One thing that is to be admired, however, is the creative use of language through which Cape Town has framed these local regulations. For a start, the scheme is most definitely not a feed-in tariff....
“These latest statistics show that the FiT solar PV market is seeing healthy growth with plenty of solar going up on domestic and commercial roofs as well as small solar farms,” comments David...
Auctions may invoke strategic behaviour of market players which can drive up costs. Market players will also try to exercise market power. Large market actors may have a favoured position over their...
Dr Tobias Bischof-Niemz says "An approach seems advisable in which small and medium renewables projects get a fixed tariff in form of a standard offer (a feed-in tariff), for which the tariff level...
The solar, wind, and geothermal resources of the state of California are the people’s resource, and they should have a right to develop and own it. Today they are denied that opportunity....[more]
Big energy firms such as Total, Iberdrola, E.On and Enel have together adopted a dominant position in trade bodies such as the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) and European Photovoltaic...
A country report published by IRENA finds that the United States could have 27 percent renewable energy (not just electricity!) by 2030, up from 7.5 percent in 2010 – and much higher than the 10...
In comparison to its European neighbors, France has fallen off the renewable energy bandwagon, according to the most recent report by Bernard Chabot. In 2014 wind produced 3.6% and solar PV only 1.3%...[more]
That means Samso actually generates more power from renewable sources than it consumes over all. Attached by a power cable to the mainland 11 miles away, the island sells its excess electricity to...
And in most of the energy companies, the majority stakeholder is the state. “This is not a democratic system where people can take control,” says Krzyszkowska. On the other hand, “community energy...
In September 2001, a wind turbine started its operation in Hamatombetsu, the northern part of Hokkaido. The wind turbine is called “Hamakaze-chan”[1], whose name was given by local elementary school...
Tehachapi’s Windmill-Wildflower Hike is one of the longest-running such events anywhere in the world. Nearly a thousand people, from children to octogenarians, have taken the six-mile walk across...[more]
In 2014, Danish wind turbines supplied what corresponds to 39.1% of Danes’ electricity consumption. This is a new record. As in the previous five years, more power was covered by land-based wind...
For the turbine in question, consumption was around 0.1% of total generation – so next time you see a story telling you that turbines are drawing power from the grid- stop and ask: “how much,...
Ok, it wasn’t quite mail order. Most of the transaction was done over the phone and via email, but we bought a car, an Electric Vehicle (EV), in a very untraditional manner.[more]
We’ve been driving our 2015 Nissan Leaf for two months now and it was time to take it on a road trip—a short one, mind you, but one long enough to test our range anxiety. We set out Monday morning to...[more]
Electric Vehicles (EVs) are different from the cars we’re accustomed to. They use electricity stored in the traction batteries to power the vehicle. They don’t use gasoline or diesel fuel. As a...[more]
Bob’s a techy and a serious car guy. He knows cars and likes to drive them fast--very fast.[more]
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a notice providing new performance and quality standards that require certification of small wind turbines in order to qualify for the 30% federal...
Wind into the Grid by Günther Hacker is an E-book in English about his experience trying to use a small wind turbine for his home in Germany.[more]
An E-book by Günther Hacker in German is ideal for home wind experiments. Science teachers with a modicum of German will find it a font of simple wind devices that can be made from craft materials.[more]
Many power grids around the world are already transitioning to high shares of renewables. The cases of Germany, California, and Denmark are among the leading examples. Germany has already reached a...
In other words, since 2006 we have witnessed a stabilization of Germany’s impressively reliable grid even as some 35 gigawatts of solar and 35 gigawatts of wind were installed on a grid with peak...
This is what feed-in tariffs do, fundamentally, by setting a fixed price for wind production which is high enough to reassure producers on their initial investment, and low enough to provide a hedge...
We recently looked at Zooshare, an early-stage biogas cooperative selling bonds to get its facilities up and running to sell energy into the Ontario grid. Today, we're going to look at a Toronto...
Various legislative efforts have been made to encourage investors to make investments in power plants using renewable energy resources. The most important of these efforts has been the feed-in tariff...
This makes the UK only the sixth country to have more than 5GW capacity. Germany remains the undisputed leader with more than 36GW. China, Japan, Italy and the US each have more than 10GW installed.
The government will revise the current feed-in tariff system, which requires power companies to purchase electricity generated by solar power and other renewable energy sources at fixed prices, to...
However, the relaxation of regulations on natural parks by the Ministry of the Environment in March 2012 and the start of a national feed-in tariff scheme in July of the same year triggered...
However, developers say a lot of the uncertainty around geothermal in the U.S., and part of the reason it hasn’t grown much in recent years, is due to the unreliable nature of the Production Tax...
