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.

In May of 2014, Speaker of the House John Boehner responded to a climate change question with, “listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change. I am astute to understand that every proposal that has come out of this administration to deal with climate change involves hurting our economy and killing American jobs. That can’t be the prescription for dealing with changes to our climate.” Speaker Boehner is not the only one reluctant to enter into the debate on climate change. In a March interview Mitch McConnell responded to a climate change remark with, “For everybody who thinks it's warming, I can find somebody who thinks it isn't…”

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.

Hybrid car sales have taken off in recent years, with a fuel-sipping combination of electric- and gas-powered technologies that simultaneously deliver energy efficiency, low emissions, and strong performance. The Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) — which played a pivotal role in putting hybrids on the road — has applied a similar strategy to its talent base and partnerships, bringing together the best minds from the worlds of research and industry.

Germany’s utilities, battered by the country’s shift to wind turbines and solar panels, would be glad to sell you a power plant on the cheap. They’ll even pack it up and ship it to another country.

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.

Last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed its aggressive Clean Power Plan (CPP), which calls to reduce carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030 over 2005 levels. States are required to submit reduction plans that can include increasing renewables, efficiency, and cap and trade programs by June 2016.

The renewable energy industry has come a long way in relatively little time. The costs of renewable technologies continue to go down, while renewable capacities at many utilities continue to go up. Although, in many cases, renewable technology is mature and ready for utility-scale deployment, state and federal production and investment tax policies appear less evolved.

The first round of the Contracts for Difference (CfD) programme — the UK scheme that is designed to support low-carbon generation and a capacity margin in the energy sector — has concluded. Contracts were offered to 27 renewable electricity projects with a total value of some £315 million (US$500 million), which include two offshore wind farms with a total planned capacity of more than 1.1 GW, 15 onshore wind projects and five solar projects. In total, more 2 GW of new low-carbon capacity (including renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage) could be built under the CfD scheme.

The annual outlook issue of Renewable Energy World magazine is our attempt to predict what will happen within the renewable energy industry over the course of the year. To do this, we went straight to the top of major renewable energy companies, asking CEOs and presidents to tell us where they are devoting their company resources in order to capitalize on some of the market growth that they expect to see in 2015.

Sweden and Norway agreed to boost their target for renewable energy production amid concerns the additional capacity will exacerbate a power glut and strain the region’s electricity grid.

The Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has amended Russia’s federal law on the electric power industry. Ordinance No47 lays out a number of measures aiming to stimulate renewable energy sales in the national retail market.

Sen. Troy Fraser (R-Horseshoe Bay) has filed a bill that would eliminate Texas’ Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) – a policy that has catapulted Texas to world leadership in wind energy and strengthened Texas’ energy diversity. In addition to terminating the RPS at the end of the year, SB 931would make it more difficult to build renewable energy infrastructure. The argument behind the bill is that because Texas has achieved its RPS goals it’s time to move on. Sounds reasonable, right? Well…

Beijing, where pollution averaged more than twice China’s national standard last year, will close the last of its four major coal-fired power plants next year.

Next-generation hybrid cars combining electric and gas power in new ways are emerging as a low-cost alternative for consumers as batteries get cheaper and more efficient.

China’s efforts to combat pollution are gaining momentum after President Xi Jinping pledged in March at the annual session of the National People’s Congress to punish violators of the nation’s environmental laws with an “iron hand.” Here’s what’s happening and what to expect.

A $2 trillion push in the U.S. to blend renewable energy into the power supply and fortify transmission lines against extreme weather means that Americans must act more like Europeans to keep their power costs down.

The World Bank indicated in its new report "Building Competitive Green Industries: The Climate and Clean Technology Opportunity for Developing Countries" that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries are set to undergo significant growth and create more jobs in the field of clean technology. Anabel Gonzalez, senior director for the World Bank's Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness, said developing home-grown clean-tech industries will help developing countries more effectively increase the adoption of low-cost clean energy and drive sustainable economic development.

The Report Bosnia and Herzegovina Power Market Outlook to 2030 - Market Trends, Regulation and Competitive Landscape provides information on pricing, market analysis, shares, forecast, and company profiles for key industry participants. - MarketResearchReports.biz

Europe’s utilities are re-evaluating their business models due to the energy transition. Members of POWER-GEN Europe’s Advisory Board consider how a reliance on fossil fuels is no longer politically desirable, forcing utilities to transform their portfolios to adapt to radical change.

