Thomas Richterich: “New corporate status to reflect international footprint” Hamburg, April 6, 2009. The Management Board and the Supervisory Board of Nordex AG have decided to ask the shareholders at the annual general meeting on May 26, 2009 to approve a resolution conver- ting Nordex Aktiengesellschaft into a European Company (Societas Europaea, SE) {pagebreak} with… Read more »
In launching its submission to the Treasury this week ahead of the Budget on April 22, the BWEA – the UK’s leading renewable energy trade body – called for targeted Government intervention to ensure that Britain can meet its ambitious renewable energy targets. BWEA Chief Executive, Maria McCaffery, said “Large scale wind deployment is vital… Read more »
Subsidiaries in Japan for home solar panels are having a hard time attracting applicants. This may suggest that the government could soon step in to promote the solar power industry, according to Reuters. A new stimulus plan is expected to spend more money on solar projects. This is, in fact, the fourth such package in… Read more »
Q-Cells and LDK Solar have announced the official formation of a Joint Venture to promote and supply PV systems for large-scale solar power plants in both Europe and China, confirming recent rumours regarding a pending alliance. The new business partners said that a 40MW project located in Europe had already been secured, which will see… Read more »
SolarWorld AG could stand to be one of the biggest winners as a result of President Obama’s pledge to heavily invest in the renewable energy sector in the United States. The company is one of the few German companies to remain relatively unscathed by the financial crisis so far and analysts believe the United States… Read more »
Singapore’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions are similar to that of Europe, and it imports all its fuel, which on paper makes solar power very attractive. “There’s a lot of roof top space in almost any housing — why not have an array of solar water heaters?” said Yatin Premchand of the Singapore Environment Council…. Read more »
US LAW FIRM REPRESENTS INDIA CLEANTECH COMPANY IN LANDMARK SOLAR ENERGY DEALBrown Rudnick, an international law firm, has represented the ACME Group, a provider of energy, environmental, and telecommunications infrastructure solutions in India, in the company’s solar energy deal with eSolar. {pagebreak} Under the agreement, eSolar signed an exclusive license agreement with ACME to build… Read more »
ENN Solar Energy Co., Ltd. has just announced that it has produced China’s first 5.7m2 high-efficiency, tandem junction thin film photovoltaic panels using a SunFabTM Thin Film Line, rated at 60 megawatts per year, supplied by Applied Materials, Inc. {pagebreak} Working together at ENN’s leading-edge facility in Langfang, China, ENN and Applied achieved this milestone… Read more »
NRG Systems, leading U.S. manufacturer of wind measurement equipment, and Leosphere, leading specialist in lidar (laser radar) for atmospheric observations, have announced the formation of a global partnership to expand the use of remote sensing with lidar in the wind energy industry. The first product of the partnership is the WINDCUBE lidar wind measurement system,… Read more »
Sicme Motori and EEI are planning to present their revolutionary Twind solution at Windpower 2009. The application is the result of extensive engineering and marketing cooperation between two of the leaders in the global energy market and is designed specifically to provide a single-source electrical conversion solution for energy production from renewable sources. {pagebreak} At… Read more »
Japanese consumer electronics giants Toshiba and Sharp are in talks on a possible tie-up in the solar power generation field, the companies admitted last week. “It is true that we are holding talks on the solar cell business with other companies, including Toshiba,” Sharp Corp. spokeswoman Miyuki Nakayama said, declining to give further details. {pagebreak}… Read more »
A bi-partisan gathering of legislators, business people, and environmental advocates were at the Texas State Capitol in Austin last week as State Senator Eddie Lucio, Jr. and State Representative Pete Gallego introduced legislation to allow the further development of the emerging renewable technologies market. {pagebreak} During this session, Texas legislators are looking at close to… Read more »
The European Commission last week sent a reasoned opinion to Italy for failure to recognise certain guarantees of origin from other EU Member States. Under an EU Directive on electricity production from renewable energy sources, {pagebreak} Member States are required to establish a system of guarantees of origin and, as a general rule, to recognise… Read more »
The wind energy sector is attracting new sources of capital that compensate for banks’ general reluctance to provide debt finance for projects, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) announced last week. A growing number of power companies with strong balance sheets are investing in wind energy and there is increasing interest from institutional investors, despite… Read more »
Delegates left the European Wind Energy Conference 2009 (EWEC) last week with the reminder that wind energy is Europe’s number one in terms of new power capacity ringing in their ears. {pagebreak} “In 2008, we installed 8,454 MW of wind capacity, making up 36% of power installations”, stressed Arthouros Zervos, President of the European Wind… Read more »
Solar energy capacity in the United States grew by 17 percent in 2008, according to a preliminary report released by the Solar Energy Industries Association. But Rhone Resch, the president of the solar group, warned that the financial crisis has hit the industry hard, since financing for projects has largely dried up. {pagebreak} “We’re not… Read more »
If domestic solar panels become as common on the plains and rooftops of the United States as they are abroad, it may be because the financing technique that gave Europe an early lead in renewable energy is starting to cross the Atlantic. {pagebreak} The idea is to pay homeowners and businesses cash for producing green… Read more »
Italy plans to boost capacity of its photovoltaic installations turning sunlight into power- to 16,000 megawatts (MW) in 2020 from about 280 MW now, on the back of generous government incentives. {pagebreak} And industry body GIFI, together with Italy’s state power management agency GSE, have recently released the following key facts about the sector: *… Read more »
