At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai in 2023, nearly 200 countries committed to tripling global renewable energy capacity – measured as the maximum generating capacity of sources like wind, solar and hydro – by 2030, in an effort to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

According to figures published on Thursday by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), renewables are the fastest-growing source of power worldwide, with new global renewable capacity in 2023 representing a record 14% increase from 2022.

But IRENA’s analysis found that even if renewables continue to be deployed at the current rate over the next seven years, the world will fall 13.5% short of the target to triple renewables to 11.2 terawatts.

A higher annual growth rate of at least 16.4% is required to reach the 2030 goal, IRENA said.

Renewable electricity generation by energy source

Chart courtesy of IRENA

IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera warned against complacency. “Renewables must grow at higher speed and scale,” he said in a statement, calling for concrete policy action and a massive mobilisation of finance.

The United Arab Emirates’ COP28 President Sultan Al-Jaber called the report “a wake-up call for the entire world” and urged countries to add strong national energy targets to their updated national climate action plans (NDCs) due by early next year.

Geographical disparities

Bruce Douglas, CEO of the Global Renewables Alliance, a coalition of private-sector organisations working on renewable technologies, highlighted imbalances in the global picture of record renewables deployment.

“We shouldn’t be celebrating,” he said. “This growth is nowhere near enough and it’s not in the right places.

Africa saw only incremental growth of 3.5% in new renewables capacity last year compared with around 9% growth in Asia and North America, and 12% growth in South America.

And despite those higher increases in Asia and South America, data released last month by international policy group REN21 shows that less than 18% of renewables capacity added in 2023 was in Asia (excluding China), South America, Africa and the Middle East, despite these regions collectively representing nearly two-thirds of the global population.

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Slow growth in Africa is failing to live up to the huge potential for renewables on the continent, whose leaders last year pledged to scale up renewables more than five-fold by 2030, to 300 gigawatts.

“The justice piece is huge and too often overlooked,” Douglas said, adding that finance is “by far” the biggest challenge to getting renewables off the ground in the Global South.

Africa, for example, has received less than 2% of global investments in renewable energy over the past twenty years, according to IRENA.

“That’s not acceptable in terms of an equitable transition,” Douglas said, noting that when countries miss out on renewables financing, they are also missing out on the development benefits, jobs creation and improved access to affordable energy that clean energy can bring.

Finance not flowing

The scarcity of financing for renewables in developing countries is in large part due to investors being put off by the high borrowing costs and risk profiles of many such markets, Douglas said.

William Brent, chief marketing officer at Husk Power Systems, which installs and runs solar micro-grids in rural communities in Nigeria and Tanzania, explained: “Most sources of big capital in the West seem largely uninterested in Africa.”

“Despite being home to some of the fastest growing economies in the world, Africa is perceived as having a much higher risk profile and returns that cannot match the Americas, Asia or Europe,” Brent said.

New South African government fuels optimism for faster energy transition

Sonia Dunlop, CEO of the Global Solar Council, a body that represents the solar industry, told Climate Home that financial incentives provided by the public sector could help de-risk renewables projects for private investors.

“We need to get MDBs (multilateral development banks) leaning into big renewables projects and taking on some of the risk, which can then attract private finance,” she said, adding that governments in all countries must also play their part in creating policy environments that support and incentivise investment.

Grids and permitting barriers

Grids and permitting for renewables projects also pose major practical challenges, particularly in developed countries.

According to REN21, the potential renewable capacity that is ‘stuck’ waiting to be connected to grids around the world is equivalent to three times the amount of wind and solar power installed in 2023.

For Dunlop, the solution to grid congestion is more storage – batteries for short-term storage and other technologies for longer-term storage, such as storing electricity as heat or pumping water uphill that can then be released to produce hydroelectricity.

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Complex planning processes can also mean it takes longer to get planning permission for projects, such as wind farms, than it does to build them – if they even get approval at all.

For Douglas, something as simple as hiring more staff to process project applications in grid and planning authorities could begin to unlock thousands of gigawatts of renewable power.

Energy efficiency overlooked

Although renewables are growing faster than any other energy source, companies and governments are boosting investments in fossil fuels at the same time.

The use of fossil fuels for electricity generation continues to grow, while renewables only provide 6.3% of the energy required for heat, which is mainly used in buildings and industrial operations.

Electricity generation by energy source

Chart courtesy of IRENA

“We are not moving fast enough to fully meet the staggering rise in energy demand, let alone replace existing fossil fuels,” said REN21 Executive Director Rana Adib in a statement on the group’s recent statistics.

Another – neglected – solution is energy efficiency, experts said. The Global Renewables Alliance is running a ‘double down, triple up’ campaign, which calls on countries not only to triple renewables by 2030, but also to double the rate of improvement in energy efficiency, to reduce emissions and help stem energy demand – another goal countries signed up to at COP28.

“We absolutely need that doubling of energy efficiency as well,” said Dunlop. “That isn’t discussed enough.”

(Reporting by Daisy Clague; editing by Megan Rowling)

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“Overcapacity”, a geeky economic term, has recently become the new buzzword for international discussion around China’s solar and electric vehicle industries. It is also becoming one of the thorniest issues in China’s relations with other major economies.

Notably, the word was mentioned five times in the G7 Leaders Communiqué released last week, with the G7 countries framing it collectively as a global challenge.

It is a debate that was initially sparked by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her April visit to Beijing. According to her, China’s cleantech industry has excess capacities that cannot be absorbed domestically, leading to exports at depressed prices. And she stressed that this should be a concern not only for the US, but also for Europe and other emerging markets.

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China strongly disagreed with this claim, while Yellen’s concern resonated in the EU, which has long focused on China’s market dominance. In short, there is an overcapacity of “overcapacities”, with neither side finding identical terms of reference. But as this debate is a harbinger of how climate solutions and political agendas will interweave, it’s worth parsing out some lessons for each side, on their own terms.

The US’ “overcapacity” claim as presented by Yellen is a non-starter in China.

China’s clean energy industry is an important point of pride internationally and a source of legitimacy domestically for Beijing. From that perspective countering the “overcapacity” claim is both emotionally and strategically important.

Strategically, this claim is being used to justify trade measures and tariffs against China’s clean energy products. Emotionally, the cleantech industry is a modern-day success story of China’s entrepreneurship and innovation. In China’s public discourse, the US “overcapacity” claims lands as a rejection of that success.

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The result is a political debate in which – by design – no side can convince the other. And the lesson? This posturing is at odds with US-China climate diplomacy as we’ve known it to function in the past. Whatever objectives this approach serves, it does not include closer climate collaboration between the US and China, even as multilateral climate action at the UN level still requires them to take action in concert.

In China, discussion on “overcapacity” emerged from an ongoing conversation about how to manage investment hype. And the answer lies on the demand side.

For investors inside China at a time of challenging economics, few industries are as attractive as the clean energy industry. And business leaders have focused on the risks of hot money and breakneck expansion of clean energy manufacturing capacity for some time now, particularly in the solar industry.

This was probably the origin of “overcapacity”. But in China, this has been a familiar, almost perennial discussion of investment and industrial cycles. While the US argument equates exports to overcapacity, Chinese companies argue that it is demand that determines overcapacity, and they make investment and expansion decisions based on projections of both domestic and global demand.

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That said, the size of China’s domestic market means it will remain the “base” for Chinese manufacturers. In the overseas market, the “overcapacity” claim underscores the complexity and uncertainties Chinese companies face.

For Chinese policymakers, one obvious response to the new market dynamics should be taking domestic demand to new levels. That means addressing lingering questions for China’s renewable energy future – namely, how to resolve the impact of coal. China’s power market was designed for a system dependent on coal, but it needs reform to allow wind and solar to take the central role. Injecting new political momentum to accelerate the reform will be key.

The EU has long been concerned about China’s market dominance, and the “overcapacity” debate is pushing it to decide its role in this trilateral trade and climate dynamic.

Even before this debate erupted, the EU had already begun, subtly, to diversify supply chains and build its own industrial strength, reducing dependence on Chinese products. Last week, the EU announced a maximum tariff of 38% on imported Chinese-made electric vehicles, concluding that Chinese EV makers are benefiting from “unfair subsidies”.

At this stage, it’s still unclear if this is the end of the EU’s low-key approach to date. Cultivating an EU-based clean industry hub without compromising the global response to climate change is a challenge, especially as the EU positions itself as a climate leader.

Entering the fray of US-China tension only makes this feat more complex, especially given uncertainties on the US end in an election year. How the EU approaches this climate and trade nexus will ultimately shape the trilateral dynamic among the world’s three largest carbon emitters in the coming years.

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For China, where relations with the EU and other countries are concerned, it’s worth taking a step back and looking at the hidden messages in the “overcapacity” debate. Other countries want more than just Chinese products.

Climate leadership is not a buyer-seller relationship, but one between partners who want solutions that create local jobs, develop opportunities, and enable native development of a sustainable future.

China should see its role in the global clean transition as more than a manufacturing hub. The transition requires tools, technology, finance and know-how, and China has much to offer. It is time for China to think more creatively about how to leverage its industrial advantages to provide the solutions with which the world is currently under-supplied.

The post Lessons from trade tensions targeting “overcapacity” in China’s cleantech industry appeared first on Climate Home News.

A few weeks ago, leaders of Small Island Developing States (SIDS) met in Antigua & Barbuda to discuss our next decade of action. This, for us, is the critical decade, no less. We have a few years to change the tides that are swallowing our islands and extinguishing our culture and our identity.  

Pacific Island communities are unwilling witnesses of the climate crisis – emitting minuscule amounts of greenhouse gases while bearing the brunt of the extreme and devastating consequences of the world’s failure to break its addiction to fossil fuels.  

During that meeting, we heard from some G7 leaders that they will support our priorities, that a fossil fuel phase-out and a just and equitable transition is necessary. But these cannot be hollow words. As the single greatest security threat for our region, it is time to implement your commitments or be held accountable for your lack of inaction by carrying the loss of our future generations on your shoulders. 

Just a few months ago, at the UN climate talks in Dubai, countries around the world finally agreed to transition away from fossil fuels. This week in Bonn, any talk of how countries plan to implement this agreement was noticeably absent.

Bonn bulletin: Fossil fuel transition left homeless

But now, G7 nations – Canada, Japan, Italy, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, and France – are gathering at a historic time for climate politics, holding one of the first opportunities to show their leadership by putting the COP28 decision on fossil fuels into action. 

This will also be the last time these countries meet before they are required to submit updated and enhanced climate plans through to 2035 under the Paris Agreement. It is a final chance for G7 nations to adopt the measures that are necessary to limit warming to 1.5°C. 

Despite having both the capacity and the responsibility to be leaders driving forward a full, fast, fair and funded phase-out of fossil fuels, these countries are not walking the walk – at home or abroad.

Islands as “collateral damage”?

Some G7 countries have plans to massively expand fossil fuel production at home despite science telling us that no new oil, gas, or coal projects are compatible with a safe climate, while others are using billions of the public’s money to finance more fossil fuel infrastructure abroad. 

We are urging G7 nations to demonstrate true leadership at the upcoming negotiations, immediately halting the approval of all new fossil fuel projects and committing to 1.5°C-aligned timelines for phasing out existing fossil fuel reliance in a just and equitable manner.  

This transition must prioritise the needs of developing countries, which bear the brunt of climate change impacts despite contributing the least to its causes. 

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G7 countries have already committed to end international public finance for fossil fuel projects but continue approving billions of dollars for fossil fuel infrastructure. They are giving the fossil fuel industry a lifeline, indebting vulnerable countries, and delaying a just energy transition.  

In the words of UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres: “The idea that an entire island state could become collateral damage for profiteering by the fossil fuel industry is simply obscene.” 

There is no shortage of public money to enable a just and equitable transition to renewable energy and turn the COP28 agreement into a reality. It is just poorly distributed to the most harmful parts of the global economy that are driving climate change and inequality: fossil fuels, unfair colonial debts, and the super-rich. 

We need G7 countries to pay their fair share on fair terms for fossil fuel phase-out and the other crises we face. Climate finance remains the critical enabler of action – over the course of our meetings in Antigua & Barbuda we heard some G7 countries make commitments and pledges; we also heard a lot of solutions and options that will exacerbate our debt burden.  

But for us, it is clear. Climate finance must be scaled up to meet the trillions of dollars needed for adaptation, mitigation, and addressing loss and damage; and sent to where it is most needed – on fair terms that do not further burden our economies with debt. 

Hold fossil fuel firms to account

The members of the G7 are among the world’s most powerful and wealthiest nations. They have a responsibility to lead the way both at home and abroad. Anything less is hypocrisy and gross negligence, and risks endangering the implementation of the COP28 decision to transition away from fossil fuels. 

The Pacific Island nations have been vocal advocates for ambitious climate action and have led by example for decades. In 2023, our leaders aspired to a Fossil Fuel Free Pacific. We embedded the language of phase-out and transition in our leaders’ declaration.   

Bonn talks on climate finance goal end in stalemate on numbers

We have felt the impacts of climate change more acutely than most and have consistently called for comprehensive and equitable global action for the very survival of our nations and for the good of all people and species.  

For Pacific Island nations, the transition to clean and renewable energy is not just a goal but a necessity for survival. We call upon the G7 to reflect the highest possible ambition. These countries must acknowledge and support our aspiration for a fossil fuel-free future, setting an example for sustainable development that prioritizes the well-being of people and planet over profit – and ensure that the fossil fuel companies responsible for the climate crisis bear the cost of their actions. 

The time for action is now. The fate of our planet hangs in the balance, and the decisions made by the G7 nations will shape our collective future. We implore them to heed the call of the Pacific Island nations and rise to the challenge of the climate crisis with boldness, ambition and urgency. Our shared future depends on it. 

The post G7 countries must deliver on COP28 promise to cut fossil fuels appeared first on Climate Home News.

Rich countries have a bill to pay. A study in the journal Nature says they will owe low- and middle-income countries an estimated $100 trillion-$200 trillion by 2050 since they have caused the climate crisis with their outsized emissions, while developing nations bear the brunt of the impacts. 

As negotiators gather in Bonn this week to prepare for November’s COP29 climate summit, wealthy governments have to face the music and pay their fair share of climate finance. With low-income countries struggling with rising seas and spiralling unjust debts, the stakes have never been higher. The good news? Rich countries can deliver the funds needed for climate action. What is lacking is the political will, as usual. But we can change this.

Bonn bulletin: Crunch time for climate finance

At last year’s COP negotiations, world leaders recognised for the first time that all countries must “transition away from fossil fuels” in energy systems. This year they must agree on a new climate finance goal for 2025, which will set a new benchmark for the quantity and terms of the money owed.

Year after year, wealthy countries have failed to pay up. While transitioning away from fossil fuels is technically possible and relatively low-cost, the failure to finance transformative climate solutions like 100% renewable-ready grids, energy access, and programs to support workers and community transitions is one of the key remaining obstacles to tackling the climate crisis. Meanwhile, the lack of funding to adapt and respond to climate impacts means fires, droughts and floods are already bringing devastating consequences.

As UN Climate Change Executive Secretary Simon Stiell has said, “A quantum leap this year in climate finance is both essential and entirely achievable.” But, as negotiations have begun to establish a new global climate finance target, wealthy countries are once again trying to shirk their responsibilities.

