Investment in the UK’s distributed power generation market will witness a significant decline from almost $2.5 billion in 2013 to $939 million by 2019, according to new analysis.

“The times they are a' changin'.” So goes Bob Dylan's classic song from the '60s, and that's certainly the case when it comes to how we generate, distribute, use and store electricity. Having made great strides in enhancing performance and reliability and reducing costs, growing government support and incentives for intelligent energy storage solutions adds significant impetus to the growing wave of change sweeping across the U.S. power sector.

Tesla Motors Inc.’s Elon Musk said the electric-car maker may form another partnership with Toyota Motor Corp., as the companies conclude an initial vehicle project that met with mixed results.

Abengoa SA, a Spanish energy and environment company, plans to issue its first green bond to raise 500 million euros ($642 million) to finance projects.

The threat of climate change is driving China and the U.S. — frequent rivals and the world’s two largest greenhouse-gas emitters — to collaborate on dozens of potential clean-energy breakthroughs.

Scotland’s decision to vote no to independence from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has elicited a collective sigh of relief from energy sector players. Those companies with significant investments in Scottish renewable energy assets had understandably been anxious over the uncertainty that an independent Scotland would engender, for example potentially changing the rules on support measures for renewable energy investment north of the border.

Renewables became Germany’s most important power source for the first time this year, according to Agora Energiewende.

The European Union is seeking to speed up the creation of a common energy market to help its shift to a low-carbon economy and boost security of energy supplies amid a natural-gas dispute between Russia and Ukraine.

Worries including the conflict with ISIL, Ebola, and economic slow-down in Europe, sent the stock market down in the month to October 3rd, with small cap stocks and clean energy stocks falling even farther than the large cap S&P 500.

The renewable energy market is fast-paced and growing with each passing day. It’s hard to keep up with every industry announcement and insight, so we decided to highlight interesting developments that took place during the past few weeks, and some valuable insights that are worth revisiting.

Last month, NRDC engaged a nationally recognized opinion research firm to conduct polling in New York State to evaluate public attitudes about fracking and clean energy. Importantly, this is the first statewide poll in at least two years — and perhaps ever — to directly ask residents their views of the now six-year-old de facto moratorium on fracking.

Imagine a place where there is no electricity market. No rules, no policies, no market. A clean slate. This is what the Solar Energy Power Association (SEPA) calls the 51st State, a new initiative to get people to think outside the box when it comes to utility design and infrastructure.

European Union leaders backed the most-ambitious carbon emissions goals of any major economy, in a bid to crank up pressure on the U.S. and China ahead of climate talks in December.

U.S. electricity markets face years of higher prices as clean-air regulations shut more coal-fired power plants than earlier forecast, cutting supply and forcing producers to rely more on natural gas.

As more intermittent renewable capacity is added to grid networks around the world, the need for greater system flexibility in order to cope with the variable supply is growing. In parts of the Europe, grid operators complain that balancing the system is becoming more and more difficult as new renewable sources are added, requiring ever more complex management techniques, as well as repeated use of polluting and inefficient standby capacity. Surges of solar and wind power are often not fully utilised, causing some to question the wisdom of adding further variable renewable capacity.

Every time the U.S. holds midyear elections, the country almost always goes against the incumbent President’s party, which is always sobering to whomever holds The White House. And this week’s elections were no exception.

President Barack Obama pledged deeper U.S. cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions and China will for the first time set a target for capping carbon emissions under an agreement between the world’s two biggest economies.

In early 2013, a group of women, dubbed the Women in Power committee, assembled in Orlando, Florida to figure out how to honor women who have dedicated their careers to the power industry. The industry is male-dominated with men making up more than 75 percent of the workforce, according to estimates.

According to the latest "Energy Infrastructure Update" report from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission's (FERC) Office of Energy Projects, wind power provided over two-thirds (68.41 percent) of new U.S. electrical generating capacity in October 2014. Specifically, five wind farms in Colorado, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, and Texas came on line last month, accounting for 574 MW of new capacity.

Technology and equipment giant Siemens AG has decided to sell its tidal energy company, Marine Current Turbines Ltd., citing slow development in the marine and hydrokinetics sector.

The power sector crisis in Japan has entered a new stage. The recent refusal of Japanese utilities to grant grid access to new renewable energy projects should not be seen as a failure of Japan’s renewable energy policy, but as a consequential and necessary phase to extend Japan’s technological leadership into the power sector.

A new report by utility and finance experts contains positive news for the environment, our air and our (and our utilities’) pocketbooks — the economics of electric power resources have made zero-emissions energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies the most financially attractive options to meet the nation’s future energy demands.

Germany’s biggest utility E.ON — long a pillar of the country’s fossil fuel and nuclear industry — dropped a bombshell on Europe’s business world with the announcement that the multinational was exiting the conventional energy market in favor of a new business model based on renewables, intelligent grid systems, energy management and other services. Indeed, the company seems finally to have drawn the logical consequences from the Energiewende, Germany’s renewable energy transition, after years of resisting the ambitious transformation of the nation’s energy supply.

While OPEC is helping drive down global prices for crude, it’s having less success squeezing the $250 billion clean power industry.

The Western States Petroleum Association (WSPA) — whose members include Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, ConocoPhillips, BP, and others — was caught red-handed late last month when a leaked internal presentation revealed a coordinated campaign to stomp out climate and clean energy progress in California, Oregon and Washington by propping up over 15 front groups that purport to represent the views of concerned citizens and the broader business community.

Let's review some notable news headlines from the month of November.

