“China invested almost twice as much in clean energy projects last year compared with the US, and has emerged as the world’s market leader in installed wind power capacity in 2009”. An impressive opening by the last issue of the Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Indices, released by Ernst & Young. The US, despite the increasing likelihood that the clean energy bill will not pass before the November mid-term elections and the lowest installed wind capacity last quarter since 2007, is placed as the second most attractive country in the world to invest in renewable energy.
On one side, two countries have experimented a two point increase in the index, India and UK, due to Government’s injection (US$ 1 billion) in the green economy by the former, and the government plans to launch a £2 billion “green investment bank” fund by the latter. On the other side, “Greece, Spain and Portugal have all suffered negative score changes due to worsening capital markets and a downward revision of sovereign credit ratings by Standard and Poor (S&P)”, stresses the report.
The report shows that China is now tied with America as the most attractive location in which to invest in renewable energy projects. The report looks at the "Shift to green" and challenges for renewable support mechanisms.
The Country Attractiveness Indices track the relative attractiveness of 27 countries’ renewable energy markets across a selection of technologies each quarter. The Ernst & Young index tracks and scores investment in renewable energy, all renewables, long-term on or off-shore solar photovoltaic, concentrated solar power, biomass, geothermal and infrastructure. Since 2003, the Ernst & Young Energy and Environmental Infrastructure Advisory team has been releasing quarterly data that ranks national renewable energy markets, and their suitability for individual technologies.
Via: EY
LikeSweden has for years been working to lower its dependence on fossil fuels for energy, while investing and developing renewable energies. Last week, the Enterprise and Energy Minister Maud Olofsson announced that 2,000 new wind turbines will be built during the next decade. This will help Sweden reach its goal of being supplied by renewable energies 50% by 2020.
The project to build 2,000 wind turbines is intended to add 10 terawatt hours (TWh) a year. One terawatt is one trillion watts.
"This would be the highest share in the world," Olofsson said. No other country has such a high share of renewable energies. Actually, Sweden is already one of the most advanced countries in terms of usage of renewable energy. “Renewable energy makes up 40 percent of our energy consumption”.
Oil accounts for one third of Sweden’s energy system. In the 70s, oil represented more than 70% of the total energy supply. Thanks to diversification of fuels and an increasingly efficient use of energy, this percentage keeps going down.
Nowadays, around half of the electricity comes from hydropower, and nuclear power also plays an important role.
Among the renewable energies that have been growing in Sweden are biomass and wind energy. Biomass is very much used for heating. In fact, bio-energy has been growing very much in the last decades. In the 80s, it accounted for around 10% of the total energy supply; in 2004 that share had risen to 16% or 100 TWh. Some of the biofuels used include wood fuels, black liquors and tall oil pitches, and ethanol.
An interesting tool which is used by the Swedish government is the green electricity certificate system. Energy suppliers need to have a quota of renewable energy. The goal of this Renewable electricity with green certificates Bill is to foster the development of renewable electricity production. There are established targets of renewable energy growth rates which help determine quotas. Renewable energy producers are given certificates for every MWh of electricity produced, which can be bought by electricity suppliers, who need to complete their quota obligation.
VIA: Treehugger
We’ve seen in a couple of previous posts how Denmark is making great progress in advancing towards a more sustainable future. Today we’ll analyze the case of Lolland, a Danish island that is combining wind power with fuel cells to come closer to a complete renewable energy system.
A consortium of nine companies called Dansk Microvarme is carrying out a 6-year project to develop the necessary technology and deploy it in the village of Vestenskov. The island generates 50% more wind power than it uses. The problem is that pure wind energy cannot be stored. So, when the wind doesn’t blow, there is a lack of energy, and the village might be forced to resort to fossil fuels. That’s when the idea of hydrogen and fuel cells comes in. The project being developed in Lolland consists of using excess wind power to obtain hydrogen, which is then used in fuel cells to generate electricity and heat.
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Last week, here in Sustentator, we summarized what the American Recovery & Reinvestment Act is doing to improve energy efficiency on a national scale. Today, we’ll look at the funds being destined to renewable energy research, development and deployment programs.
1) Community Renewable Energy Deployment
This project will on the whole receive $20.5 million. It includes five projects that will work to deploy renewable energy in different communities. To allow this, clean energy infrastructures will be developed, which will in turn create jobs, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and save consumers money. Among them is the project of the city of Montpelier, Vermont, where a cogeneration plant will be installed, and the University of California at Davis, that will develop a system to convert waste to energy.
2) Biomass
Through two main projects; Advanced biofuels research and fueling infrastructure and advanced biorefinery, the aim is to enhance the development of a clean and sustainable transportation sector. Among other things, selected projects will research algae-based and advanced biofuels. In so doing, dependence on foreign oil will decrease, while job creation will increase. Another important task which will be addressed is the development of compatible infrastructure. Further, biorefinery projects are expected to help foster a national biomass industry. The are of biomass energy will receive $644 million.
