CGI Q1 F2020 Podcast EN

CGI Q2 F2020 Podcast EN

Curbing global warming emissions and building the clean energy economy are critical to New York State’s future and the health and well-being of all New Yorkers. In this week’s State of the State event, Governor Cuomo announced some significant new clean energy and climate initiatives.

For years, climate contrarians have pointed to snowfall and cold weather to question the scientific reality of human-induced climate change.

Several reports this week agree that cleantech investments fell in 2013, but that's not a bad thing. And the big question is what happens next: how much more is needed?

Once again flexing its investment muscles in renewable energy, Google is expanding its future purchasing plans for wind energy in Finland and taking a stake in another a Texas wind farm. Oh, and it also bought some home energy automation startup called Nest Labs.

A Virginia Tech research team has developed a battery that runs on sugar and has an unmatched energy density, a development that could replace conventional batteries with ones that are cheaper, refillable, and biodegradable.

The transmission industry enters 2014 with a lot of work ahead as it continues to recreate the grid and make it more renewable energy-ready.

Broader domestic social issues and an international policy that moves away from "a permanent war footing" took center stage in President Obama's State of the Union address (SOTUS) last night. Domestic energy policies, including renewable energy, largely took a back seat to the President's bigger talking points: hiking the minimum wage for federal contractors, urging final immigration reforms, strong pushes in employment and job-training, education, retirement savings, and healthcare.

The United States is in a good place in terms of energy, explained former Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar during a keynote session at the MIT Energy Conference in Cambridge, Mass. Oil imports are the lowest since 1991 at 40 percent, carbon emissions are slowly dwindling, Salazar said, and the U.S. is making these positive improvements due to four cornerstones of progress.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installations in the U.S. topped 4.78 GW in 2013, an increase of 41 percent over 2012, according to the annual market review and outlook published today by the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research. The industry won't quite maintain that torrid pace in 2014, but watch for progress on a number of important fronts, from long-anticipated investment innovation to a rebound in the midsize project sector to addressing changes to federal investment tax credits.

When the sun sets on a remote desert outpost and solar panels shut down, what energy source will provide power through the night? A battery, perhaps, or an old diesel generator? Perhaps something strange and new.

Several countries have announced ambitious goals to be powered completely by renewable energy, while other nations set smaller, incremental goals. These high aspirations have sparked quite a debate amongst industry experts, and we here at Renewable Energy World are curious to hear what you, our readers, have to say.

The idea of a “smart grid” has taken center stage — an evolution of advanced technologies that make the availability of a smarter, more efficient electrical power grid possible. These technologies aim to address the complex challenges facing grid systems today, which stem largely from its aging infrastructure and a use case model that has evolved over the years. With power systems over a century old, the field instrumentation on the grid is quickly reaching its life cycle limit, which adversely affects overall grid reliability and efficiency.

The rapid development of rooftop solar and battery storage technology could be as transformative to the economy and modern life as the U.S. oil and gas boom, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said.

Offshore wind development is being pushed further out into deeper waters, emphasizing longer, higher-capacity transmission systems. Most newer offshore wind farms from Europe to the U.S. are looking at hundreds of kilometers of transmission lines: the U.K. Crown Estate's Round 3 allocations, interconnection systems from Germany's North Sea to the U.K.'s National Grid Western Link, and the proposed Atlantic Wind Connector in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic.

More than two dozen legislators are pulling an all-nighter tonight (Monday March 10) on the Senate floor to talk about climate change and what actions must be taken.

Though likely impossible to find anyone in the climate justice or environmental community to say that any sitting U.S. senator — Republican or Democrat — has been an adequate leader on the issue of global warming, 28 Democrats (and two Independents) were garnering soft applause for their overnight effort on Monday into Tuesday as they pulled an all night session focused exclusively on climate change.

Talks between Germany and Norway about how to boost the trading of electricity from renewable sources are being held up by concerns that the power cable running under the North Sea won’t ever make money.

