US-led vetting and certification of big-ticket projects may go a long way to allaying western investor concerns about rule of law and transparency issues, says intelligence firm Alaco’s head of content.

While governments grow more protectionist over trade and physical borders, companies such as Microsoft are bridging the gap by funding international collaborative enterprises.

Poland’s Wrocław has turned in a stellar performance in fDi’s Return on Investment study, landing the city the top slot in the Return on Budget and Return on Personnel Investment categories. 

On top of EU access, an impressive quality of life, talented labour and a thriving tourism sector, Madeira offers a white-listed preferential tax regime that is conducive to long-term, productive investments. Sebastian Shehadi reports.

The chairman of the board of the National Bank of the Republic of Belarus talks to fDi about preserving financial stability and diversifying the country’s export split.

The minister of foreign affairs for Belarus tells fDi why the country is keen to join the WTO and strengthen economic relations with the CIS.

Besides perks such as tax breaks, Belarus’s six free economic zones offer investors convenient logistics and, for companies from neighbouring Ukraine and Russia, a geopolitical safe place to do business. Wendy Atkins reports.

Belarus’s Great Stone Industrial Park is another ambitious Belt and Road Initiative venture, designed to evolve into a smart city and industrial hub. But what are the benefits for Belarus or China? Jacopo Dettoni and Wendy Atkins report.

When Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, took the baton from ‘leader of the nation’ Nursultan Nazarbayev, he pledged stability and continuity, as well as new approaches to succeed where previous policies have struggled to gain traction. Jacopo Dettoni reports on the progress so far. 

With its keen workforce and generous free zones, Belarus is attracting plenty of manufacturing investment. Moreover, it is bullish about its prospects, as local companies expand into Europe and further afield. Wendy Atkins reports.

Belarus is climbing up the innovation league table thanks to an official decree to establish a favourable environment for start-ups. Initiatives such as tech parks and tax-friendly conditions are attracting foreign companies and reversing the country's brain drain, as Wendy Atkins reports.

Antwerp has long been an attractive retail location in Belgium, while also offering investors an efficient and transparent planning process. 

Lisbon’s mayor discusses the city’s tech strengths and its solutions to business challenges, such as affordable housing.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development has attracted praise for launching a climate-resilience bond to help finance environmental projects.

Canada's Atlantic Ocean-bordering provinces are making the most of their coastal resources, using decades of knowhow to balance economic growth with sustainability.

Europe’s most well-known digital disruptor banks have been expanding across the globe, but not without some controversy. Alex Irwin-Hunt reports.

Over the past three years, the UK has led Europe for financial services FDI, with the US as top investor. Emma McCoy reports.

JinkoSolar Holding Co., the world’s biggest solar panel maker, sees China’s photovoltaic power additions slumping this year and a greater share of its revenue coming from overseas amid uncertainties over Beijing’s new policies.

A sparsely populated Chinese province that’s home to the headwaters of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers is attempting to set a new record for clean energy use, serving as a test bed for the entire country.

Statkraft announces it has decided to start construction of the 51.6-MW Los Lagos hydropower plant in Chile. The construction is planned to commence in August and completion is scheduled for second half of 2022.

Eleven million people were employed in renewable energy worldwide in 2018 according to the latest analysis by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).

In early June, the UK enshrined into law a commitment to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, making Britain the first major economy to do so. Meeting this target will require substantial reliance on renewable energy from solar, tidal, hydro, and wind sources, both onshore and offshore.

In the first three months of the year, the U.S. installed 2.7 gigawatts of solar photovoltaics (PV), making it the most solar ever installed in the first quarter of a year. With the strong first quarter, Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables forecasts 25% growth in 2019 compared to 2018, and it expects more than 13 GWdc of installations this year.

New York is poised to pass its own version of the Green New Deal with a climate bill that would more than triple the state’s solar capacity and aggressively promote development of wind farms off the state’s coast.

Eos Energy Storage is manufacturer and supplier of the zinc-based Aurora 2.0 battery system for Duke Energy's McAlpine substation and as a behind-the-meter solution at the University of California, San Diego. 

New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act passed the Assembly early in the morning of June 20 and will now await the governor’s signature. Solar advocates praised the state legislature’s adoption of long anticipated legislation that will require at least 70 percent of electric generation come from renewable sources by 2030 and providing needed funding to low-income and environmental justice communities.

Jose Maria Romay, general manager of Corani (a subsidiary of Ende), has announced the company is seeking financing from Latin American development bank CAF and French development agency AFD for the 147-MW Banda Azul hydro project.