Loans and ‘private-sector first’

They have come to the table with only tiny amounts of money. Worse, they argue it should be delivered mostly as loans, investments and guarantees – which they profit from, while climate vulnerable ‘recipient’ countries rack up debt. The US, Canada, UK and their peers claim that there is not enough public money to do anything else. Yet we know they can come up with enormous sums, like for COVID stimulus plans and for bailing out the banks.

Wealthy countries say the private sector can cover most of the costs instead. This ‘private sector first’ approach is particularly emphasized for energy finance. The idea is that all that is needed is a bit of public finance to ‘de-risk’ energy investments and attract much greater sums of private finance.

But as a former World Bank Director has argued, this approach has consistently delivered far less money than promised and “has injustice and inequality built in,” while reducing the role of government action for creating the right market conditions to deliver profits to investors. We need much more public funding to be delivered as grants for a fair energy transition.

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Rather than relying on the private sector, rich countries can afford the grants and highly concessional finance required for a fast, fair and full phase-out of fossil fuels, which societies and communities want. There is no shortage of public money available to fund climate action at home and abroad. Rather, a lot of it is currently going to the wrong things, like dirty fossil fuels, wars and the super-rich.

The lack of progress is also a symptom of a larger global financial system where a handful of Global North governments and corporations have near-full control. This unjust architecture results in a net $2 trillion a year outflow from low-income countries to high-income countries, historic levels of inequality and food insecurity, and record profits for oil and gas companies.

Make polluters pay

To raise the funds, wealthy governments can start by cutting off the flow of public money to fossil fuels and making polluters pay. The science is clear that there is no room for any new investments in oil, gas or coal infrastructure if we want to secure a liveable planet. And yet governments continue to pour more fuel on the fire, using public money to fund continued fossil fuel expansion to the tune of $1.7 trillion in 2022. 

There is already momentum to stop a particularly influential form of fossil fuel support. At the COP26 global climate conference in Glasgow, 41 countries and institutions joined the Clean Energy Transition Partnership (CETP). They pledged to end all direct international public finance for unabated fossil fuels by the end of 2022 and instead prioritise their international public finance for the clean energy transition.

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With the passing of the end of the 2022 deadline, eight out of the sixteen CETP signatories with significant amounts of international energy finance have adopted policies that end fossil fuel support – and we see international fossil finance figures dropping by billions as a result.

Making fossil fuel companies pay for their pollution through a ‘windfall’ tax on fossil fuel companies in the richest countries could raise an estimated $900 billion by 2030. Alongside taxing windfall profits, a progressive tax on extreme wealth starting at 2% would raise $2.5 trillion to 3.6 trillion a year. Brazil currently has a proposal to tax the super-rich globally, which is gaining momentum at the G20. 

Canceling illegitimate debts in the Global South can free up even more.

The public money is there for a liveable future for all. As leaders negotiate on the next climate target, we must ensure those most responsible for the climate crisis finally pay up.

The post No shortage of public money to pay for a just energy transition appeared first on Climate Home News.

Beijing is aiming to reduce its energy intensity –  the amount of energy consumed per unit of its gross domestic product – by 2.5% in 2024, according to a government policy work plan published on Tuesday at the opening of the annual National People’s Congress.

The target falls short of the rate of reduction needed to hit a goal of slashing energy intensity by 13.5% in the five years to 2025, energy analysts noted.

China is already lagging way behind that goal. Energy intensity fell by only 2% between 2020 and 2023 as the country powered its economic growth with carbon-intensive sources like coal, recent analysis by the Helsinki-based Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) found.

‘Admitting defeat’

“China is effectively admitting its failure to fulfill the five-year target,” Li Shuo, director of the China Climate Hub at the Asia Society think-tank, told Climate Home. “This year’s target is even more modest than the average rate of reduction needed, while they should be playing catch up.”

Lauri Myllyvirta, a senior fellow at the Asia Society and co-founder of CREA, said that China is “basically admitting defeat” with this “very important metric”.

“The [2.5%] target is completely inadequate to get China back on track towards its 2025 goals,” he added. “It is very alarming that the government is not articulating a plan on how they are going to hit an internationally-pledged target.”

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The energy intensity goal is one of the main climate commitments made by the Chinese government in its current five-year plan and is also referenced in the country’s nationally determined contribution (NDC), submitted to the UN under the Paris Agreement.

China set the target in 2021, but a year later it watered down the rules when it stopped counting energy consumption from renewable sources. “It’s essentially a fossil-fuel intensity target now,” said Myllyvirta.

A similar goal of reducing China’s carbon intensity – CO2 emissions per unit of economic output – by 18% is also at serious risk of being missed unless emissions fall dramatically over the next two years.

Emission cuts vs growth

China is the world’s biggest carbon emitter and juggles its emissions-cutting targets with Beijing’s desire to boost economic growth and maintain energy security.

The Asia Society’s Li said this year’s government work plan “does not really prioritise climate and environmental issues in light of the difficult domestic economic conditions”.

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It does, however, indicate strong support for clean energy, saying the government will “further advance the energy revolution” and “strengthen the construction of large-scale wind power and photovoltaic bases”.

But it also says the government will continue to recognise the role of coal power in its energy system and “increase the exploration and development of oil and gas”, suggesting China is not yet planning to start transitioning away from fossil fuels, as countries agreed to do at Cop28 in December. 

Renewables and coal leader

The country is already both a global leader in renewable energy and a primary backer of coal power.

In 2023 it doubled its solar capacity after installing as many solar panels as the whole world had done in the previous year, according to the International Energy Agency. Wind power capacity also rose by 66% last year.

But it also has more than half of the coal-fired generating capacity operating globally. That is likely to increase as China has more coal power capacity under construction than the rest of the world combined, according to an analysis by the Global Energy Monitor.

The post China steps away from 2025 energy efficiency goal appeared first on Climate Home News.

Climate Home News is seeking stories on the global renewable energy supply chain.

The rapid deployment of renewable energy is critical for the world to meet its climate goals. This requires a massive expansion of the renewable energy supply chain, from the critical minerals required to manufacture solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries to the skills and jobs needed to produce, assemble, and install them.

Yet, large parts of this supply chain are concentrated in a few countries (including China) and dominated by a handful of companies. This rapidly-growing industry has at times pitted the clean energy transition against human rights and other environmental impacts, and sparked conflicts over land and water resources.

Delivering a fast and fair energy transition means avoiding the pitfalls of the extractive fossil-fuel economy. Responsible extraction and production, and centering local communities and workers’ rights could spur sustainable development and create good jobs.

What we are looking for

Our ‘Clean Energy Frontiers’ series aims to produce hard-hitting accountability journalism on the changing-landscape of the renewable energy supply chain.

Stories should spotlight bottlenecks, scrutinise key actors, and expose environmental impacts, and human and labour rights violations. We are also looking for stories robustly examining solutions to these challenges, including through innovation.

This could include examining the plans of emerging transition mineral producers, exposing working conditions in manufacturing processes, investigating the relationship between coal power and clean technology production, and assessing early efforts to address waste.

We plan to publish six deeply reported articles by June 2024. We are seeking stories from around the world and we encourage journalists from developing countries to send us their ideas.

The ideal story will capture the attention of our international audience by providing an original angle, highlight (geo)political tensions or controversy, and combine on-the-ground reporting (when appropriate) with investigative journalism techniques.

Stories should include visual elements (such as satellite images, high-quality photos and videos) and we encourage partnerships between journalists and photographers. A graphic designer is working with us to support the creation of graphics and illustrations.

How to pitch

If you are a journalist with at least three years’ experience, please send us your pitches. You must have fluent spoken and written English. Journalists from all countries are welcome to apply. It helps if you have worked with international media before and have awareness of climate change issues.

Your pitch should include:

• The top line of the story and essential context in no more than 200 words. If we like the idea, we will ask for more detail
• The sources you would interview
• Any travel requirements
• A short summary of your journalism experience, including links to three recent stories you are proud of.

We can offer a reporting fee of around $1,600 per story, including photos and videos, in addition to covering travel and accommodation expenses. Travel costs will be negotiated in advance and reimbursed subject to valid receipts.

Please send your pitches with the word ‘Pitch’ in the subject line to project editor Chloé Farand by emailing chloe.farand@outlook.com. We will commission the first three stories by late October and continue to review pitches until February 2024 for publication by June next year.

The post Climate Home News seeks pitches on renewable energy supply chain appeared first on Climate Home News.

The EU bloc sees hydrogen made with renewable energy – known as “green hydrogen” – as a cost-effective way to reduce emissions, especially in industries that are difficult to decarbonise such as aviation and heavy land transport.

While the European industry is in its infancy, hopes of achieving short-term goals largely rest on production overseas. Countries, especially in Northern and Sub-saharan Africa, have been attracted by the sector’s opportunity for investments and new jobs, analysts told Climate Home News.

But experts warned the enthusiasm hides significant risks. Incentives built into the EU regulations mean the massive scale-up of green hydrogen exports could take up most renewable electricity in developing nations, at the expense of local populations.

G7 may ignore climate warnings and call for new gas investments

This would be a problem for countries like Namibia – one of the EU’s key hydrogen partners – where just over half of the population has access to electricity.

For Godrje Rustomjee, an analyst at the African Climate Foundation, countries need to find the right trade-off between domestic needs and export potential.

Otherwise, he says, the risk is that green hydrogen may turn into “another neo-colonial project”.

“There is a real possibility that foreign countries come in with direct investment, but all the benefits and added value end up being extracted and sent across to Europe”.

Marta Lovisolo, a hydrogen analyst at Bellona, says the risk developing countries will divert resources toward production for exports is “extremely high”.

“Green hydrogen is something Europe desperately wants and developing countries could potentially mass-produce for a lucrative market,” she says. “As it happened with fossil fuels, countries seem ready to stake everything on becoming exporters without being given the necessary safeguards.”

Very glad to meet President @hagegeingob

Namibia is a trusted partner of the EU. We stand by your side in the fight against the pandemic.
#GlobalGateway can support Green Hydrogen plans and sustainable raw minerals value chains.

Let’s develop a full-fledged partnership. pic.twitter.com/uU4HdYnIIO

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 18, 2022

Betting big on hydrogen

Despite being a nearly non-existing energy source today, green hydrogen has become a cornerstone of Europe’s decarbonisation plans.

Green hydrogen is mostly produced through electrolysis, a process that separates water into hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity generated from renewable sources.

The bloc has set a target of reaching annual domestic production of 10 million tonnes of renewable hydrogen by 2030 and importing the same amount. It is a tall order, considering that last year worldwide green hydrogen production capacity was 109 kilo tonnes – a fraction of what the EU wants to achieve.

Currently, most hydrogen is created using fossil fuels. Around three-quarters is derived from methane gas and a quarter from coal. Green hydrogen is more expensive to produce and accounts for less than 1% of total global production.

To fuel its ambition the EU is pouring billions of euros into the sector. Alongside investments in the build-up of domestic capacity, funds are being committed towards partnerships with future exporting nations.

The EU has signed agreements with a series of countries including Egypt, Kazakhstan, Morocco and Namibia. The partnerships are billed as a win-win situation.

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Rules exemption

The Commission has also recently set out the rules on renewable hydrogen. Among various provisions, it includes a criteria for developing renewable electricity called 'additionality'.

In the future, hydrogen producers will have to make sure that only new renewable electricity generation capacity is used for green hydrogen production. This is to ensure hydrogen production does not take away existing renewable energy from the grid, potentially increasing reliance on fossil fuels elsewhere.

Additionality can be achieved either by directly connecting a solar or wind farm to a hydrogen production facility or through purchase agreements with clean power generators.

But European lawmakers have included a phase-in clause to speed up the industry with the hope of meeting its 2030 goals. Any green hydrogen installation that starts production before 2028 will be exempted from the additionality rules for the following ten years, until 2038.

That means the projects developed before that date will be able to use already installed capacity, for instance taking clean energy directly from the grid.

Analysts say the rules have set off a race between exporting nations to meet the 2028 deadline. Namibia, for example, hopes to begin exporting green hydrogen in 2026, although analysts believe this will be very difficult to achieve.

Over the rainbow: The role of hydrogen in a clean energy system, explained

Risk of 'cannibalisation'

Maria Pastukhova, a senior policy advisor at E3G, says the rules allow hydrogen projects to “cannibalise” the existing local infrastructure for the purpose of export production.

“For many countries, especially in Africa, this energy is needed at home, where grids need to be decarbonised or local citizens don’t have access to electricity,” she added.

Only 56% of Namibians had access to electricity in 2022. The nation imported 60-70% of its electricity demand, most of it coming from fossil fuel sources.

The Southern African nation, in particular, is racing to become Africa’s first green hydrogen exporting hub, but faces a context of high unemployment and one of the most unequal economies in the world, according to the World Bank.

Namibia's pitch

Namibia’s President Hage Geingob sees green hydrogen as an “engine of growth” that will make the country an industrialised economy and create a large number of jobs.

“Because of our national green hydrogen efforts, Namibia remains well-positioned to become a major supplier of clean and green energy to the world,” he said at Cop27.

In 2021 the Namibian government began pitching its proposition to European leaders, luring them in with the promise to supply up to three million tonnes of renewable hydrogen every year.

Namibia's Tsau Khaeb National Park has been earmarked for green hydrogen projects. Photo: Olga Ernst and Hp Baumeler

Germany was first to respond to the calls and quickly partnered with its former colony. A German private joint venture is now working with the Namibian government to develop a $9.4 billion green hydrogen project. The huge infrastructure is expected to take up 4,000km2 of land (roughly four times the city of Berlin) within the Tsau Khaeb National Park.

Its goal is to begin hydrogen production by the end of 2026.

Money for hydrogen

Following Berlin’s lead, the European Commission signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Namibia on renewable hydrogen, something they have also done in at least other three developing countries

The agreement aims to facilitate “the production and export of renewable hydrogen”, while offering Namibia the “possibility to achieve its own energy security and decarbonisation objectives”.

At the same time the European Investment Bank pledged to give Namibia a loan of up to 500 million euros to finance renewable hydrogen and renewable energy investments. The EIB President said “the development of a green hydrogen economy will bring Namibia and Europe closer together - as partners”.

A similar memorandum of understanding was signed on the sidelines of Cop27 between the European Union and Egypt. The partnership is aimed at "contributing to the EU future plans to import renewable hydrogen", while accelerating "the Egyptian energy sector's transition and decarbonisation".

The agreement does not yet contain any binding commitment but it expects to encourage investment in infrastructure and easier access to financing options.

Upon unveiling the deal, the European Commission Vice-President said Egypt is "ideally placed" to transport green hydrogen to Europe. He added that Egypt is blessed with "unlimited potential for solar and wind energy", which goes beyond local electricity needs and, therefore, can also be used for green hydrogen.

Despite this potential, the country's energy sector is still hugely dominated by fossil fuels, with only about 6% of the supply coming from renewables.

Migrant workers face risks building Europe’s new gas supplies in the UAE

Bellona’s Marta Lovisolo says the agreements are “full of nice words, but do not have any legal safeguards” to prevent European interests come first.

She adds developing countries are particularly attracted as the European Union has signalled it would subsidise the big premiums needed for green hydrogen.

More money to come

Brussels is working on a subsidy scheme to bring down the prices of hydrogen for buyers. Green premiums would cover the cost gap between renewable hydrogen produced overseas and the fossil fuels it would replace.

The money pot is expected to be large. The green premium to achieve the 2030 targets for hydrogen could come up to €115 billion in total.

