specifically designed to fund renewable energy projects...

Renewable energy use to be made mandatory for SEZs
(New Delhi)...The government is considering a regulation to make use of renewable energy mandatory for special economic zones (SEZ) to save on traditional fuel like coal and diesel...

Business

Satcon Selected for Largest Solar Energy Rooftop Installation in the Southeast United States
Satcon ... has installed four 250 kilowatt (kW) PowerGate® Plus inverters at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC), the largest solar rooftop installation in the southeast

UK firm invests P5.6B in biomass plants
...UK-firm Global Green Power will invest more than 5 billion pesos in building three biomass power plants in Panay, Nueva Ecija and Pangasinan...

Yingli Green Energy Secures Sales Contracts in China Market
...Yingli Green Energy has signed an off-grid PV system sales agreement with the Shanxi subsidiary of China Mobile...

AEP Adds Solar to Renewable Portfolio
...American Electric Power.... has signed a long-term power purchase agreement to purchase all the output of a 10.08-megawatt (MW) solar energy facility to be built in Ohio...

European Airport Group Pledges to Cut CO2 to Zero
...Airport Carbon Accreditation scheme covers about 26 percent of passenger traffic in Europe and includes some of Europe's biggest airports, including Frankfurt, Athens, Dublin, Amsterdam's Schiphol, Italy's Milan Malpensa and Orly in Paris...

Opinion

Why Renewable Energy Certificates Are Not Offsets MAINTAINING CARBONMARKET INTEGRITY
Such commodities include GHG offset credits (offsets), and Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)1, among others...How these environmental commodities are defined and treated has important consequences...

Renewable Energy Could Contribute to U.S. Electricity Needs, Yet Challenges Remain 

...Renewable energy resources...significant portion of the nation's electricity needs... low CO2-emitting sources for generating electricity will call for enhanced technologies, increased deployment, financial investments...

Efficiency, renewable energy better bets than gambling anew on nuclear power
...a consortium of 25 publicly owned Washington electric utilities — is asking its members to pay for additional research for a proposed nuclear plant that it says could be under construction in 2014...

The Economics of Renewable Energy
($5 fee)  ...Without new storage technologies that can overcome this intermittency, much of the decarbonization of the economy will have to come from nuclear, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and energy efficiency...

Gov. Strickland: Nuclear Energy is NOT Green Energy
...nuclear power plants can't compete in the free market. No insurance company would insure a nuke plant. The Price-Anderson Act makes the government the insurer of nuclear power plants which is a gigantic welfare check...

Solar rebate plan too successful for own good
(Australia)...The Government clearly did not anticipate the spike in demand that prompted it to prematurely terminate direct rebates...