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It seems like a school project, or a game, too perfect to be real. Yet it does exist; Samso Island, in Denmark, uses nearly 100% renewable energy. In 1997, it won a competition launched by the Ministry of Energy of Denmark, in which participants had to design a plan to make a specific location energy independent, by using only renewable sources. Since then, the island has been investing and developing wind, biomass and solar energy.
The population being around 4,300, it is more feasible to achieve such a demanding goal there than in larger cities.
The main business sectors of the island are agriculture, followed by tourism. Thanks to the renewable energy projects, which brought about 57 million euros in investment, between 1998 and 2007, each year hundreds of jobs were created. In one year the equivalent to 20 years of employment.
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Microgeneration is the generation of zero or low carbon heat and power by individuals, small businesses and communities to meet their own needs. It includes small scale wind turbines, hydroelectric plants, photovoltaic solar systems and ground source heat pumps. It is very common to find photovoltaic systems and wind turbines together. While the first one doesn’t produce at night, the second one does. These two systems complement each other.
Compared to the traditional system of huge power plants connected to the consumption points by long power lines, these microgenerators can generate power at the same place of consumption. This avoids losses in transport and transformation points.
The fact that microgeneration is a recent development means that there are few specialists that know how to install the technology required.
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Being Walmart “the largest private employer and the largest grocery retailer in the US”, its impact on the environment is huge. It operates in several countries besides the US, such as Mexico, the UK, Japan, and India. It was founded in 1962, and it started to work on its environmental impact a few years ago.
Walmart has three main, very demanding goals. These are to be supplied 100% by renewable energy, to eliminate waste and to sell more sustainable products.
Regarding its first goal; using solely renewable energy, Walmart has been investing in both wind and solar power. The company has made a four-year purchase agreement with Duke Energy, a wind farm in Notrees, Texas. Since April 2009, Duke Energy is providing approximately 15% of Walmart’s total energy load in around 350 Texas stores and some other facilities.
Walmart is also looking to solar power to green its ways. Between 2009 and 2010 solar panels will be installed on 10 to 20 of its stores. 18 solar arrays are already in place. When all of the new panels are installed, solar power will provide between 20 and 30% of each location’s total energy needs.
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A small ISP (Internet Service Provider) and hosting company in Illinois has become the first data center operator to be powered entirely by wind energy. The company is called Other World Computing (OWC) and is located in Woodstock, Illinois. It has installed a wind turbine on its premises, that supplies all of its energy needs.
The turbine is 131 foot high and it can generate 500 kilowatts of power. Per year, it generates 1.2 million kW, more than twice what OWC needs. The surplus power will be sold to the local power provider. When the wind blows stronger, the wind turbine can produce in one week more energy than what OWC needs for a whole month. On the other hand, the company knows that the wind may not always blow; in those cases, energy is taken from the local provider.
When wind power is transformed into energy, the energy goes to the company’s metering device; OWC uses the amount it needs, and the rest is sold to the local provider.
Further, the company’s facility was rated LEED Platinum. LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) is a rating system that provides a set of standards for environmental construction. Also, thanks to its different green initiatives, OWC was ranked N 9 on a list of green-IT vendors, by computerworld, in 2008.
The turbine was designed to function and produce energy at low speeds, given that the area’s average wind speed is of 10-15 mph. Even at 9 mph, the turbine can generate power.
The whole installation of the turbine cost $1.25 million, an investment that OWC expects to recover within 10-14 years. This period can be reduced considering the rising energy costs.
VIA: DataCenterKnowledge
Some cities wait for legislation to be passed before starting to evolve to a more sustainable way of functioning. And some others lead the way, and I dare say they will even be an inspiration for those future laws I keenly await for.
One of the latter is Malmo, a city located in the south of Sweden, with a population of about 280,000 people. Malmo has set itself the target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 25% between 2008 and 2012. By 2030, the city plans to run entirely on renewable energies. To achieve this, different measures are being applied.
To start with, sustainable transport is being promoted. Public transportation is being fostered, as well as car-pooling, a more eco-friendly way of driving, and more sustainable cars and buses. Regarding buses, these are connected to traffic lights, so as to get green lights faster than cars, and they have separate lanes. 42% of them run on biogas created from the city’s waste.
Eco-driving is taught to municipal employees; it is also offered in several driving schools, and it has been spread to some of the largest truck companies.
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Lake Arenal is located in the mid-north of Costa Rica. This great lake is the principal source of energy of the country by using hydro power and wind power generation. Around the lake, you can find hotels, restaurants and homes that want to develop in a sustainable way in order to keep the spectacular environment that surrounds them. This is where the project of sustainable urbanization project is being developed.
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