For the African Climate Foundation's Godrje Rustomjee the financial incentives are just too good for developing countries to ignore. "On one hand they could use renewables only for domestic consumption but this could come at extreme cost," he says, "on the other, the nature of these export deals has the potential of doubling a country's economy".

The key, he says, it's striking the right compromise and securing safeguards in the deals with rich importing countries.

He believes these should include safeguards for local electricity provision and incentives, such as the localisation of manufacturing in the country.

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An estimated 1,400 families could be displaced by the Mphanda Nkuwa hydropower project due to be built across the river in what would be Southern Africa’s largest dam. Another 200,000 people could be affected downstream.

The government of Mozambique has touted the 1.5GW Mphanda Nkuwa dam, in the district of Marara, Tete province, as key for the southern African nation to address energy poverty and reach its goal of universal energy access by 2030.

But environmental groups say the dam threatens to negatively impact local communities and ecosystems. Local people told Climate Home News they haven’t been consulted on the project and have only heard about it through non-official sources.

Moreover, climate impacts and increasingly erratic rainfall risk making the project unviable, scientists say.

In spite of outcry from local people and green groups, both the World Bank, through its private investment arm the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and the African Development Bank (AfDB) are supporting the project and pushing for the dam’s construction.

The project is expected to “accelerate the transition to clean energy to combat climate change in Southern Africa,” said IFC.

The Mphanda Nkuwa hydro project site is located in the Zambezi river (Photo: International Rivers)

In May last year, the two development institutions acted as advisors to develop the dam, hoping it will become “attractive to reputable developers, financiers and investors to ensure competitive and least-cost power for Mozambique and the region,” AfDB said in a statement.

Sources told Climate Home that the European Union and the European Investment Bank (EIB) have considered getting involved, but have not yet made a final decision.

At the end of 2022, Mozambique became Africa’s newest gas exporter despite 72% of its population having no electricity access. The Mphanda Nkuwa dam is the country’s largest venture into renewable energy and is designed to supply power domestically.

Yet, studies have shown that large-scale hydro may not be as clean as previously thought. While considered a source of low-carbon energy, large hydropower projects emit significant amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

The social impact of large hydro projects has also been criticised for violating indigenous peoples and local communities’ rights, and increasing the risk of over-topping and flooding for people living downstream.

The Chirodzi-Nsanangue community during a meeting with Justiça Ambiental (Photo: Justiça Ambiental)

Dam for development 

The government of Mozambique has earmarked the Mphanda Nkuwa project as a national priority in the country’s energy master plan. It’s also a priority investment for the Southern Africa Power Pool Plan.

The dam will be built in the lower part of the Zambezi river basin, around 60 km downstream from the existent giant hydropower plant at Cahora Bassa, known as HCB. Under current plans, the project is expected to reach financial close in 2024 with commissioning to start in 2031.

Government officials, the IFC and AfDB say that Mphanda Nkuwa is key to bringing energy and development to Mozambique.

“The project reinforces our efforts to combat climate change in a region that is desperately short of power but equally in need of transformation and a just energy transition,” said Kevin Kariuki, AfDB’s vice president for power, energy climate and green growth.

Carlos Yum, managing director at the project’s office under Mozambique’s energy ministry, said that Mphanda Nkuwa will support the country’s industrialisation and provide “reliable transmission infrastructure”.

Governments sworn to secrecy on ‘$20bn’ for Indonesia’s energy transition

Resettlement anxiety

The Mphanda Nkuwa project is poised to result in the eviction of farming communities from their land. But people in the affected areas told Climate Home that nobody has yet come to inform them about the plans or seek their consent.

“No one has ever sat down with us to explain about the project or about our rights,” said Horlando Elias Djaquissone, who has lived in the Chacucoma community for 14 years.

The community of Chirodzi-Nsanangue, in Marara district, lies at the heart of the project area. Fisherfolk, artisanal miners and farmers who “rely on the river and its banks for everything” have the most to lose, says a report sent to the EU and EIB by environmental group Justiça Ambiental (JA), which is part of Friends of the Earth International.

The group estimates that more than 1,400 families living in the region could be displaced, and a further 200,000 people living in the delta area would be affected.

A fisherman in the Zambezi river in Mozambique, a sector that is threatened by the Mphanda Nkuwa hydro project (Photo: Justiça Ambiental)

Farmers in the communities of Chacucoma and Nhahacamba live off growing maize on small-holding plots, fishing and artisanal mining, as well as raising cattle, goats and chicken.

But the province of Tete does not have plenty of arable land to resettle the communities of mostly subsistence farmers, the report highlights.

And it’s not the first time some communities have been asked to move. 15 years ago, a coal mine in Marara resettled farmers to infertile lands where they couldn’t grow crops, and where housing conditions were unsafe. In the 1970s, the HCB dam, developed under Portuguese colonial rule, displaced around 30,000 people in the region.

Cornélio Juliano Pacate, of Chacucoma, who sells fish and produces crop all year round, fears he might lose his livelihood if he is resettled. “I don’t want to leave because there might be problems where [the government] will relocate me to,” he told Climate Home.

A preliminary assessment carried out by TMP Systems, a development consultancy agency, suggested the project could see an increased cost of $1.3bn due to resettlements negotiations and social disputes around displacements.

Wrong direction

Civil society groups have been sceptical about the benefits and sustainability of the project.

The country already produces enough energy to meet domestic needs, but most of Mozambique’s population cannot access electricity, said Anabela Lemos, director of Justiça Ambiental.

Electricity is one of Mozambique’s largest exports. In 2021, it came third after aluminium and coal, and generated nearly $570m in revenue. Last November, the country exported its first liquified natural gas (LNG) to the European market.

“The vast majority of Mozambique’s energy output is exported to South Africa at prices that are unfavourable to us, and what we import back is largely used by industry rather than by people,” Lemos said.

South Africa tried to weaken corruption safeguards in coal phase out deal, says CEO

Under current plans, the energy generated by the Mphanda Nkuwa dam will be channelled by transmission lines to Mozambique’s capital Maputo, which is located 1,500km away from the project site.

Because Mozambique’s population is widely dispersed and two thirds of its population live in rural areas, “it makes no sense to invest in transmission lines that cover long distances,” Lemos argued. Instead, the government should  “promote local solutions adjusted to the potential of each place,” she said.

Climate shocks

The Zambezi delta is under severe threat of droughts worsened by climate change, which researchers think could grow even worse after accommodating another large dam in its basin.

Along its course, the river is already powering around 5GW through the Kariba dam, between Zambia and Zimbabwe, and Mozambique’s HCB, also in Tete province. As the impacts of climate change become more pronounced, there is a serious risk that the lower Zambezi will not be able to provide the best conditions for the 1.5GW hydro plant to function.

A farmer along the banks of the Zambezi river in Mozambique, a sector threatened with displacement to new infertile lands (Photo: Justiça Ambiental)

A 2012 study by advocacy group International Rivers found that climate change could reduce water availability in the basin and risk hydropower production. According to the study, rainfall levels could decrease up to 15% over the next century.

Meanwhile, rising temperatures could lead to more evaporation, said Miguel Uamasse, researcher at Eduardo Mondlane University, in Maputo, who has studied the impact of climate change in Mozambique’s hydro landscape for years.

Less rainfall coupled with increased evaporation “will result in lower river flow and lower revenue from energy production,” Uamasse said.

Losses on the local ecosystems and on the Zambezi delta will be “irreversible,” Lemos added, explaining that the dam will alter and disrupt sediments in the river. This will affect the “productivity of the floodplains, the soil and the health of the vegetation,” she said.

“Here, I am doing fine,” said farmer Tafere Juliano, who lives by the river margins. “I don’t know if there will be enough water for my animals to drink wherever they put me,” she added, in anticipation of her resettlement.

Community members argue they can only leave their homes given fair compensation – a matter yet to be determined.

Fungai Caetano contributed to report this story.

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Governments failed to agree on this wording at previous climate talks and this phrase is likely to divide nations at the Cop28 summit in Dubai in November.

The UAE’s environment minister Mariam bint Mohammed Almheiri told the Munich Security Conference: “We need the oil and gas sector to be with us. We need to shift the way they are doing business and we need to decarbonise what they are doing. We need to then phase out oil and gas in a just way.”

A Cop battle line

At the Cop26 climate talks in 2021, all governments agreed to commit to a “phase down” of coal. This was the first time a fossil fuel had been mentioned in a Cop decision.

At the next year’s talks in Egypt, a broad coalition of nations including India, rich nations and vulnerable islands pushed for an agreement to phase out fossil fuels, which would include oil and gas as well as coal.

But a handful of oil and gas producers opposed that language, the hosts Egypt did not include it in the final text and the coalition pushing for it eventually decided not to block the agreement over the issue.

The battle is set to continue at Cop28. While hosts are supposed to be neutral, they have a lot of power over which requests from governments make it into the Cop draft decisions.

Breaking cover?

At Cop27, the UAE was quiet on the fossil fuel issue. The resistance to criticism of fossil fuels was led by Saudi Arabia whose lead negotiator Albara Tawfiq told the plenary that the UN climate convention “needs to address emissions and not the origins of the emissions”.

Saudi Arabia officially spoke on behalf of the Arab Group at the talks – a coalition of 22 nations across the Middle East and North Africa which includes the UAE. But the extent to which each member of the group supports the Saudi position is unclear.

Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, fellow for the Middle East at Rice University’s Baker Institute, told Climate Home in December that Cop28 “might force them to break cover”.

Cop president

The UAE’s hosting of this year’s climate talks has come under heavy criticism following the appointment as its boss of Sultan al-Jaber, the head of state oil giant Adnoc.

Campaigners said his appointment sent the wrong signal and that the fossil fuel industry was hijacking the world’s response to the global warming crisis.

UAE plans to have it both ways as Cop28 climate summit host

Responding to the criticism, minister Almheiri said al-Jaber had been placed in Adnoc to change the company and guide it throughout the energy transition.

“We’re always going to be an energy exporter, but the type of energy we export is changing already and will change in the future,” she said.

Experts around table

Sultan al-Jaber himself took to the stage at the Munich Security Conference on a panel discussion with US Climate envoy John Kerry.

The Cop28 boss said the UAE would focus on promoting an “inclusive” climate agenda, which does not exclude fossil fuel players.

“When you talk about energy transition please include the energy experts,” said al-Jaber. “Don’t think you are going to come up with solutions without the experts around the table.”

Al-Jaber was keen to highlight the UAE’s push for renewable energy happening under his watch. On top of his Cop28 and fossil fuel jobs, al-Jaber is the chairman of Masdar, the UAE’s renewable energy company.

Thanks to its abundance of sunshine, the UAE boasts some of the world’s cheapest solar power. The government expects to have installed more than 9GW of solar capacity by 2030, tripling current levels.

The UAE was the first country in the region to set a 2050 net zero goal. And at Cop27, it became the first to announce absolute emission cuts, instead of from a hypothetical business-as-usual baseline.

Pragmatism and balance

But, in an address sprinkled with repeated appeals for “pragmatism” and “balance”, Al-Jaber also reiterated the UAE’s resolve on the need for continued investment in oil and gas in the short term.

UAE’s Cop28 boss calls for “course correction” on climate change

“Transitions usually take time. Any successful transitional is built on a practical, not emotional roadmap,” he told the audience in Munich. “We need to adopt a diversified energy mix approach.”

Adnoc, the oil and gas company presided over by al-Jaber, plans to boost investment by $150 billion over the next five years. The funding will also speed up an increase in oil and gas production capacity.  

The International Energy Agency said in 2021 that new fossil fuel investments are incompatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C.

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South Australia leads the world with the penetration of wind and solar in its grid, and has averaged more than 64% over the last 12 months.

It regularly reaches levels where wind and solar produce more than 100% of state demand – in fact it set a new record of 146% of state demand from wind only on Wednesday morning – but this excess is exported to Victoria through its transmission links.

Even when wind and solar have produced much more electricity than is needed in the state at any one time, it has always had to have some synchronous generators, and always gas fired generators in South Australia, running to ensure some of the principal grid services can still be delivered.

This requirement was last year reduced from four generators to two generators after the installation of four synchronous condensers that are spinning machines, but do not burn fuel, and can deliver many of those same services as synchronous generators.

Now the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) is looking to reduce that number from two to one.

Most of the time the second one is only running as a backup incase the other gas generators suddenly fails, but a growing confidence in the ability of battery inverter technology to provide those services, and the presence of more “fast start” generators that could quickly switch on in case of an incident, means that AEMO is now thinking about reducing its minimum requirement to one synchronous generator.

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The immediate impact of that is that fossil fuel’s share of overall generation in the state (including that for export) could fall from its current minimum of around 5% to just 2%, because only one synchronous generator will be required.

And that in turn will further reduce curtailment of wind and solar, and on the number of “directions” from AEMO for gas generators to run. That has already fallen dramatically in the last year.

It also means, that with the completion of the new link to New South Wales due in 2025/26, the state will likely be able to remove the need for even a single synchronous generator when that is connected.

Christian Zuur, the head of energy transition at the Clean Energy Council, described it as a “remarkable” document in a LinkedIn post.

“South Australia (is) again at the forefront of the clean energy transition,” Zuur wrote.

“AEMO advised that subject to some technical studies being completed, they are looking to reduce the minimum requirement to just one gas generator … and are undertaking further studies to understand whether that last unit can be taken offline.

“This would be a world first, as far as I am aware, and is something to watch very closely in coming months.”

South Australia is a living laboratory of how to manage the transition to wind and solar, and an inverter-based grid, and – as Zuur says – it is remarkable to see how the engineering assessment of system needs has rapidly evolved in recent years.

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The new document says that for some of the critical grid services, the synchronous generators are already redundant. This includes grid forming and grid reference, two qualities that can now be provided by so-called “grid forming inverters” that are deployed at two South Australian batteries – Dalrymple North and Hornsdale.

“The SA power system currently requires at least one large synchronous generator for grid formation and grid reference,” the AEMO document notes.

“Results of power system analysis suggest a synchronous generator may not be required for grid reference. This means grid-following inverter based resources can ‘latch-on’ to the voltage waveform supplied by the synchronous condensers.”

This, of course, doesn’t mean that fossil fuels are not needed and that the remaining unit will be closed. South Australia still has a way to go to build enough wind and solar – and storage – to cover the gaps to provide close to an average of 100% renewables all year around.

Small grids can to it, but the fact that a gigawatt scale grid is now within touching distance of running at times with no fossil fuels, and no synchronous generation is – as Zuur notes – quite remarkable.

It would have been unthinkable a decade or so ago, and it should be noted that some doubters in the industry still question if it is indeed possible. And when it does happen, it will remove the last quibbles about whether a state grid is truly 100% renewables or not.

This article was produced by Renew Economy and republished under a content sharing agreement.

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In October, president Moon Jae-in announced that South Korea aims to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, turning an election promise of a Green New Deal into a policy pledge. 

Achieving net zero emissions by 2050 is a tall order for South Korea, which is the world’s fourth-largest importer of coal and the third biggest investor in overseas coal projects. It will require a complete phase out of coal and a rapid acceleration of clean technologies. 

“South Korea is a notable laggard in the green energy transition,” Joojin Kim, managing director of South Korean campaign group Solutions For Our Climate, told Climate Home News.

Renewables make up just 4% of the country’s electricity mix, the lowest share of any developed country member of the International Energy Agency.