In December, I asked my panel of professional green money managers for their top three stock picks for 2014. You can find the full list and descriptions of the companies here.

Hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV) were the belles of the ball at recent auto shows in Los Angeles and Tokyo, and researchers at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) continue to play a key part in improving performance and durability while driving down costs.

UPDATE: The U.K. government yesterday launched its Domestic Renewable Heat Incentive (d-RHI), which pays households that generate heat and hot water using renewable energy systems such as solar hot water, geothermal heat pumps and biomass heating.

China, the world’s biggest investor in renewable energy, reiterated plans to boost construction of solar and wind power plants along with projects to transmit electricity from the clean sources.

Today, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) released its renewable electricity generation projections as part of its "Annual Energy Outlook — 2014" (AEO2014).

The clean energy economy of the Empire State has just received a serious booster shot, thanks to the newly opened Battery and Energy Storage Technology (BEST) Testing and Commercialization Center in Rochester, New York. Made possible by state seed funding and a public-private partnership between the New York Battery and Energy Storage Technology Consortium (NY-BEST) and DNV GL, the center will serve to address two of the greatest challenges facing New York-based energy storage companies: access to technology and cost.

The combination of rooftop solar and electric vehicles (EVs) is the Reese's Peanut Butter Cup of the renewable industry. Although EVs started off slowly the second time around (the first time was in the early 1900s), in some areas EVs are becoming ubiquitous. Whether it's a combination of tax credits, car pool lane preferences, expensive gas or concern about the environment, the trend seems unstoppable.

New York State is pushing its utility industry to shift away from a century-old business model into a system that can accommodate more power from solar and wind.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns the world must triple its use of renewable energy AND develop nuclear power to avoid the worst ravages of climate change. OK. But what’s the optimal percentage of each to develop?

Does nuclear energy deserve a seat at the table alongside renewable energy technologies in weaning us off of fossil fuels and transitioning into a cleaner energy world? A new report published yesterday suggests not only will newer small modular reactor (SMR) technology be at least as expensive as larger reactors, it won't fit the needs of a more flexible grid system, and its development will siphon away funding from the truly renewable energy options that need it.

Bracing for greenhouse-gas rules from the Obama administration, two industries are staking out different positions. Coal companies are pledging to sue. Electric utilities are ready to talk.

Ohio is debating the sharpest break from a three-decade campaign by 29 U.S. states to reduce reliance on fossil fuels by promoting power from renewable sources.

Fossil fuel-funded front groups repeatedly spread disinformation on renewable energy standard and net metering policies in an effort to overturn pro-clean energy laws in 2013 and 2014.

The Obama administration has taken a lot of heat for creating climate change rules that bypass Congress. But recent court decisions are bolstering the president’s clean air agenda – and they come at a crucial time.

Iceland is moving closer to plugging European homes into the volcanic island nation’s geothermal and hydropower reserves via what would be the world’s longest power cable, according to the country’s largest energy producer.

Electric utilities seeking the renewal of their franchises, and politicians seeking municipalization, both ignore the transformative possibilities of the microgrid. Microgrids represent a promising new business opportunity for both existing utilities and new entrants in the electricity business. Microgrid deployment will also provide the same public benefits as municipal control, likely more.

Nuclear power, which accounts for 19 percent of the nation's electricity generation, is facing some serious challenges. Not only did its hoped-for renaissance fizzle out, four reactors shut down last year, another is closing this fall, and the nuclear giant Exelon says it will announce plant closings by the end of this year if market conditions don't improve.

Meeting the world’s energy supply needs by 2035 will require $40 trillion of investment, as demand grows and production and processing facilities have to be replaced, the International Energy Agency said.

On the heels of the EPA’s new carbon rules proposed by President Obama on June 2, I wanted to take a closer look at a potential disruptive technological breakthrough: taking CO2 waste streams and turning them into saleable, value-added feedstocks. Certainly, the deployment of renewables, energy efficiency, smart grid, and energy storage technologies offer some of the most cost-effective options for dramatically reducing emissions. But if you believe that fossil fuel power plants (along with other large-source emitters like steel and cement producers) will remain a part of our industrial ecosystem for some time to come, then capturing and utilizing C02 from these emitters is an important and critical piece of the carbon-management equation.