The Energy Web Foundation (EWF) this week announced that it has launched the world’s first public, open-source, enterprise-grade blockchain tailored to the energy sector: the Energy Web Chain (EW Chain). As a refresher, blockchain allows for peer-to-peer energy market transactions.

Last week, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced it selected Ocean Wind, an offshore wind energy project proposed by Ørsted with support from PSEG, to develop an 1,100 MW offshore wind farm. Ocean Wind will be located 15 miles off the coast of Atlantic City. Construction is expected to commence in the early 2020s, with the wind farm operational in 2024.

Here’s the latest wrinkle in the battery boom: National Grid Plc is paying consumers to tap electricity from their power-storage systems.

BlackRock Real Assets is aiming to boost its renewables power portfolio in Asia by as much as 10-fold as it seeks to keep pace with the world’s fastest-growing region for green energy.

Solar Foundation and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) are joining the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), several national residential solar companies, and other nonprofit organizations to develop new automated permit software for distributed solar and storage, reducing the cost of solar installations and saving resources for local governments and taxpayers.

Clearway Energy Group, one of the U.S.’s largest clean power developers, is launching a pilot electronic marketplace for renewable energy credits as more states push for solar and wind projects.

EON SE is now supplying all of its 3.3 million residential customers in Britain with 100% renewable electricity, the first of the U.K.’s “Big Six” utilities to do so.

This week artificial intelligence (AI)-driven energy storage services provider Stem said that it had formed a partnership with New York-based private equity company Syncarpha Capital to build 28.2 megawatt-hours (MWh) of large-scale storage projects co-sited with solar in Massachusetts.

A 138 MW windfarm in Turkey is to be powered by 27 turbines from GE Renewable Energy.

Gas peaker plants may be among the first casualties of a new Minnesota law requiring utilities to include energy storage as part of their long-range plans.

The projects include a 999-MW wind facility being built north of Weatherford, a 287-MW wind facility being built southwest of Enid, and a 199-MW facility being built south of Alva. They are being developed by Invenergy.

General Electric Co. agreed to sell a majority stake in a solar-energy business to BlackRock Inc., giving the investment giant footing in a growing market as the ailing manufacturer shifts its focus elsewhere.

In late 2018, I put out the call to see how many fellow energy nerds I could gather to indulge me in combining my passion for energy analysis and clean power policy with my love of fantasy sports. By the end of January 2019, I had my cast of characters who somehow thought this idea was as fun as I did (isn’t the Internet the greatest tool for finding people who share your interests?) and I released my Draft Preview. Coordinating this draft among 14 different teams with different time zones and schedules chock-full of actually helping to save the planet proved no easy task, but by the end of March we had conducted 5 rounds of picks for a total of 70 selections in this Inaugural Fantasy Energy League!

Turkeler and RT Enerji have chosen GE Renewable Energy to supply equipment for five onshore wind farms being built in Turkey.

Solar company Hanergy announced that its thin-film solar modules will cover the 150,000 square meter roof of the ‘Rafael Gallery’ located at a Tech City in Shanghai.

India’s ambitious plan to take the leadership position among nations as one of largest producers of renewable energy may have run into some unfavorable weather.

The HydroVision International event is now under way in the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, with more than 3,000 hydropower professionals from around the world coming together for four days of learning and networking.

New York has signed the biggest-ever deals for offshore wind power in U.S. history, a key part of the state’s plan to get all of its power from emissions-free sources by 2040.

The Lockett Wind farm in Wilbarger has the potential to generate more than 700,000 MWh of renewable energy per year, enough to power the equivalent of 70,000 homes. 

Last week at the HydroVision International plenary session, a panel of three CEOs — Darrel T. Anderson, President and CEO IDACORP and Idaho Power, Mitch Davidson, CEO and Managing Partner, Brookfield Renewable Power, and Paul Jacob, President and CEO, Rye Development — along with moderator Elizabeth Ingram, Content Director, Clarion Energy, discussed both the merits and the challenges of hydropower development in the United States and Canada.

Global wind turbine makers are expanding manufacturing capacity in India to boost exports from the South Asian nation even as the country’s domestic industry faces headwinds.

Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders stuck together, Pete Buttigieg took the middle path, Marianne Williamson took on racism and Beto O’Rourke faded into the background.

ENGIE Storage has announced it will supply and operate a 19 MW/38 MWh portfolio of six energy storage sites that will contribute to the Solar Massachusetts Renewable Target Program and participate in ISO-New England wholesale markets.