In December, South Korea submitted its 2050 carbon neutrality strategy to the UN, outlining its plans to decarbonise the country’s energy, agriculture and transportation sectors. Solar and wind energy as well as hydrogen form are central to the plans.

South Korea’s net zero pledge and those of other major economies, such as Japan and China, are expected to spur investment into renewables and batteries.

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Since Moon’s announcement, South Korea has unveiled plans to build the world’s largest floating wind farm. In December, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power signed a deal with Spanish company OW Offshore to construct a 1.5 GW wind farm off the coast of the southern city Ulsan. The government has said it aims to develop 4.6 GW of offshore wind farms by 2026. 

SK Group, one of South Korea’s top oil producers, announced this month that it will invest $1.5 billion in the US hydrogen fuel cell maker Plug Power. The company makes hydrogen cells for electric vehicles and builds fuelling stations in North America.

The investment, which will make SK Group Plug Power’s largest investor, is another sign that Korean companies are starting to shift away from fossil fuels and accelerate the green energy transition following Moon’s pledge. 

As part of its Green New Deal, South Korea aims to have 1.13 million electric and 200,000 hydrogen vehicles on the roads by 2025. 

Coal, however, remains a big problem for South Korea. In its 2050 strategy, the country says it plans to phase out all coal plants or convert them to run on liquefied natural gas. 

But it has not set a date for ending coal power and currently has 7.2 GW of coal capacity under construction, according to Global Energy Monitor data. According to Climate Analytics, South Korea must phase out coal power by 2029 if it is to meet its obligations under the Paris Agreement. 

South Korea’s focus on gas as a “clean transition fuel” conflicts with South Korea’s 2050 carbon neutrality ambition, said Kim. Gas is commonly touted as a cleaner fuel than coal, because it emits around half the carbon dioxide when burned for energy. But methane, which can leak into the atmosphere during gas extraction or transport, contributes significantly to global warming. 

Kim said that the national power plan urgently needs updating as in its current form it states that gas units can continue operating beyond 2060. “It needs to be revised to be consistent with the 2050 carbon neutrality goal.”

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Smokestacks at a power plant in Arizona. The power sector has the most potential to cut carbon (Flickr/ Nick Humphries)

By Gerard Wynn in Paris

Governments are gathered in Paris to reach a new global climate agreement, expected on Friday. One way they can take action is by giving a nudge to carbon pricing initiatives around the world.

Carbon pricing forces polluters to bear the cost of burning fossil fuels, through a price per tonne of carbon dioxide emissions. Such pricing can be applied through a carbon tax or emissions trading scheme.

In theory, carbon pricing is a transparent, technology-neutral tool, which incentivises polluters to cut emissions more cheaply. In practice, it has seen hard times, since the global financial crisis drove a European carbon market to the edge of irrelevance, by creating a glut of emissions allowances, and Australia reversed its plans for a national market.

The pendulum has now swung the other way, as China plans to launch a national carbon market in 2017, and planned or new national schemes in Mexico, Chile and South Korea, and growing links between sub-national markets for example in California, Quebec and other Canadian provinces.

A global carbon price is almost certainly out of reach. The features that make carbon pricing more efficient – raising energy prices economy-wide – make it a matter of just too much political interest and industry resistance.

IN DEPTH: Breaking energy and carbon analysis

But countries and groups of countries can introduce carbon markets or taxes, where the European Union is proof.

And governments gathered in Paris to reach a new global climate agreement, expected on Friday, can give a gentle prod, to promote planned and existing schemes, encourage these to link and learn from each other, under the new international carbon market jargon of “ITMOs” and “SDM”.

In Paris, some 186 countries have agreed targets to slow growth in or cut greenhouse gas emissions. Some of these efforts include formal caps on emissions, whether across entire economies, or individual sectors or polluters. Governments can agree a wording in the final agreement which supports trading carbon credits between formal caps, called international transferred mitigation outcomes (ITMOs). Such “cooperative mechanism” could favour linking of regional carbon markets, from the bottom up, creating a “club of carbon markets”, as proposed by the U.S. Environmental Defense Fund.

Countries might also favour a sustainable development mechanism (SDM), which allowed rich countries to meet emissions reduction targets by paying for emissions cuts in poorer countries which have no formal caps. But such emissions cuts may be harder to calculate and verify.

Whatever the outcome in Paris, there is no doubt that carbon markets have space to expand and link, whether that is under a Paris agreement, or in bilateral arrangements.

Meanwhile, there is work to do. The European Union must reform its market, to permanently remove a glut of allowances, and devise a new, more efficient to overcome competitiveness fears, where it might learn from California.

Countries can remove fossil fuel subsidies, which incentivise increased emissions more than carbon markets penalise them.

And multiple green policies can cancel each other out, as explained by Harvard University’s Robert Stavins, who points out that wind power subsidies within a cap and trade scheme will boost wind, but reduce demand for and price of carbon allowances, easing pressure on polluters.

Perhaps most encouraging in Paris has been new support for clean energy research and development (R&D), which could promote innovation, and cut the costs of emissions abatement, thus reducing the level of carbon price needed.

Perhaps most concerning, working in the opposite direction, are plunging fossil fuel prices, which will increase the competitiveness of coal, oil and gas, thus increasing the carbon prices needed to drive abatement.

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(Pic: Lance Cheung/Flickr)

By Gerard Wynn in Paris

A new global climate agreement, to be reached this week in Paris, will accelerate a global low-carbon transition, given some 185 countries have pledged new, strengthened, greenhouse gas emissions targets, alongside a blizzard of climate-related news and releases.

Parsing the exact winners from a low-carbon transition, through the lens of the two-week conference which ends on Friday, is an inexact science, given the vagueness of announcements.

One approach is to name-check the technologies mentioned in the national pledges; in the thousands of speeches and side-events; and in the new funding and deployment targets. Another approach is to review the circulating analysis and commentary.

IN DEPTH: Breaking energy and carbon analysis

The International Energy Agency (IEA) analysed the energy-related impacts of the national emissions pledges, also called Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs). “The most common energy-related measures are those that target increased renewables deployment (40% of submissions), or improved efficiency in energy use (one-third of submissions),” the IEA said, adding that the pledges collectively would required $14 trillion additional investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency through 2030.

All pledges would limit emissions in the energy sector, whether through specific targets or vaguer policies and measures, but “only a handful of countries” mentioned other measures to cut energy sector emissions, the IEA said, such as phasing out of inefficient coal plants, lowering methane emissions from oil and gas, fossil fuel subsidy reform, and carbon pricing, or other specific technologies such as nuclear power, carbon capture and storage and low-carbon transport.

Turning to the business side events during the Paris conference, the Lima Paris Action Agenda held whole-day events along the themes: agriculture; forests; transport; renewable energy; energy access and efficiency; resilience; cities; private finance; business; innovation; buildings; and short-term pollutants. This is only a check-list of the most impacted sectors.

On specific targets, the standout announcement was made by India and France last week for an “international solar alliance”. The two countries sought to mobilise more than $1 trillion by 2030 to boost solar power in 120 developing countries.

Others included an aspirational, African target to deploy an additional 300 GW of renewable energy by 2030, with $10 billion support from industrialised nations. Other targets included a Global Geothermal Alliance target to develop 50 GW of geothermal power by 2030; and support from some 53 major companies (including BMW Group, Coca Cola, IKEA and Swiss Post) for an RE100 initiative to source all their electricity from renewable sources, by no fixed deadline.

Turning to donor announcements, the United Nations compiled a summary at the midway point through the conference on Sunday. While the funding comprised a headline total of tens of billions of dollars, there was negligible or zero resolution by sector or technology, referring mostly to “climate finance” or “climate action”. Rare exceptions included: Iceland’s $10 million annual support for “geothermal development, sustainable land and ocean management”; and Norway’s $400 million annual support for tropical forests.

Finally, there has been a diversity of analysis around the Paris conference and a low-carbon transition. Regarding the impact of an ambitious Paris agreement, Barclays Capital two weeks ago compared the impact across a range of sectors, identifying the biggest winners as renewable energy, efficient lighting manufacturers and power transmission manufacturers, and the biggest losers as automotive, fossil fuels and oil and gas.

Barclays Capital also found losers, where the fossil fuel industry would lose around $34 trillion in revenues cumulatively from 2014-2040 as a result of the new, national climate action pledges.

Regarding winners from a low-carbon transition more generally, Goldman Sachs last week highlighted four “front runner” technologies: LED light bulbs; solar power; wind; and electric and hybrid vehicles. Along similar lines, two weeks ago, Bank of America Merrill Lynch highlighted nine “entry points” for investors: energy efficiency; wind; solar; renewable energy yieldcos; nextgen vehicles batteries and storage; nuclear; hydropower; diversified cleantech; and other cleantech.

The post Solar: The biggest winner from Paris climate talks? appeared first on Climate Home News.

An untapped renewable energy source? Humidity rising from water could power turbines (Pic: Richard Palmer)

By Megan Darby

The idea of tapping wind, solar and tidal energy for power is well established.

Now scientists part-funded by the US Department of Energy have found a way to exploit another powerful force of nature: evaporating water.

In lab experiments, researchers at Columbia University have run a toy car and a small flashing lightbulb on currents of moist air.

If scaled up, similar techniques could be used to generate power from turbines over bays or reservoirs, or even propel full-sized cars.

“Evaporation is a fundamental force of nature,” said lead author Ozgur Sahin. “It’s everywhere, and it’s more powerful than other forces like wind and waves.”

The technology works using bacterial spores, which swell up in humid air and shrink as it dries out. This movement can be harnessed to create a piston effect or spin a wheel.

To make a piston-driven engine, spores are glued in alternating dashed lines on either side of a flexible plastic tape.

In dry air, the spores shrink, making the tape curve and shorten. In moist air, they expand, releasing the tension.

With several of these tapes anchored at each end, the researchers created a sort of artificial muscle. They put it in a plastic case, with shutters to regulate the humidity.

“When we placed water beneath the device, it suddenly came to life, moving on its own,” said Xi Chen, co-author of the study.

The device was hooked up to a generator, which produced enough electricity to make a small light flash.

Chen claimed a larger scale version could generate more power than a wind farm over the same area.

The “moisture mill” model can propel this toy car (Columbia University)

The other application – dubbed the “moisture mill” – is a wheel with several tabs sticking out, each covered on one side with spores.

This is positioned with one side in humid air and the other in drier conditions. The tabs curve in dry air and straighten on contact with moisture, driving the wheel round.

Sahin’s team used this to drive a toy car. It may be possible to design engines run on this principle for full-sized vehicles, they suggested, that would need no other fuel.

Or the mill could be another way to generate electricity, with turbines positioned above bodies of water.

The post ‘Moisture mill’ shows clean energy potential of evaporation appeared first on Climate Home News.

The Three Gorges Dam in China has a total electric generating capacity of 22,500 MW (Pic: ilmari hyvönen/Flickr)

By Tim Radford

Hydropower, the renewable technology that sets gravity to work and harnesses the energy of rivers, is about to double its output.

The growth will be mostly in the developing world − but the construction of new dams on rivers in South America, South-east Asia and Africa comes at a cost.

Around a fifth of the world’s largest remaining free-flowing rivers will be dammed, which presents yet another threat to the wild things that live in or depend on wild water.

Christiane Zarfl − now assistant professor for Environmental System Analysis at the University of Tübingen, Germany − and former colleagues at the Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries in Berlin presented their findings at the International Alliance of Research Universities congress on global challenges, hosted by the University of Copenhagen.

The research is also published in the journal Aquatic Sciences.

Renewables, such as solar energy and wind power, now provide about a fifth of the world’s electricity production, and hydroelectric power makes up four-fifths of that.

The researchers believe that, within the next two decades, another 3,700 dams may more than double hydropower’s total electricity capacity to 1,700 GW.

Surge of activity

China will remain the global leader, but because of the surge of activity in other countries, its share will fall from 31% to about 25%. The largest number of new dams in South America will be in the Amazon and La Plata basins of Brazil. In Asia, the biggest effort will be in the Ganges-Brahmaputra basin and along the Yangtze.

But while some national economies look for a brighter electric future from hydropower, others have to confront and come to terms with the capriciousness of freshwater delivery.

Professor Jim Hall, Director of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford, and colleagues argue in Science magazine  that too much water − as well as too little – can seriously damage a nation’s economic health.

And climate change means that this unpredictability is likely to present even greater difficulties in the decades ahead.

But challenges exist already. In Ethiopia, a sustained drought has reduced economic growth by 38%. In Thailand, floods in 2011 cost the country $16 billion in insured losses and $43 billion in overall economic losses. In parts of India, half the annual rainfall splashes onto the dusty soils in just 15 days, and 90% of the annual river flows are concentrated into about four months of the year.

Rainfall can vary according to season and from year to year. Climate scientists have also repeatedly warned of a possible increase in extremes of heat and flood. So there are at least three dimensions to the delivery of water on tap.

In the arid regions – and these include most of Australia, the southwestern US, the Middle East and North Africa – conditions are marked by what hydrologists call “strong interannual variability”, which is a delicate way of saying that droughts can last for years and then end suddenly with catastrophic flash floods.

“When these dimensions are combined,” the report’s authors say, “the situation is most challenging – a wicked combination of hydrology that confronts the world’s poorest people.”

This article was produced by the Climate News Network

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Pic: Harald Hoyer/Flickr

By Tony de Brum, Jean-Paul Adam, and Maxine McClean

While many have traditionally associated us island states as inevitable victims of the warming planet, the opposite is true. 

We are leading the rush to the greatest global energy transformation the world has seen since the industrial revolution.

Lying out in the middle of our vast oceans, this might not seem a natural choice for our islands.  But after years of subjecting our fragile economies and communities to the high cost of imported fossil fuels, we are moving to a new energy paradigm.

In 2008, a global oil price spike forced the Marshall Islands Government to declare a national economic emergency, with the nation no longer able to pay for the imported diesel used to generate up to 90% of the country’s power.

After the energy policy review that followed, the Marshall Islands chose a different path.  More than 95% of its vast outer island communities – spread out over a million square kilometers of the Pacific Ocean – now power their livelihoods by the energy of the sun.

Pushing ahead

Through initiatives like the Majuro Declaration for Climate Leadership and the CARICOM Regional Energy Policy, we have set ourselves some of the world’s most ambitious targets for renewable energy and energy efficiency, throwing down the gauntlet for the big emitters to follow our lead.

For example, the Cook Islands, Niue, Tuvalu, Vanuatu, Aruba, Dominica, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, St Lucia, and the Maldives are all striving to be 100% renewable by 2020, and Tokelau has already made it happen.

Part of this, of course, is self-interest:  there is no group of countries anywhere in the world where the “win-win” for the economy and the environment is more profound than in our island nations.  When we switch to clean energy, it is not only good for the planet, but it is also good for our economies, our health and our energy security.

But there are also global interests at play.  While our emissions are miniscule, there is no reason our island nations cannot be the world’s powerhouses for the demonstration and uptake of renewable energy technologies, both tested and new.

For example, Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion, which is already being tested on offshore islands in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, as well as in the Caribbean, and has the potential to deliver gold-standard renewable energy to large coastal urban centers in more than 40 countries worldwide, including the US, Canada and Japan.