Power infrastructure in the East African countries of Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda is inherently connected to their economic growth. As urbanisation and industrialisation fuel the need for electricity in cities, the demand for electricity in East Africa is expected to grow at approximately 5.3 percent per year until 2020. To meet these requirements, generation capacity would have to increase by 37.7 percent in Uganda, 96.4 percent in Kenya, 75.3 percent in Tanzania and 115 percent in Rwanda. The government, in conjunction with development partners, must build a more favourable business environment to facilitate growth.

The U.S. National Climate Assessment report states bluntly that streets in coastal cities are flooding more readily, that hotter and drier weather in the West means earlier starts to wildfire seasons, and that every region of the nation already is seeing real effects of climate change.

The European Union needs an ambitious emissions-reduction goal, targets for energy- efficiency and renewables as well as tools to foster investment under its planned 2030 policies, an advisory panel to 14 ministers said.

"Big data" is playing an increasingly big role in the renewable energy industry and the transformation of the nation's electrical grid, and no single entity provides a better tool for such data than the Energy Department's Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF) located on the campus of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Imagined by NREL leaders who foresaw the possibilities for high performance computing (HPC), the ESIF's HPC data center is fulfilling the goal of handling large and complex datasets that exceed traditional database processes.

China is mandating that electric cars make up at least 30 percent of government vehicle purchases by 2016, the latest measure to fight pollution and cut energy use after exempting the autos from a purchase tax.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government plans to spend 15 billion rupees ($250 million) on programs to boost solar power and reform electricity supply to farmers to end blackouts in India.

For most people, the best way to build a green or fossil-free portfolio will be to use mutual funds or an investment advisor. The exceptions are those who like to do things for themselves, and understand the significant advantage that saving just a fraction of a percent in annual fees can make to the long term performance of a portfolio.

If all energy production channels were employed, the United States has sufficient resources to eliminate all coal, gasoline and diesel combustion in all demand sectors and replace them with natural gas, wind and solar electricity firmed and shaped with both grid-scale and distributed energy storage. I believe that we can reach a zero-air-pollution, coal-free, crude-import free, all-electric low-cost energy future. We have energy rhetoric and technology to get there; do we have leadership and will?

July was a hard month for the stock market and clean energy stocks in particular. My broad market benchmark of small cap stocks, IWM, fell 7 percent and is down 2.7 percent for the year, while my clean energy benchmark PBW fell 9% and has slid into the red for the first time. It is down 0.1 percent for the year to date.

It's the environmentalist's third rail question: "Should we promote nuclear power as an expedient way to reduce CO2 emissions?" On the one hand, nuclear power generates electricity with almost negligible CO2 emissions — potentially a good way for our society to reverse the current global warming trends. On the other hand, nuclear power is...well...nuclear. Problems related to waste disposal, proliferation and high costs have not been solved, and we still have the occasional disaster.

More than a fifth of the world's electrical power production now comes from renewable sources and in 2013 renewables accounted for more than 56 percent of all net additions to global power capacity. These remarkable conclusions come from this year’s Renewables Global Status Report (GSR) from REN21. This highly-regarded annual analysis — the 2014 edition was released this summer — concludes that renewable electricity capacity jumped by more than 8 percent overall in 2013, to produce some 22 percent of all global power production. Total global installed renewable electricity capacity reached a staggering 1,560 GW in 2013.

The new report from the Taxpayers for Common Sense shows that oil companies paid just 11.7 percent of their U.S. income in federal taxes over the last five years, and the “smaller” companies included in the study that reported positive earnings only paid 3.7 percent. To achieve such a low tax rate, oil companies were able to take advantage of special tax breaks and loopholes that allowed them to defer more than $17 billion in taxes they would have otherwise owed.