The advice that Pennwell’s 2014 Woman of the Year, Mary Powell, gave to women in the power industry during Tuesday’s Women in Power Luncheon might come as a surprise to some. It was this: Stop undercutting each other. Powell said the most difficult obstacles she has encountered in her various leadership roles have not come from men, but rather from other women. Small comments like “I don’t know how you do it [being a mom and holding a high-level job]”, serve to bring doubt and uncertainty to high achieving women in any industry, and ultimately can lead to women exiting their careers in order to fit what they perceive is the societal norm.

India, the world’s third-largest polluter, will spend at least $100 billion on climate-related projects but isn’t ready to follow China and the U.S., the top two emitters, in promising to limit its fossil-fuel emissions.

Shinzo Abe’s re-election as prime minister risks undercutting Japan’s commitment to clean energy at a time when incentives are under review and the nation’s utilities say they can’t accommodate capacity already planned.

Renewable energy stakeholders are well aware that clean energy is slowly but steadily transforming the energy landscape and that message couldn’t have been more clear at the recently concluded Power-Gen International, the largest show for the traditional power generation industry. Since all forms of power generation are represented at the show through the four co-located conferences, PennWell calls the second week in December "Power Generation Week."

Despite years of successful experience, dozens of studies, and increasing utility support for clean energy, urban myth holds that electricity from renewable energy is unreliable. Yet over 75,000 megawatts (MW) of wind and solar power have been integrated, reliably, into the nation’s electric grid to date. That’s enough electricity to supply 17.9 million homes.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.

We here at RenewableEnergyWorld.com would like to send a big "thank you" to our blogging community. Year after year, bloggers contribute content that is filled with valuable insights, up-to-date news, innovative project highlights and cool new technology updates. RenewableEnergyWorld.com bloggers are truly a crucial part of our website.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need updates on the latest and greatest finance mechanisms available today. Since 2003, global consultancy Ernst & Young has released its Country Attractiveness Indices, which ranks global renewable energy markets by analyzing investment strategies and resource availability.

Developers, manufacturers, investors and other renewable energy industry stakeholders need to know where the next big market is going to be so that they can adjust their business decisions accordingly.

The online community of readers who visit RenewableEnergyWorld.com is an important aspect of the news and information that we offer renewable energy stakeholders. We often post news that we feel will get people to view important topics from new angles, offering insights and opinions about technology, policy and more. Often that leads to engaging and informative discussions that add even more value to the article that we have posted.

At the close of each year, we like to take a look back to see which stories made an impact on our readers. This year's most read articles show the many twists and turns that the industry took this year and reveal interesting trends for us as editors and for other industry insiders.

In June, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed a rule to restrict the amount of carbon dioxide released from power plants. The rule calls for reducing carbon 30 percent by 2030 over 2005 levels. Many have praised the aggressive proposal, while others are less favorable.

Although the U.S. made it through a quiet 2014 Atlantic hurricane season this year, it doesn’t mean we’re out of the waters. Natural disasters are an ongoing threat to our infrastructure, and utilities need to be conscious of the present state and future of our power grid. Fortunately, in recent years many utilities across the country have recognized the importance of being prepared for major storms, and have been actively researching and implementing solutions to prepare for the next big one.

2015 marks my seventh annual list of ten clean energy stocks. An equal weighted portfolio of the ten stocks in each year's list has outperformed my industry benchmark every year except 2013. 2014 was no exception, but it was a bittersweet victory in that the model portfolio was slightly down while the benchmark lost considerably more in a very challenging year for clean energy stocks.

Not all alternative energy mutual funds are created equal. In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, a reporter asked me which alternative energy mutual funds were the most focused on renewables, noting that many mutual funds hold non-energy related companies such as Apple, PepsiCo and Google. The answer to this question is not as straight forward as one might think. This article sorts out which mutual funds are truly invested in the dynamic and growing green energy sector, and which ones are more peripheral.

Clean energy investments in India increased to $7.9 billion last year and are expected to surpass $10 billion in 2015.

The UN climate conference in Lima set the stage for Paris in 2015. Next year’s accord is to provide a working, albeit not a final, answer to the question: Is it possible to keep global warming at or below the 2 degree Celsius limit? This limit is considered the boundary beyond which the negative climatic, economic and social consequences of climate change are thought to become intolerably severe and potentially irreversible.

The Brazilian bank Itau Unibanco Holding SA raised 1.05 billion reais ($408 million) to finance renewable energy and water treatment projects.

Oil prices have fallen by more than half since July. Just five years ago, such a plunge in fossil fuels would have put the renewable-energy industry on bankruptcy watch. Today: Meh.

Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have discovered that the insulation plastic used in high-voltage cables can withstand a 26 per cent higher voltage if nanometer-sized carbon balls are added. This could result in enormous efficiency gains in the power grids of the future, which are needed to achieve a sustainable energy system.

California’s bet on green energy is paying off, with clean technology companies creating more jobs and investing more money than competitors in any other state.

Ending a year-long race that had been nip-and tuck every month, renewable energy sources cumulatively provided more new electric generating capacity in 2014 than did natural gas.

The recent dramatic plunge in oil and natural gas prices, to their lowest level since the global recession in 2009, has some observers worried about the effect on clean tech. Conventional wisdom has it that renewables have a tougher time competing when fossil fuels are cheap, making grid parity (in the case of natural gas-fired electricity) more elusive for solar and wind power.

Cleantech investing has taken quite a hit in recent years. Last year, CBS News highlighted the “cleantech crash” on U.S. primetime television, and Bloomberg New Energy Finance, a Bloomberg-owned energy data firm, has tracked the multi-year decline in cleantech investing. However, there are additional trends that tell another side of the cleantech story and suggest innovation and hope for a low-cost, low-carbon future are far from gone.