Leadership

Thankfully, some of the world’s biggest economies have already seen the light.  Germany’s Energiewende has set Europe’s industrial powerhouse on track to reach an 80% renewable energy target by 2050, and at one point last May, 75% of the German grid was pulsing with clean green power.

Despite signs of progress, two-thirds of all greenhouse gas emissions around the world still come from the energy sector and we continue to lock in just as much high-emitting energy infrastructure as we do new renewables.

According to the IEA, for every $1 of delayed investment now, it will cost us $4.30 after 2020 to compensate for increased emissions if we are to keep global warming below 2C.

Thankfully the costs of many renewables, including wind and solar, have dropped significantly in recent years, making groundbreaking large-scale projects like the Port Victoria Wind Farm in the Seychelles possible, and in turn saving the country almost 10,000 barrels of oil a year.

As world leaders gathered in New York for the UN Secretary-General’s Climate Summit, the loud message from all of us was that the fossil fuel era is over and that the renewables revolution is here to stay.

Here in New York, our island leaders launched a new “SIDS Lighthouses Initiative” to register our renewable energy needs, and match them with new financial tools and sources of support that can turn our sustainable energy dreams into reality.  For our communities, our countries and our common purpose,  nothing could be more important.

Tony de Brum  is the foreign minister of the Marshall Islands. Jean-Paul Adam is the foreign minister of the Seychelles. Maxine McClean is the foreign minister of Barbados.

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The Australian government is reviewing its renewable energy target
(Pic: Flickr/mugley)

By Megan Darby

Australia must face up to scientific and international realities with long term goals to clean up the energy sector, a think-tank recommended on Wednesday.

While debate rages over proposals to scrap or scale back Australia’s 2020 renewable energy target, the Sydney-based Climate Institute said politicians need to take the opposite course.

The country needs to halve its power sector carbon emissions by 2030, the think-tank said, and give a clear signal to the market to invest in renewable technology.

“The Renewable Energy Target is a critical but insufficient tool to put Australia’s electricity sector on a path to decarbonisation. Australia also needs to deal with the fact that it has a badly aging and polluting power fleet,” said Climate Institute deputy CEO Erwin Jackson.

“By just focusing on the 2020 Renewable Energy Target, the political debate is ignoring scientific and international realities. To position our economy for the inevitable transition to clean power, we need a clear bipartisan supported goal to decarbonise the electricity sector.”

On Tuesday UK energy and climate secretary Ed Davey said Australia was one of a number of developed countries that needed to deliver tougher carbon cuts ahead of a possible UN climate deal next year.

A UK government study said Canberra should be looking at cuts between 34-74% on a 1990 baseline by 2030. Australia currently has an unconditional target of 5% compared with 2000 levels by 2020.

Warburton report

Tony Abbott’s government is considering a report led by business magnate Dick Warburton into its renewable energy strategy.

Its publication followed hot on the heels of a controversial move to axe Australia’s carbon tax. Abbott had made a manifesto promise to cut the green levy, in a clear signal his priority was to protect energy-intensive industries over the climate.

Warburton, a climate sceptic, said the costs of the renewables scheme outweighed its benefits and “significant change is required”.

The RET sets a goal of 41,000GWh of power from renewables by 2020. This was originally expected to meet 20% of the country’s electricity needs, but is now on course to provide 26% due to a drop in demand.

According to Warburton’s report, the support scheme is now contributing to a surplus of capacity and its costs are “not justifiable”.

The cabinet is reportedly divided on how to proceed, with Abbott wanting to scrap the target, environment minister Greg Hunt favouring a scale-back and education minister Christopher Pyne privately defending the scheme against changes.

Australia must cut its power sector emissions more steeply to keep the world to 2C temperature rise, says the Climate Institute
(Source: The Climate Institute)

The Climate Institute argued that far from downgrading the ambition for renewables, the government needed to take a longer term view.

To limit global temperature rise to 2C above pre-industrial levels, the internationally agreed threshold, Australia must phase out coal from the mix.

“Stable and effective policy needs to be developed not for the next five years, but for the next 50 years,” said Jackson.

“Any long-term solution to Australia’s electricity sector challenges will require strong growth in renewable energy investment to 2020, 2030 and beyond.

“It will also require the exit of aging and high polluting coal generators from the electricity market. Approaches such as voluntary funds for closure of coal plants are insufficient.”

He cited regulatory interventions in the USA, Canada, UK and China to limit coal generation.

Map showing Australia’s geothermal hotspots
(Source: IRENA)

Meanwhile, a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) found Australia has significant geothermal resources.

IRENA’s global atlas showed hot rock across large areas of Queensland, New South Wales and South Australia, that could be tapped for energy.

“This latest map suggests the clear potential for enhanced geothermal in Australia,” said Nicolas Fichaux, program officer for resource assessment at IRENA.

“Enhanced geothermal resources can provide significant heat energy in parts of the world not normally known as geothermal hotspots. And while the technology is still relatively nascent, the potential is huge.”

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Renewable technologies are getting cheaper, but developers still need predictable returns, says IEA
(Pic: David Clarke)

By Megan Darby

Growth of the renewable energy sector is under threat from policy uncertainty, the International Energy Agency warned on Thursday.

Investment in clean sources of energy is a key plank of global efforts to cut carbon emissions and tackle climate change.

Wind, solar and hydro and other renewables generated almost 22% of power worldwide in 2013, the IEA’s Medium-Term Renewable Energy Market Report said.

Yet expansion of the clean power market is set to slow after 2014, the authors found. It could fall short of delivering the generation needed to meet climate change objectives.

Maria van der Hoeven, executive director of the IEA, said: “Renewables are a necessary part of energy security.

“However, just when they are becoming a cost-competitive option in an increasing number of cases, policy and regulatory uncertainty is rising in some key markets.”

Cost

The price of renewable technologies is falling in many cases, making generators less dependent on high subsidies.

However, developers bear most of the cost up-front, to be repaid over several years. To get finance, they need predictable returns, van der Hoeven explained.

“Many renewables no longer need high incentive levels. Rather, given their capital-intensive nature, renewables require a market context that assures a reasonable and predictable return for investors.

“This calls for a serious reflection on market design needed to achieve a more sustainable world energy mix.”

Barriers

The barriers to investment are different in developed and developing countries.

In Europe, the climate and energy policy framework to 2030 is still under negotiation. The existing strategy runs to 2020.

Draft proposals included a target to get 27% of energy from renewable sources by 2030. National leaders are set to sign off the package in October.

There is also uncertainty about plans to reinforce the European grid to accommodate renewables with variable output.

In non-OECD markets such as China, which account for 70% of renewables growth, there issues with availability of finance, grid capacity and non-economic barriers.

Investment

Decreasing costs are making renewables increasingly competitive against conventional power plants, the IEA found.

In Brazil, onshore wind has outbid gas-fired power stations in auctions while in northern Chile, an unsubsidised solar market is taking off.

Worldwide, the IEA forecasts US$230 billion of investment a year to 2020 – lower than the US$250 billion invested in 2013.

That reflects lower unit investment costs as well as declining global capacity growth.

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NASA satellite photos show how undeveloped Africa’s electrical resources are (Pic: NASA)

By Ed King

Clean energy investment in sub-Saharan Africa is likely to rise from US$5.9 billion in 2014 to $7.7 bn in 2016, according to analysts.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) reports 1.8GW of renewables, excluding large hydro projects, will be commissioned in 2014. This is expected to rise significantly in the next few years.

The three largest markets for utility-scale renewables are South Africa, Kenya and Ethiopia, which have longer term plans for nearly 6GW of solar PV, wind and geothermal installations.

Access to viable financing models will determine how fast the region manages to develop its clean energy potential, said Derek Campbell, a Cape Town-based analyst for BNEF. Renewable projects require high levels of upfront capital.

“The joker in the pack for the Sub-Saharan region is likely to be rooftop and other small-scale PV, which has the potential to enjoy explosive growth in Africa’s towns and cities and also in rural areas not connected to the grid,” he said.

Historically attracting finance for projects in Africa has been difficult, with many investors avoiding the region due to fears over corruption and a lack of transparency.

According to BNEF this is starting to change.

Recently the European Investment Bank (EIB) loaned solar developers Abengoa nearly US$100 million for a solar plant in South Africa.

Other major investments include the 310MW Lake Turkana Wind Power scheme in Kenya, which has been backed with a US$650 million loan from the African Development Bank and Standard Bank of South Africa.

The UN’s Green Climate Fund, which is expected to start work early in 2015, is likely to offer one financing path for African countries eager to boost their renewables capacity.

The World Bank has also pledged US$5 billion in support of energy projects in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria and Tanzania, with a goal of exploiting hydropower resources. Africa currently uses just 8% of its hydro potential, compared to 85% in Europe.

According to World Bank figures, around 600 million people in African countries have no access to electricity. The continent currently has the same generation capacity of Vietnam.

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Ségolène Royal claims the legislation is “the most advanced” in Europe (Pic: Parti Socialiste)

By Megan Darby

France is set to cut fossil fuel use and ramp up renewable energy generation after passing a long-awaited energy and climate law last week.

The law sets targets to reduce consumption of fossil fuels 30% by 2030 and get 32% of energy from renewable sources.

Shifting to cleaner sources of power will contribute to the EU’s provisional target of a 40% drop in greenhouse gas emissions, compared to 1990 levels.

Ségolène Royal, French environment minister, claimed: “With this law, France adopts the most advanced legislation in the European Union.”

At the same time, the country will diversify away from nuclear, which currently dominates the power generation mix. By 2025, the government aims to get 50% of power from nuclear, down from 75% today.

The Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 prompted France to question its heavy reliance on atomic power, which was developed in the 1970s and 1980s.

The government set aside €10 billion to fund a total of 64 specific policy measures in the bill, over the next three years. It hopes to create 100,000 jobs in green industries.

Des exemples concrets. La transition énergétique crée des emplois dans le bâtiment. pic.twitter.com/3cqvTn9ssc

— Ségolène Royal (@RoyalSegolene) August 1, 2014

European leaders are set to finalise a climate policy framework out to 2030 in October, which will commit the EU to slashing carbon emissions.

The European Commission has proposed a 40% cut in carbon emissions, a 27% renewable energy target and a 30% energy efficiency target, following the existing three-pronged approach.

It is an important milestone on the path to 2050, when the EU has committed to cut emissions by 80%.

Decisions made by national leaders will affect what Europe can bring to international negotiations, which are set to produce a global climate treaty next year in Paris.

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Pic: Craig Allen/Flickr

By Gerard Wynn

While rainfall has recently doused World Cup football pitches in southern and eastern Brazil, persistent drought elsewhere poses a challenge for the country’s hydropower, the US Department of Energy said on Tuesday.

“Brazil is currently experiencing its worst drought in 40 years, which has contributed to electricity blackouts in many Brazilian regions,” the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.

“The south has been inundated with rainfall that has affected some World Cup matches, including those held in Natal, the site of team USA’s victory over Ghana last night,” it added.

“(But) the drought has persisted in northern Brazil. Much of Brazil’s hydroelectric potential lies in the country’s Amazon River basin. This reliance on one resource for most of the country’s electricity generation, combined with the distant and disparate locations of its population centers, has presented electricity reliability challenges.”

Hydropower is responsible for more than three quarters of Brazil’s electricity generation, making the present drought a topic of energy security.

Brazil’s hydropower consumption fell 7% last year, according to data published by the energy company BP on Monday.

Analysts expect that the country can cope with extra electricity demand during the World Cup, in the worst case limiting supply in regions not participating in the tournament, and stepping up gas-fired power.

Hydropower consumption last year fell by 6.8 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE), while natural gas consumption almost made up the difference, growing by 5.4 MTOE, according to the BP data.

“Brazil has spent more than $5 billion to subsidize electric utilities replacing lost hydroelectric generation with fossil fuel-fired generation, including large amounts of liquefied natural gas, and has taken steps to provide backup generation for stadiums,” the EIA said.

Notwithstanding the energy security risks, Brazil is in the process of building the world’s third biggest dam, on a tributary of the Amazon.

The country already has the world’s second biggest dam, by generating capacity, shared with Paraguay on the Parana River in the south west of the country. At around 14,000 megawatts (MW), it is second only to the China Three Gorges’ 22,500 MW.

And it is expected to commission an equally enormous dam within two years.

“The 14,000-megawatt Belo Monte dam along the Xingu River, expected to be completed in 2016, will become the second-largest dam in Brazil—and the third-largest dam in the world—at a projected cost of $13 billion,” the EIA said.

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By Gerard Wynn

Low carbon energy coupled with efficiency saves money compared with burning fossil fuels, especially in the longer run, a study by  Ernst and Young said on Tuesday.

EU commitment to cut carbon emissions has faltered in the aftermath of a financial crisis which has focused concerns over lower energy prices in the United States and China.

Staying the course would benefit the bloc, however, in the medium and long-run, said Tuesday’s report, “Macroeconomic impacts of the low carbon transition”.

Renewable energy technologies typically have higher up-front capital costs than fossil fuels. Zero fuel costs generate savings which pay back the initial investment over time.

Investment in renewable energy could save the EU more than half a trillion euros annually in avoided fossil fuel imports by 2050, Tuesday’s report said, quoting European Commission estimates.

Those savings could drive alternative consumption, and so boost the rest of the economy, and cut energy costs over time.

“Beyond 2020, prices are expected to stabilise, and even slightly decrease by 2050, as fuel cost savings materialise,” the report said.

Business as usual

Regardless of a low-carbon transition, the EU must upgrade ageing energy infrastructure including power and other energy production and transmission.

Such costs would rise from around 800 billion euros per annum over the period 2010-2020 to 1,000 billion euros per annum over the period 2040-2050.

The EU faced a choice between investing in relatively more or less fewer fossil fuels compared with renewable energy and efficiency.

If the EU continued along its present, business as usual (BAU), energy path, it could face an enormous and growing bill for fossil fuel imports, the report argued.

Because of falling domestic oil and gas production as well as rising prices, that bill would rise to 600 billion euros annually in 2050, according to European Commission estimates, from around 330 billion euros now.

According to one study, by Cambridge Econometrics, fossil fuel import bill for the transport sector alone would rise to 705 billion euros annually by 2050, as a result of rising prices.

“These challenges illustrate that BAU differs from a mere “comfortable” continuation of the current situation, and will present difficult economic challenges,” said the report.

Low carbon

Investing in renewable energy would drive fuel savings.

“The Commission’s Energy Roadmap 2050 predicts that in 2050, compared to BAU the EU could save between 518 billion and 550 billion euros annually by taking a strong decarbonisation pathway. This can be achieved through a combination of energy efficiency and the promotion of a diverse portfolio of low-carbon generation technologies across Europe, including wind, solar, hydro, geothermal, biomass and other promising options.”

The report quoted research estimating consumer fuel savings of up to 180 billion euros annually in the personal transport sector, from a shift to more efficient and electric vehicles, and up to 474 billion euros cumulatively through 2050, as a result of more efficient homes.

Such savings would boost the economy, by allowing alternative consumption.

On the down side, energy costs may be higher in the near term.

“European Commission modelling predicts that under decarbonisation, electricity costs (as with overall energy costs) increase slightly higher than under BAU in the 2030 horizon, but that in the longer term they would follow a more desirable course than under BAU.”

The report quizzed the reliability of such estimates.

Solar power costs have consistently falling faster than government and EU estimates, for example, while investment in energy efficiency could help offset rising energy prices.

Meanwhile, wider benefits would help offset up-front energy costs.