Last week, two major but very different players in the world of aerodynamics – the American airplane builder Boeing and the giant Danish wind-turbine maker Vestas – announced they would seek ways to work together on various projects. {pagebreak} And while it is still early days, the recently announced partnership is an interesting sign of… Read more »
All of Europe’s energy needs could be supplied by building an array of solar panels in the Sahara, the recent climate change conference in Copenhagen has been told. Technological advances coupled with falling costs have finally made it realistic to consider North Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy. {pagebreak} And by harnessing the… Read more »
Renewable energy resources produced 30% of the electricity consumed in Spain in February 2009, a goal set in 2001 by the EU to be reached by 2010 and which seemed impossible just one year ago. This is according to data from the Electric Network reported this week by Spanish Newspaper El Pais. {pagebreak} In 2008… Read more »
The Research Council of Norway has announced that it will grant funding to eight national research centres for the development of environmentally friendly technologies. Each centre will receive up to NOK 20 million (EUR 2.26 million) a year for five years. {pagebreak} Various topics will be covered during this period, including solar, bioenergy and wind… Read more »
Stockholm and Hamburg were last week named as the first winners of the new European Green Capital award. The Swedish capital will be European Green Capital in 2010 followed by Hamburg in 2011. The European Commission’s new award scheme encourages cities to improve the quality of urban life by taking the environment systematically into account… Read more »
Solar power history will be made in Southern California, after it was announced that Southern California Edison and Israeli firm, BrightSource Energy, have signed the world’s largest solar energy deal. Now awaiting approval from the California Public Utilities Commission (this could happen by as early as 2013), the Israeli-California sun project will power almost one… Read more »
Governments around the world have committed more than €160 billion to support renewable energy initiatives despite the economic downturn, according to a Deutsche Bank analysis. Europe, Asia and the US share key investment themes in solar and wind industries, smart grids, electric and hybrid cars, energy efficient buildings and advanced lighting. In addition, 250 new… Read more »
The price of solar panels could fall by as much as 40 per cent by the end of the year as huge increases in polysilicon supplies lead to a sizable fall in production costs for solar panel manufacturers. Industry analyst New Energy Finance reported that polysilicon prices hit a peak of $400 per kilogram last… Read more »
Tokyo Electric Power Co. will build a solar power plant in the state of California through its subsidiary Eurus Energy Holdings Corp., according to a recent report. The company apparently plans to begin operations at the 1000 kilowatt plant by 2010 on a site yet to be selected, the Nikkei business daily reported. {pagebreak} Eurus,… Read more »
WSI Corp., an Andover-based company behind much of the public weather-prediction data viewed by millions of people every day, has entered into the alternative energy industry with a new product aimed at predicting not just the fluctuations in the wind, but the effect of those fluctuations on wind power. WSI WindCast, which was launched last… Read more »
The notion of Space-Based Solar Power (SBSP) is not new. There has long been talk of 24-hour-a-day solar power beamed from space via microwave to any point on earth. However, a new company named Space Energy, Inc. believes it well placed to develop SBSP satellites to generate and transmit electricity to receivers on the Earth’s… Read more »
Scientists at Berkeley University (USA) have this week released research revealing that alternative raw materials, such as iron pyrite – or Fool’s Gold – could offer a far cheaper alternative to silicon for solar panel manufacturers. The rapid growth of the global solar market has been repeatedly hampered by shortages of silicon, which is used… Read more »
The US has inadequate transmission capacity to carry the energy that wind and solar power projects could produce, according to a report by two renewable-energy groups. The wind power projects waiting to be linked to transmission lines could supply 20 percent of the nation’s electricity needs, according to the report issued by the Solar Energy… Read more »
Four innovative projects capable of putting Britain at the forefront of international efforts to develop renewable energy have become the first initiatives to benefit from a potential £1.1billion fund established to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The projects were awarded money by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), a unique public-private partnership between global industries and… Read more »
The Welsh Assembly Government has “little hope” of hitting its 2010 renewable energy target, claims a leading British environment spokesman. Montgomeryshire AM Mick Bates said there was a “stifling lack of progress”, especially in wind farm development. The assembly government has pledged that it will increase green energy by 10% by 2010. It said £6.5bn… Read more »
Business organisations from across the world, including Europe, the United States, China, India and Brazil, have voiced their support for a global climate change agreement at this year’s UN meeting in Copenhagen. “Business is committed to supporting a successful outcome at the COP15 in Copenhagen, which we believe is possible in spite of the economic… Read more »
The current economic climate has led to a gloomy few months for the recruitment industry but the green job sector has so far remained strong. This week, leading green recruitment firm Acre Resources reported that it has seen the UK climate change job market grow by over 50% in the last year as companies start… Read more »
The credit crunch is starting to make an impact on smaller European green energy projects, but cash-rich utilities and the bigger lending institutions will continue to get deals done, green power experts say. “The main problem for the smaller developers is the short-term freeze on lending,” said Christian Kjaer of the European Wind Energy Association… Read more »