So-called co-benefits included improved air quality from burning fewer fossil fuels, cutting pollutants including ozone, sulphur dioxide and smoke.

Other, benefits which were hard to monetise included avoided climate damage, for example from fewer droughts, floods and storms, and greater security of energy supply.

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Pic: Flickr/Kathy

By Sophie Yeo

Renewable energy capacity grew by 8.3% in 2013, contributing over half of the net additions to global power capacity, according to a new report 

Developing countries such as China and India were the main drivers in the expansion of renewable energy last year,  and 95 developing countries now provide government support for renewables,  a six-fold increase from almost a decade ago.

A total of 144 countries provide support to renewable energy and have targets in place, says the report, which was assembled by researchers from the Renewable Energy Policy Network for the 21st Century (REN21).

The report will be released on Wednesday in New York at the UN’s Sustainable Energy for All Forum, which is an opportunity for countries to discuss progress on sustainable energy, two years on from the Rio+20 summit.

It was at the 2012 summit that world leaders declared they would act to make ‘sustainable energy for all’ a reality to help reach development goals.

Arthouros Zervos, Chair of REN21, said global perceptions of renewable energy are shifting, but that policy is key to cementing a long term shift.

“Over the last 10 years, continuing technology advances and rapid deployment of many renewable energy technologies have demonstrated that the question is no longer whether renewables have a role to play in the provision of energy services, but rather how we can best increase the current pace to achieve a 100% renewables future with full energy access for all.”

He added: “For this to be become reality, current thinking needs to change: continuing the status quo of a patchwork of policies and actions is no longer sufficient.”

This view was echoed in a report on Tuesday from the IEA, which said spending on renewables and energy efficiency needs to rise threefold over the next two decades to curb use of fossil fuels.

Progress

The report says that increasing support for renewables in the developing world contrasts with lower subsidies in some European countries and the US, and increasing policy uncertainty.

So far, support for renewables has helped increase the capacity of wind, solar, hydro and biomass to 1,560 GW, accounting for 22% of the world’s power output, and employing 6.5 million people, the report added.

China, the US, Brazil, Canada and Germany ranked the best overall for installing new renewable power capacity, while Uruguay, Mauritius and Costa Rica were the top countries for investment in renewables relative to their annual GDP.

In China, new renewable power capacity surpassed new fossil fuel and nuclear capacity for the first time, said the report.

On Tuesday, China said it would implement a nationwide emissions cap by 2016.

New commitments to renewable energy could be considered by countries as a possible contribution to a landmark UN climate summit to be held in New York in September.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has invited leaders to bring “bold pledges” to the meeting to build momentum ahead of landmark climate talks in Paris at the end of next year, where countries may agree a successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

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(Pic: Bigstock)

By Gerard Wynn

Solar panel prices have risen slightly for the first time in at least five years, show data published this month by the major manufacturers, in their first quarter reports.

The price rise is good news for manufacturers and their investors who have suffered massive losses after a slew of bankruptcies.

However, industry supporters including developers and environment groups will not want sustained higher prices, as they try to maintain growth in demand for solar power which is still more expensive than fossil fuels.

Solar module prices have been under pressure since 2008 as a result of global over-capacity and falling renewable energy subsidies.

Prices are now rising slowly, several manufacturers reported, as a result of a shakeout in the industry which has eliminated some over-capacity, bringing supply back in line with demand.

A new European minimum import price – following a trade dispute with China – has also contributed, alongside strong demand in Japan, one of the world’s most lucrative markets.

“Average selling prices increased, and remains among the highest of Chinese Tier 1 companies,” reported Hanwha SolarOne, one of the world’s biggest manufacturers, in its first quarter report.

The company reported that prices rose 4.4% quarter on quarter in the first three months of 2014, to $0.69 per watt.

Average selling prices among top Chinese module makers last year were $0.62-$0.68 per watt, company data show.

Sunrise

Average prices stabilised last year, after almost halving in 2012, and now appear to have completed a turnaround.

In addition to Hanwha SolarOne, other tier one Chinese solar module makers reported improving prices in the first quarter this year.

“The year-over-year increase in total revenues was mainly attributable to the increase in shipments, improving average selling prices of solar modules and the increase in electricity revenues from solar projects,” Jinko Solar said earlier this week, in its first quarter report.

Canadian Solar also reported “a slightly higher average selling price” in the first quarter of this year, in its latest financial report published on May 16.

“We are experiencing strong demand for our products in all key geographies and expect reasonably strong global market demand growth in 2014,” said Shawn Qu, chairman and chief executive.

“We expect Japan, Canada, China, and the U.S., among others, to remain healthy markets for us through 2014.  We continue to believe that in 2014, and for several years to follow, China will be the biggest market in the world, with at least 11 GW to 12GW of solar module installations this year with the possibility of achieving the total announced target of 14 GW. ”

Trina Solar, another major Chinese module maker, also reported improving average selling prices (ASPs) and profitability in the first three months compared with the first quarter of 2013.

“The year-over-year increase in gross margin was primarily due to the increase in ASP and decrease in costs on a per watt basis.”

Competitiveness

The main reason for the improving prices was a shakeout of over-capacity, after less competitive companies went to the wall.

However, tier one producer Yingli Solar also pointed to the impact of the EU-China trade agreement which imposed a minimum price on imports, after European manufacturers complained of unfair competition.

“(In Europe) in Q4 ASPs improved by 25% versus Q1 2013 as all volume was sold above the Minimum Import Price (MIP),” the company said, in its presentation of full-year annual results.

One blot in the landscape is the impact of rising prices on the competitiveness of solar power, which is under pressure to compete without subsidies as governments try to limit consumer energy prices in the aftermath of the financial crisis.

As a result, solar power will have to compete with fossil fuels without subsidies by the end of the decade.

Despite the recent price increases, module markers seemed confident they could achieve lower prices in the medium and long-term through continuing cost savings and economies of scale.

“We expect that the prices of PV products will continue to decline over time due to increased supply of PV products, reduced manufacturing costs from improving technology and economies of scale,” said Hanwha SolarOne, in its annual full-year report.

However, the evidence from two manufacturers which publish regular quarterly cost data is that savings are slowing, suggesting that the industry will struggle to recover the recent pace of cost cutting and price competitiveness.

The post Why are solar panel prices starting to rise? appeared first on Climate Home News.

By Gerard Wynn

British installed solar power capacity passed 3 gigawatts in April, new data show, but rising at a slower rate than previously following cuts in subsidies.

Britain now ranks among the world’s top 10 solar producers.

In first place is Germany, with a total 36 GW installed, while China is growing fastest, adding around 11.3 GW just last year according to the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA).

Britain’s installed capacity in the first quarter this year rose by 189 megawatts, according to the new data published by the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC) on Thursday, which is the slowest first quarter increase since 2011.

“Overall UK solar PV capacity at the end of April 2014 stood at 3,179 MW, across 551,939 installations,” DECC said in its update.

Britain has three support schemes: a feed-in tariff scheme which pays a price premium for smaller installations, and a market in green certificates called the renewables obligation scheme (ROC) for larger farms.

Newer installations are still awaiting accreditation under either scheme, shown in the chart below.

DECC recently said that as of the end of March there were 1.2 GW of large, ground-mounted solar farms awaiting accreditation, implying that total installed capacity may reach 4 GW this year.

The success of the British solar power industry may sow the seeds of its own downfall, however, because the government has imposed spending limits under its Levy Control Framework (LCF), which includes subsidies raised from consumer energy bills.

Britain earlier this month announced plans, which it is presently consulting on, to scrap from next year support for large solar power farms under its ROC scheme.

Large farms over 5 megawatts would still be able to claim subsidies under a forthcoming “contracts for difference” scheme.

But under that scheme, as an “established technology” solar would have to compete for subsidies with onshore wind, which is cheaper and so may muscle out further large-scale solar installations.

“(If present support continues) we could see more than 5GW by 2017, which exceeds by some margin the upper end of the potential range set out in the Delivery Plan for 2020,” DECC said in its recent consultation on scrapping ROC solar subsidies.

“This is more than we can afford and would have adverse consequences for Government’s management and use of the LCF as a whole.”

Other subsidies for smaller scale solar power installations are already subject to built-in reductions over time, which vary according to growth in capacity, with faster cuts the faster the industry grows.

Every solar subsidy, or tariff, falls by a minimum of 3.5% every nine months, under that degression policy.

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Pic: slworking2/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

A €3 billion deal for a Dutch offshore wind farm project will boost the renewables industry in Europe and provide clean energy to 1.5 million people.

The Gemini project, which will be built in the Dutch North Sea, signed a deal with a consortium led by Siemens. The German company will deliver 150 wind turbines to the park, which will have a total capacity of 600 megawatts.

The amount of energy that the park will provide is equivalent to reducing emissions of CO2 by 1.25 million tons per year, said Siemens.

“With the project we are entering one of the most important emerging offshore wind markets in Europe,” said Markus Tacke, CEO of the Wind Power Division of Siemens Energy.

The Consortium is led by Canadian firm Northland Power, 20% by Siemen’s Financial Services arm, and 10% by Dutch firm Van Oord. The final 10% is owned by a joint venture of 48 Dutch municipalities and six water regulatory authorities. Siemens said that this makes Gemini the largest-ever project-financed offshore wind farm.

The project will help the Netherlands to hit its target of generating 14% of its energy from renewables by 2020. Currently, the country has 2.7 gigawatts of wind power online, which it hopes to raise to 4.45GW by 20203.

John Brace, CEO of Northland, said: As the global leader in offshore wind turbine supply with more than 20 years of experience, the involvement of Siemens contributes to the solid structure of the project and will help us to deliver a high quality facility that will help to fulfill the Netherlands’ renewable energy targets.”

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Pic: Bigstock

By Sophie Yeo

Renewable energy provided 6.5 million jobs globally in 2013, reflecting the industry’s increasing contribution to the global economy.

This is the finding of the latest report on the renewable energy industry from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), which was launched today in South Korea during a conference of government ministers and delegates on the future of clean energy technology.

The numbers demonstrates the substantial growth that the industry has undergone in just one year, expanding from 5.7 million in 20912, said IRENA chief Adnan Z. Amin.

“With 6.5 million people directly or indirectly employed in renewable energy, the sector is proving that it is no longer a niche, it has become a significant employer worldwide.”

The growth comes as a result of regional shifts in the renewables market, growing competition and advances in technology and manufacturing processes during 2013, found the report.

In particular, China saw a significant increase in annual installations and manufacturing of clean technology. IRENA predicts that solar power installations rose five-fold between 2011 and 2013.

This meant China had the largest number of employees in the renewable industry, followed by Brazil, the US, India, Germany, Spain and Bangladesh.

The greatest number of these were employed by the solar industry, followed by biofuels, biomass and biogas.

Speaking to the Independent last week, UN climate chief Christiana Figueres said that climate change offered a “huge business opportunity” that ought to be embraced by both sides of politics.

“Addressing climate change in a timely and effective fashion actually means a huge new side of industry will be created that is going to bring jobs and income,” she said.

“So it’s not necessarily a typical left-wing agenda, it actually has opportunities for everyone.”

A successful UN climate deal in 2015 will require the world to rethink how to produce its energy and make a mass transition towards low-carbon alternatives to fossil fuels.

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Pic: Astrid Kopp/Flickr

By Sophie Yeo

Mars has announced that its US operations will become carbon neutral, running off the wind energy produced by a 200MW wind farm in Texas.

The chocolate giant has agreed to purchase all the renewable energy generated by the Mesquite Creek wind farm. The 800,000 megawatt-hours it produces every year will be enough to offset 100% of Mars’ US operations, including its 37 factories.

The company, which also sells pet food and other products, is currently ranked by Forbes as America’s fifth largest private company. As part of its pledge to go “Sustainable in a Generation”, the company has promised to eliminate its greenhouse gas emissions by 2040.

In the short term, Mars has said they will reduce their carbon emissions 25% on 2007 levels by 2015. The wind farm project puts them on track for this goal, representing 24% of Mars’ total global factory and office carbon footprint – the equivalent required to power 61,000 US households.

“We are committed to doing our part to limit climate change,” said Barry Parkin, chief sustainability officer at Mars.

“We are therefore delighted to be announcing this major renewable project that takes us a big step towards our goal of becoming carbon neutral in our operations. This is an innovative approach that makes great business and environmental sense.”

The project is a joint partnership with Sumitomo Corporation of Americas and BNB Renewable Energy, who developed the wind farm.

The Mesquite Creek project began in 2008, with 118 wind turbines constructed on the 25,000 acre site. Commercial operations are scheduled to begin in the second quarter of next year.

Businesses are increasingly making the case for strong action to tackle climate change, and are now a key part of the discussion, with UN Secretary General inviting them to attend a UN Climate Summit alongside politicians in September.

In a speech earlier this month, Unilever CEO Paul Polman said: “We recognise for the first time that, purely in monetary terms, the cost of inaction is starting to become bigger than the cost of action. This is a wonderful position to be in for businesses because that obviously galvanises business.”

Mars is the latest US company to announce ambitious initiatives to tackle climate change, with Apple and Google both taking on new low carbon commitments last week.

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Pic: David Clarke/Flickr

By Gerard Wynn

Political uncertainty risked derailing Britain’s low-carbon ambitions, says a major new report from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC), published on Wednesday.

The research body said it supported the decarbonisation of the nation’s power grid by 2030, piling pressure on the Coalition government which last year deferred supporting such a target.

UKERC is a publicly funded body which coordinates, funds and commissions British university energy research.

Their latest report concluded that energy objectives to achieve affordability and security of supply risked undermining the country’s third main energy target, to cut carbon emissions.

“In a challenging economic climate, UK energy futures have become more uncertain and contested,” the report found.

“Contrasting energy priorities are being articulated in public policy and in the private sector, exacerbated by controversies over energy prices and bills, shale gas development, onshore wind power and new nuclear power stations.”

Britain has set itself some of the world’s most challenging climate legislation.

Its 2008 Climate Change Act set a mandatory target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80% by the middle of the century, below 1990 levels.

In addition, the Act created a statutory government adviser, called the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), to propose interim, five-year carbon emissions budgets, and to review the government’s progress towards meeting these.

In the meantime, however, the senior Conservative Party partner in the Coalition Government has favoured domestic shale gas over the cheapest form of renewable power, onshore wind, citing energy affordability concerns.

“When it was passed (in 2008), the Climate Change Act received strong cross-party support. However, more recent rises in energy prices, the impact of the 2008 financial crisis and heightened concerns about energy security have challenged this consensus,” the UKERC report said.

Decarbonisation

The government’s vocal support for shale gas has raised the stakes in a crunch political decision, to be taken after the next election, over whether to limit sharply the future role of gas-fired power by setting a carbon intensity target for the country’s power generation.

Decarbonisation refers to a proposed target to slash carbon emissions per unit of power generation in 2030, to 50 grams of carbon dioxide (CO2) per kilowatt hour (kWh) of power generation, from 500 grams at present.

The UK’s CCC has recommended that Britain adopt such a target.

Wednesday’s UKERC study also supported the target, piling pressure on the Coalition government, which 12 months ago delayed a decision on whether to adopt such a target until after the next general election in 2015.

“Power sector decarbonisation by 2030 is essential if the UK’s emissions targets are to be met whilst minimising the costs of doing so.”

The report argued that it was possible to scale up the required investment in the energy sector, notwithstanding the massive increase required compared with the 2000s when a little over £1 billion was invested annually in power generation.

“Since 2009, investment has been scaling up significantly. Over the period 2009-2012, average capacity additions were 4 GW (gigawatts) per year, with average annual capital investment of £4.6bn. These are much closer to the estimates of investment needs to 2020 and 2030.”

The report acknowledged the need for government support such as credit guarantees, to meet the required investment levels.

The report said that political uncertainty would damage the prospects for carbon emissions cuts, by casting doubt over financial backing, as well as undermining the prospect for a decarbonisation target and engagement of the public.

“Political controversy about energy policy goals has the potential to compound some of the challenges,” it said.

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Source: Alastair Marsh

By Gerard Wynn

Britain’s transmission grid operator, the National Grid, says rising installed wind power will have to play a bigger part in balancing the country’s electricity network.

That new role in grid balancing reflects the growing maturity of renewable energy technologies, where their need for subsidies is also now being called into question as they near competitiveness with conventional fossil fuel power.

Until now, renewables have had favourable treatment across the European Union, as countries tried to meet ambitious, mandatory targets for installing wind and solar power under the bloc’s 2009 renewable energy directive.

The directive discouraged grid operators from switching off, or curtailing, wind farms to balance the grid at times of weak demand.

That is now changing, however, as countries become increasingly dependent upon wind, as a growing share of total generating capacity. In addition, wind power itself is contributing to less stable electricity grids, because of occasional weather forecasting errors.

The National Grid pays electricity generators to switch off at times of unexpectedly low demand, under its so-called balancing mechanism. For example, it relies on a regulating reserve of power plants to switch off at particularly short notice.

It said it expected to involve larger British wind farms more frequently.

“As demand drops over the summer and fewer flexible generators run overnight, it will be necessary to call upon large wind farms to provide these services,” the grid operator said, in its “Summer Outlook 2014” report published on Monday.

“With increasing installed wind capacity it has become economic to carry a proportion of regulating reserve on large wind farms when it is windy. This has resulted in the occasional short curtailment instruction being issued to wind farms over the last few months.”

“The number of these short curtailment instructions given to wind farms is likely to increase as the demand drops towards the summer minimums and fewer flexible generators run overnight.”

Balancing

The National Grid’s outlook described expected demand and supply on the country’s high voltage transmissions lines this summer.

The report does not report electricity flows on the country’s lower voltage distribution network, and so paid less attention to very small-scale renewable power such as roof-top solar.

The National Grid reported that Britain’s electricity demand on transmissions networks had fallen consistently since 2006, reflecting partly a growth in small-scale renewable power, and also an overall decline in national electricity consumption even as the country’s economy grew in the aftermath of the global financial crisis.

“Since 2006 the demand on the transmission system has been dropping consistently. This is partly due to the generation connecting to the lower voltage distribution networks which includes renewables and smaller scale conventional sources of generation. There are also reductions in energy usage, due to energy efficiency measures and behavioural change. We believe this is likely to continue.”

Looking ahead to the summer, the grid operator said that it expected generating capacity to vary between 43.1 and 76.4 gigawatts, far greater than demand which was expected to vary between 19 and 38.4 GW.

As a result, the National Grid expected to have to curtail power generation from time to time.

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Source: Flickr/Marcus Kauffman

By Sophie Yeo

The UK is wasting an opportunity to generate almost half of its energy from biomass, according to a new report from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

By 2050, up to 44% of the UK’s energy could be produced from household and agricultural waste and home-grown fuels, says a study published today in the Energy Policy journal.

Biomass currently provides 38% of the UK’s renewable energy, although this only contributes about 15% to the country’s overall energy production.

It is classed as a ‘renewable’ form of energy since the plants and trees used can be regrown, sucking in carbon dioxide as they grow.

The authors say that the UK has an abundance of its own biomass resources that are being ignored. The bioenergy industry could be more effective if it utilised these, rather than relying on biomass resources that have to be imported from abroad.

The potential of biomass could help to wean the UK off fossil fuels, says Andrew Welfle, the author of the study. “The UK has legally binding renewable energy and greenhouse gas reduction targets, and energy from biomass is anticipated to make major contributions to these,” he said.

International targets

The UK is legally bound to reduce its energy-related carbon emissions by 50% on 1990 levels by 2027 – an ambitious target that will require the fossil fuel industry to give way to cleaner technologies, which could include biomass.

He found that residue from agriculture, forestry and industry could potentially provide 6.5% of primary energy demands by 2050, along with 15.4% from waste resources and 22% from specifically grown biomass and energy crops.

But there are a number of obstacles associated with biofuels and biomass. These including the concern that it could compete for land that could be used to grow food, and that large volumes of biomass would have to be imported for it to produce significant volumes to energy.

A 2012 report from the RSPB said in some cases biomass is dirtier than coal, revealing that emissions from burning wood over a 20-year period could be 80% greater than coal.

Welfle says the real potential lies in forms of biomass currently classed as waste. “Our research has found that the UK could produce large levels of energy from biomass without importing resources or negatively impacting the UK’s ability to feed itself,” he said.

“The research highlights that both household and food/plant waste streams represent particular potential for the sector.”

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By John McGarrity

The European Parliament on Wednesday voted for 30% targets on renewable energy and energy efficiency, tougher than what was proposed by EU policymakers last month.

In a vote of the full sitting of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, MEPs voted for a law that would require 30% percent of Europe’s energy to come from renewable sources by 2030, and for energy efficiency also to improve by 30%.

MEPs voted to back the European Commission’s proposal that greenhouse gases are cut 40% from 1990 levels by the end of the next decade. The views of the EU Parliament on climate and energy will be considered in a meeting of 28 EU member state governments next month.

The Parliament voted in favour by 341 votes to 263, with 26 abstentions.

“If we have a broad energy mix with greater energy efficiency, this is the best option to reduce to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to encourage new technologies and innovation, create jobs, and change our economies into greener economies. This is why we need three binding objectives,” said Anne Delvaux, one of the co-rapporteurs.

“If we double the emission reduction target after 2020, it is not realistic. It is a road to reduce the competitiveness of European industry,” said Szymański, co-rapporteur from the industry committee, who withdrew his name from the report that was adopted.

Good result in @Europarl_EN vote on #EU2030 sending a clear signal to EU governments to support 40% GHG target. Hope EU govts will listen!

— Connie Hedegaard (@CHedegaardEU) February 5, 2014

Many welcomed the vote for tougher targets on renewable energy than those presented by the European Commission. In January, commissioners proposed an EU-wide renewable energy target of 27% without binding national targets, and omitted a figure for energy efficiency.

“European Parliament has rejected the Commission’s one-legged 2030 policy,” said the European Renewable Energy Council, a lobby for wind and solar power, in a tweet.

MEPs voted in favour of binding renewable energy targets to be implemented through national thresholds.

This would be based on each member state’s energy mix and potential to use greater amounts of wind and solar.

Report: EU Commission proposes 40% carbon pollution cut

Some countries, such as the UK, have opposed binding, country-level renewable energy targets because they want to be able to use nuclear, CCS and new gas-fired power stations in their energy mix in future decades.

Coal-intensive countries such as Poland also don’t want to have to adhere to targets on the use of more expensive renewable energy. Heavy industry has lobbied for a greenhouse gas reduction target to be weaker than 40%.

The Parliament’s vote in favour of a joint report from lead MEPs or ‘rapporteurs’ in the environment and industry committees is the assembly’s major input on the 2030 package ahead of tough negotiations among governments that are expected to last at least a year.

In the first half of 2015 EU governments will have to hammer out agreement among themselves before the Commission can draft a workable document, which could take until 2016 or 2017 before it becomes law.

The EU is on course to meet targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20% by the end of this decade, and use renewables for 20% of its energy by 2020, but looks set to fall well short of a requirement to improve energy efficiency by 20%.

Green groups want tough 2030 targets across the board, so that Europe is put on a path to cut greenhouses 80-95% by 2050 from 1990 levels, and encourage deep cuts from other large emitters.

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Artist’s concept of a hydrogen production plant that uses sunlight to split water to produce fuel. (Pic: University of Colorado)

By Sophie Yeo

Hydrogen could be more widely used as a clean, zero-carbon technology, thanks to a new technology that scientists are calling the “Holy Grail” of a sustainable hydrogen economy.

The radically new technique, developed by researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, harnesses sunlight to split water into its two components of oxygen and hydrogen molecules, allowing the latter to be collected as hydrogen gas.

“We have designed something here that is very different from other methods and frankly something that nobody thought was possible before,” says Alan Weimer, the co-lead on the team.

“Splitting water with sunlight is the Holy Grail of a sustainable hydrogen economy.”

Hydrogen has been promoted as a sustainable fuel that could be particularly useful in the automotive industry. In February, for instance, a joint report by government and industry suggested that the UK could have 1.6 million hydrogen vehicles on the road by 2030.

The new technology uses a vast network of mirrors to concentrate sunlight onto a single point on top of a tower up to several hundred feet tall.

The tower heats up to around 1,350C. This heat is then delivered into a reactor containing metal oxides, made up of a combination of iron, cobalt, aluminium and oxygen, which releases oxygen atoms.

Adding steam to the system, which can be produced by boiling water in the reactor with the concentrated sunlight, causes oxygen to adhere to the surface of the metal oxide, which then frees up the hydrogen molecules for collection.

Improvements

This is a big improvement on the previous system of obtaining hydrogen gas, says Charles Musgrave, co-lead on the team.

He says, “”The more conventional approaches require the control of both the switching of the temperature in the reactor from a hot to a cool state and the introduction of steam into the system

“One of the big innovations in our system is that there is no swing in the temperature. The whole process is driven by either turning a steam valve on or off.”

This conventional two-step method for splitting the water wastes both time and heat. “There are only so many hours of sunlight in a day,” he said.

With the new method, the amount of hydrogen produced depends entirely on the amount of metal oxide and how much steam goes into the system.

To produce a significant amount of hydrogen gas would require a number of tall towers to gather sunlight from several acres of mirrors surrounding each tower.

“When we saw that we could use this simpler, more effective method, it required a change in our thinking,” said Weimer.

“We had to develop a theory to explain it and make it believable and understandable to other scientists and engineers.”

But the new technology isn’t enough by itself to make hydrogen the next big thing in the renewables market; Weimar admits that, until there is a change of thinking regarding climate change, commercialisation of their discovery is likely to be years away.

“With the price of natural gas so low, there is no incentive to burn clean energy,” said Weimer.

“There would have to be a substantial monetary penalty for putting carbon into the atmosphere, or the price of fossil fuels would have to go way up.”

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China’s investments has encouraged Sinopec to take environmental commitments more seriously (Pic: nagyman/flickr)

China will invest 1.8 trillion yuan ($294 billion) in renewable energy in the five years until 2015, a senior official said on Tuesday.

This is in addition to the 2.3 trillion yuan being spent on energy saving and emissions reduction in China. These pledges come as part of China’s commitment to reduce its emissions per unit of GDP by 40-45% by 2020 from 2005 levels.

It has also promised to raise its non-fossil fuel energy consumption to 15% of the total mix.

“China has carried out a series of policies to cope with climate change and we have achieved some success after several years of effort,” said Xie Zhenhua, deputy director of the National Development and Reform Commission, during the Caring for Climate China Summit on Tuesday.

Xie said that the government aims to have 100 gigawatts of wind power installed capacity and more than 35 gigawatts of solar power by 2015.

These kinds of targets have encouraged other Chinese companies to consolidate their environmental commitments, such as Sinopec Group, Asia’s largest refiner, which announced during the conference that it planned to invest 22.6 billion yuan to upgrade its current production equipment and operations.

IN FOCUS: China’s climate change laws

The environmental protection report issued by the company in November last year was the first time a Chinese company had taken such a measure.

Between 2006 and 2012, China reduced its energy consumption per unit of GDP by23.6% – the equivalent of reducing carbon emissions by 1.8 billion, said Xie.

He also admitted that the country’s emissions per capita remained higher than the global average, as China’s economic development, which depends on high energy consumption, has yet to change direction.

“In every five-year plan, we have outlined specific energy-saving and emission reduction targets,” said Xie.

“China will continue to make great efforts on reducing emissions, improving air quality and accelerating sustainable economic development.”

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The new facility will help the grid to cope with the variability of renewable power sources, such as wind and solar

By Sophie Yeo

A new laboratory is helping scientists paint a picture of how America’s electricity grid will look in the future.

The $135 million Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), launched in June, is helping the US prepare for a time when much of its power will be sourced from renewables.

Using powerful petaflop computers, scientists are able to develop distributed energy systems, and test how they would integrate into the electric grid at a scale that they would encounter in the real world.

While the facility is still in the early stages, it is already helping scientists to develop renewable technology. One such example of this is a device that will improve the reliability of solar panels, so that they continue to generate power consistently, even in cloudy conditions.

It is also working with the Department of Defense to help them become more self-sufficient, which will improve their energy security.

“We have several partnerships with the Department of Defense really looking at energy security for base applications,” Carolyn Elam, the manager of ESIF, told RTCC.

“They’re looking at how they can stay online during power outages, how they can reduce their overall energy utilisation by deploying renewables onto their bases, and then also looking at operating bases from a reliability and generation standpoint.”

Having a facility which allows researchers to test this kind of technology at a meaningful scale allows a smoother transition of renewables onto the grid. This reduces the risk involved of going to the market with the product.

The ESIF is the first facility in the US that allows this kind of research to take place at a megawatt scale, meaning the research provides a real time model of how the technology will interact with the electrical grid when functioning at full power.

“We can model it, but this includes experimentation as well,” says George Douglas, spokesman for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which set up and runs the facility. He told RTCC, “You can take devices and hook them in. It’s a unit that shows them that these things can work at a scale that’s large enough to be meaningful to them.”

America’s potential for renewable energy, he says, points to a need for the capabilities of the ESIF laboratories.

Research conducted by NREL while the facilities were being built suggested that it was technically feasible for the US to be run on 80% renewably sourced electricity by 2050 – but, says Douglas, “I want to emphasise the qualifier that it’s technically possible. It would take a lot of money and political will to make that happen, but technically, the technology exists to get 80% of our energy from renewable energy in 20 years’ time.”

Incorporating renewables

Providing cleaner energy is a target which has its own challenges in terms of transmission as well as generation, and these are the issues which ESIF seeks to resolve. Its production cannot be controlled so easily as fossil fuel power stations; its sources are not so reliable, and, unhelpfully, they do not always correspond to periods of high power demand.

“There’s variability,” says Douglas. “The sun doesn’t shine at night, for example, and the wind doesn’t always blow, so how do you make these variable generators go well with the grid?”

Scientists from a number of organisations are trying to figure it out. The laboratory, a 182,500 ft² facility in Golden, Colorado, is a flexible working space that welcomes researchers from various organisations to come in and use the space.

It is a resource that will prove valuable to groups such as government agencies, universities, utilities and manufacturers of distributed generation system components.

To make the facility as useful as possible, open source data about the historical availability of power resources such as wind and sunlight are provided as part of the service, allowing developers to base their projections upon the past. Data collected by those who use the facility is, where possible, added to the collection.

“We tend to strive towards open source data where possible,” says Elam.

“We’re looking to make this facility benefit the public and community as a whole, and that means really trying to leverage the testing or systems development we do, and publishing as much of that information as we can.

“Obviously some of the partners that might work with us will have proprietary information about their system that we won’t be able to publish, but overall our goal is to publish and advance the technology more broadly as open information.”

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The US Wind Energy Association estimates 15 million homes can be powered by 45,100 wind turbines (Pic: Flickr/Bonita-La-Banane)

US use of renewable energy soared in 2012, according to data published by the USA government funded Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).

Wind turbines, solar panels and natural gas saw sharp rises in popularity, contrasting with coal, which continues to lose market share.

In a statement LLNL energy systems analyst A.J. Simon said low gas prices had seen it gradually replace coal in the electricity generating sector.

He added that the growth of renewables was tied to falling costs of solar and wind systems, together with government incentives to invest in clean energy.

Renewables provided 49% of new electricity capacity in the US in 2012, and form a key part of President Barack Obama’s new climate action plan.

Existing coal and gas plants are likely to face tougher pollution limits set by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a move Obama says will help the US to meet its pledge to cut emissions 17% below 2005 levels by 2020.

American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) statistics reveal there are 45,000 turbines currently operating in 39 US states, generating enough power for 15 million US homes.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) renewables are the “fastest-growing power generation sector” and could make up 25% of the global energy mix by 2018.

“As their costs continue to fall, renewable power sources are increasingly standing on their own merits versus new fossil fuel generation,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven in June.

“This is good news for a global energy system that needs to become cleaner and more diversified, but it should not be an excuse for government complacency, especially among OECD countries.”

Technology advances

The LLNL said “larger more efficient turbines” have been developed in response to government-sponsored incentives to invest in renewable energy.

Each year, the Laboratory releases energy flow charts that track the nation’s consumption of energy resources.

The LLNL also revealed the US used used 2.2 quadrillion British Thermal Units (BTU), or quads, less in 2012 than the previous year. A BTU is a unit of measurement for energy; 3,400 BTU is equivalent to about 1 kW-hr.

LLNL figures reveal the majority of energy use in 2012 was used for electricity generation (38.1 quads), followed by transportation, industrial, and residential consumption.

However, energy use in the residential, commercial and transportation sectors decreased while industrial energy use increased slightly.

Figures from the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) released yesterday indicate that coal still underpins the US electricity sector, and suggest it may be making a comeback.

Total coal consumption was up 11% in first-quarter 2013, compared to the same period in 2012.

It has provided 40% of total generation over the past five months, up from 32% in April 2012, when gas prices hit a record low.

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The European Energy commissioner has called for the creation of an EU energy market stretching from Iceland to North Africa and the Atlantic to Azerbaijan.

Günther Oettinger told an EC conference this week that the EU should pursue renewable energy from geothermal sources in the north, offshore wind in the west and backed up with a secure supply of gas from a number of sources including the Caspian Sea.

“I think the internal energy market in the next couple of years we’ll have more partners, Caspian countries, Norway, Switzerland perhaps even North Africa will one day be part of our market place,” he told delegates.

“The internal market gives us many advantages. It creates competition, transparency, better security of supply and leads to a situation where we no longer need state aid. The market will use supply and demand to regulate and fund itself,” he said.

“Some member states have only one energy supply route. they are islands. We must ensure they have choices so that they can’t be blackballed. This is an issue of solidarity,” said Oettinger.

Oettinger also called on the 27 member states of the EU to liberalise their energy markets to ensure its 500m residents feel the benefit of their purchasing power in their electricity bills.

The meeting of industry representatives, NGOs and policymakers in Brussels focused on plans for a European Supergrid and better gas supply lines, despite it receiving a drastic funding cut in the latest European budget.

The EU supports the Nabucco Pipeline project to transport gas from the Caspian Sea through Turkey and eventually on to Austria, bypassing Russia.

Geothermal electricity from Iceland could one day be piped into an EU supergrid (Shutterstock/Johann Helgason)

In February the EU budget for energy connections was cut to €5bn having originally been €12bn.

The long term plan is to connect the solar rich south and the windy north so that when excess electricity is generated in one region it can be sold elsewhere. It is not uncommon for wind farms on remote parts of the UK to be cut off when they produce power in times of low demand.

Ilesh Patel, a partner at Baringa Partners told RTCC that cut is unlikely to have much effect on the plans.

“I’m not sure if we should read too much into it. I always have this figure of €200bn in my mind of the infrastructure investment that is required in major European transmission networks,” he said.

“Even €12bn was a relatively small amount. There is plenty of room for private sector investment, in fact it is absolutely required. In the end the [budget] reduction is disappointing but I’m not sure it is going to materially change the thinking here,” he added.

Fire and ice

A proposed cable from Iceland to the UK could carry excess geothermal power from the tiny volcanic country, to the UK and eventually, the rest of Europe via the Supergrid.

Speaking at the Icelandic Geothermal Conference Oettinger said: “Geothermal fits perfectly into our renewable strategy, into our technology ambitions, into our internal market ambitions. EU businesses and consumers are waiting for solutions that geothermal can bring.”

With Europe potentially adopting a 40% emissions reduction target for 2030, clean energy from all sources will be welcome, but grid upgrades are needed to make the most of the clean energy that is available.

“The climate policy is the main driver here. We need the new grid in response to renewable energy developments and low carbon generation. That’s the aggregate driver and that’s why the grid needs to step up and respond to that and develop,” said Patel.

Last week engineers in Germany reported that they had found a way to solve the clean energy conundrum of providing power all the time using intermittent renewables that tend to depend on wind, sunshine and rainfall.

By combining the output of a number of solar, wind and biogas plants the grid can be provided with stable energy 24 hours a day without fear of blackouts, according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Wind Energy and Energy System Technology (IWES) in Kassel.

The Desertec Foundation is developing plans to build large solar energy farms in North Africa that can then be joined to Europe’s electricity grid.

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Renewable energy will miss out on increased funding from big investors if existing barriers are not removed, a new report has warned.

Institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance firms hold $71 trillion in assets but are holding back from clean energy investments by a number of policy and regulatory hurdles.

The report by the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) found that if all these were removed, institutional investors could provide 25-50% of all the necessary investment for renewable energy up till 2035.

“Policymakers and renewable energy project developers often look to institutional investment as a potential source of capital that can help reduce the cost of wind and solar projects,” said David Nelson, senior director, CPI.

Unlocking big institutional investment could provide one quarter to one half of the necessary funding for clean energy till 2035 (Credit: Vestas)

“Our findings suggest that in the near future, this is unlikely to be the case without drastic shifts in government policy, regulation, and investment practices,” added Nelson.

Many of these investment pots have a “fiduciary duty” to those whose money they manage, to invest wisely and do their best to get returns.

One fund investing in an entire renewables project could be seen as taking on too much risk with other people’s money.

The report suggests that by investing in the companies working on the projects instead or enabling different funds to pool their resources and so share the risk, more money could be channelled into the sector.

The Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, the Investor Group on Climate Change, the Investor Network on Climate Risk, and the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative contributed a foreword to the report.

“While institutional investors may not be the panacea for renewable energy investment, there may be opportunities for institutional investors to make renewable energy a part of their portfolios while going partway towards meeting policymaker goals,” they wrote.

Many renewable energy technologies are propped up by government subsidies to help meet renewable energy targets. The threat of changes in this support can deter some investors.

The EU has a target to generate 20% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020 while China has a 15% target for the same year.

CPI’s five fixes to attract renewable energy investment

-Fix policy barriers that discourage institutional investors from contributing to renewable energy projects.

-Improve investment practices, including the building of direct investment teams and improving evaluation of investor tolerance for illiquid investments. However, such changes can run counter to the culture of the organization and require careful consideration.

-Identify and improve any regulatory constraints to renewable investment that can be modified without negatively impacting the financial security, solvency or operating costs of the pension funds or insurance companies.

-Develop better pooled investment vehicles that create liquidity, increase diversification, and reduce transaction costs while maintaining the link to underlying cash flows from renewable energy projects.

-If the concern is raising enough finance rather than its cost, regulators and policymakers could shift from a project finance model to a corporate model for building renewable energy. Institutional investors could then increase investment in renewable energy through investment in utility and corporate stocks and bonds.

RTCC Video: Joan MacNaughton, President of the Energy Institute and sustainability advisor to Alstom Power on the need for clear renewables policies 

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Belgium has proposed building a doughnut-shaped island in the North Sea to store its excess wind energy generated when demand for it is low.

Turbines will be built into the sand island built two miles offshore. Unused wind power would pump water out of the ring to empty the reservoir. When demand increases water will be allowed to re-enter through the turbines, generating electricity in the process.

As part of a broader renewable energy plan, Johan Vande Lanotte Minister of Economy, Consumer Affairs and the North Sea, announced an offshore wind farm sited with a 25 foot high island to make the most of the intermittent power from the wind farm.

“The big advantage is that with such an energy storage depot we can supply wind power at peak times,” said Vande Lanotte. “You can also save electricity produced on land. We intend to examine the possibility of selling electricity to other countries.”

The island will pump water out with unwanted wind power. It will refill through turbines to generate power on demand.

Belgium is downsizing its nuclear energy operations and is looking for new sources of dependable low-carbon energy.

In 2007, an energy island was proposed by the consultancy DNV KEMA with a similar storage system and wind turbines on site as well.

The doughnut proposal would be sited near a conventional offshore wind farm.

Storing so-called “wrong time” electricity would boost the efficiency of renewables and help to make them more competitive with on price with fossil fuels.

Countries with hydro power dams (and plenty of rainfall) can use unwanted renewable energy to pump water back into reservoirs. It can then be released back down into turbines as and when required.

This is the only current large scale feasible solution although hydrogen fuel cells are improving all the time.

A pilot scheme using “liquid air” in the UK offers another option.

CO2 and water vapour are removed before air, mostly the remaining nitrogen, is frozen using the excess electricity.

The power can be cashed in by allowing the liquid nitrogen to warm and expand drastically as it reforms as a gas. This expansion is then used to drive a turbine.

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According to one football commentator, statistics are like Speedos, they reveal an awful lot, but they never quite give you the full picture.

The same is true when it comes to renewable energy.

The sector has had a tough few years. Riding out the recession while dependent on support from public money is no joke and the industry has rightly celebrated its successful passage through a turbulent period.

Today a report from WWF claims that Europe could be generating more than 40% of its energy from renewable sources by 2030.

Yesterday the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) revealed that the amount of installed wind power grew by 19% last year. A growth rate of 20% doesn’t mean much when you are starting out with such a low base.

The day before that the European Photovoltaic Industry Association announced that solar PV capacity topped the 100GW mark in 2012.

Solar energy costs are falling rapidly but emerging technology could get left behind if policies don’t fund support research efforts. (Source:Brightsource)

All these are signs of progress towards a low carbon energy landscape and the associated reduction in emissions it will bring.

But what do they really mean?

These statistics don’t tell us how close (or otherwise) renewables are from becoming an economic solution to cutting carbon emissions. The energy sector is after all responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas output and transforming it is essential to getting the emission reductions we need.

“We’re in the media game of going for league tables and arbitrary numbers that look big, we are in danger of losing sight of the real objective,” says Tom Burke, co-founder of the E3G consultancy and a former executive director of Friends of the Earth.

“The real issue is the change in the risk landscape. What we’ve got driven largely by the way the Chinese have driven wind and solar is that costs are going down rapidly.”

Risk perception

Perhaps a more interesting renewable energy landmark that flew largely under the radar this week was the announcement by small US utility, El Paso Electric, that the power from its new solar farm would be half the cost as that from its newest coal power plant.

“There’s huge uncertainty in government policy. In a more risk-averse world solar and wind investments look like better bets, they look more future proof,” Burke told RTCC.

“I think there is a broad view in the corporate world that they don’t expect governments to do anything about climate change anytime soon, but they can’t rule out the possibility of them doing something in the future. If you can pursue technologies that are lower risk and it future proofs you against climate policies, then renewables are starting to look like better bets.”

Burke says the bigger story about renewables is not about arbitrary round numbers but the approaching of a tipping point where renewables compete with fossil fuels in a risk averse world “that could change all the conventional wisdom about the future”.

This could price out the coal industry and force investors to respond. Then and only then would politicians react to a new energy market and embrace the sector.

Cutting costs

So if the end game is to reach the stage where renewable energy technologies that currently rely on government support are competitive with lower cost, higher carbon sources of energy, how close are we?

“The most important measure of success for renewable technologies is not simply the quantity that has been rolled out, but whether they contribute to cost-effective decarbonisation,” says Simon Moore, research fellow at Policy Exchange.

“Eventually, that means becoming cost-competitive with fossil fuel generation. Some technologies are getting closer – onshore wind probably being nearest, while solar prices are falling quickly too,” he says.

Various policy approaches to bring the cost of renewables down to a competitive level have been rolled out but Moore warns that too many, including the EU’s target of obtaining 20% of its electricity from renewables by 2020, fall in to the trap of short-termism.

“[The EU] policy is focused on deployment of technologies available today, at the expense of earlier stage R&D efforts and of being able to absorb lessons from ‘learning-by-doing’. It promotes mass deployment of technologies when they are at their most expensive, rather than when their costs have fallen,” he says.

Wind, solar & geothermal capacity increased its share by 0.8% between 1971-2010 (IEA)

Falling cost seems is a more important metric for clean energy than passing arbitrary landmark figures. The industry has is now responsible for around 15% of the global energy mix according to the IEA, and a shift in the rate of change would obviously be helped if government support was no longer necessary.

“Capacity milestones have a symbolic importance. They can also have a real importance if the extra experience leads to reductions in the cost of the renewables,” says Chris Hope, IPCC author and University Reader in Policy Modelling at Cambridge University.

Despite the confidence boost that these milestones can provide, cost is king. But a straight comparison of how much it costs each technology to produce a unit of electricity is not sufficient, says Hope.

Hope contributed to the 2005 Stern Report, the assessment of the economic impact of climate change and it is these impacts that also distort direct comparisons of different energy sources.

“To calculate this requires a fairly complex model of the system, so it is not surprising that some people often fall back upon approximate measures like the cost per kW installed, or the levelised cost per MWh generated,” says Hope. These don’t account for the fact that renewables don’t run at full capacity or on request when demand for electricity increases.

“The proper calculation also requires decisions about the discount rate (related to the cost of attracting investment and often under 5% a year for renewables, about half that of nuclear) and about the social cost of CO2, which could well be $100 per tonne,” says Hope.

There are major shift in energy on every continent but China will ultimately pick the winners” according to the IEA. (Source: Flickr/AK Rockefeller)

Renewable energy is on the rise and falling costs are only aiding this but the pace and scale of the take-up is not sufficiently enough to meet demand, not by a stretch.

The IEA’s chief economist Fatih Birol recently pointed out that while China’s massive drive for renewable energy will be overshadowed by its growing thirst for coal, it will remain significant for different reasons.

Birol said China will add enough power plants in the next 20 years to power modern-day Japan and the US combined, so the renewable energy technologies it chooses, will become cheaper for everyone.

“This will change the economics of those technologies. The history of the energy economy will be written in Beijing,” he said.

China has demonstrated interest in offshore wind and some niche marine energy technologies but its focus remains on onshore wind and solar. Policy Exchange’s Moore calls for policies to help boost promising emerging technologies but it would appear China is keen on those two old favourites.

If Beijing can drive these costs down for everyone else in the process, consumers and business will benefit. That, rather than meaningless capacity announcements, will be a real driver for clean energy across the planet.

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