A new government analysis of President Barack Obama’s signature effort to fight climate change affirms what critics suspected: the proposal could further weaken an already battered coal industry.

By Kelly Scanlon, director, environment, health and safety policy and research, IPC Over the past month, IPC has brought to your attention that the TSCA Fees Rule may apply to your company beginning in 2020 and that there could be several challenges for those who need to comply. Challenges include the requirement to self-identify as […]

By Chris Mitchell, vice president, global government relations As the unprecedented COVID-19 crisis continues to unfold, IPC is calling for a bold, sustained policy agenda to help the electronics manufacturing sector weather the economic downturn and support the economic recovery. There can be no doubt that governments all over the world should take extraordinary measures […]

By Kelly Scanlon, director, environment, health and safety policy and research, IPC The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released “scoping documents” for its upcoming reviews of certain high-priority chemical substances under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) Section 6(b). Your review of these documents is important because scoping is the foundation of the risk evaluation […]

John Mitchell, IPC president and CEO, provides information on how IPC and the electronics manufacturing industry are responding to the coronavirus pandemic.

by Chris Mitchell, vice president, global government relations The U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) has prioritized the review of Section 301 exclusion requests related to the U.S. response to COVID-19. In March, USTR granted approximately 200 separate exclusions primarily covering personal protective equipment products and other medical-care related products. On March 20, USTR published in the […]

Austrade recently held a number of roundtables in Melbourne, Brisbane, Newcastle and Perth to update Australian SMEs and industry groups about the export opportunities in Poland’s defence and aviation sectors.

Austrade’s new report, Digital Health in Vietnam: A Guide to Market, highlights the diverse digital health opportunities in one of the fastest-growing economies in Southeast Asia.

Australian exporters interested in ASEAN markets should get online and tap into a regional e-commerce sector that is expected to hit US$102 billion in the next five years.

Austrade has partnered with the NSW Government to deliver one of the largest business missions from Guangdong Province ever to visit Australia.

The US defence market remains the world’s largest and can be a lucrative export market for Australian industry.

The second China International Import Expo (CIIE) attracted a record number of Australian companies and generated more than $350 million worth of trade deals for exporters.

Australian startup Okra Solar has taken out the champion prize for the “Hardware Battlefield” at the TechCrunch conference and VC meetup in Shenzhen in November.

IOWA AgTech 2 week immersion program 24 August – 4 September.

Join Austrade's webinar to gain insights on the Bangladesh E-commerce market, emerging trends, growth drivers, regulations, route to market and opportunities for partnering with Bangladesh online companies.

COVID-19 is affecting many e-commerce businesses and how consumers shop online. In this difficult time, many brick-and-mortar retailers are watching foot traffic and sales drop to near zero.

Vestas has become the first company to install 100 GW of wind turbines.

While it’s well known that corporations were some of the earliest trailblazers of large-scale renewable energy purchasing — they’ve closed over 14 gigawatts of deals in the past six years, according to tracking by Rocky Mountain Institute’s Business Renewables Center — higher education has also made impressive strides. In fact, a report released last fall showed that the top 30 renewable energy-buying universities are using around 3 billion kilowatt-hours of green power annually. That’s enough to power 276,000 homes.

Digitalization has become a worldwide focus and the race to become the global leader in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly competitive, with many countries, including Canada, China, and the UK releasing strategies in the last twenty months to promote the use and development of AI.

Tata Power Co. is seeking to set up electric vehicle chargers in the Indian capital, a company official said, as one of the most polluted cities on earth plans an ambitious push toward cleaner vehicles.

Tata Power in India has this week started utilizing a digital asset management system from GE to optimize its thermal fleet.

Corporations signing PPAs with renewable energy power producers have been on the rise for quite some time but in 2018, the group as a whole purchased more than double the clean energy they purchased in 2017.

Facebook Inc. is boosting its clean-energy efforts with a deal to help run a Virginia data center where it leases space with solar power.

Hundreds of young activists stormed Nancy Pelosi’s office after Democrats won the House in November, inspired by the new hero of the left, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who briefly joined them in a live-streamed protest to demand passage of a radical plan to fight climate change.

The global strategy for mitigating climate change is no secret. Most countries have embarked on an initiative to transition to clean energy sources. According to a study by scientists from the universities of Oxford and Utrecht, we will almost certainly pass a point of no return for dealing with global warming if governments worldwide don’t transition away from fossil fuels, such as coal and natural gas, towards renewable energy by 2035. This would mean that renewables would need to see their total share of power generation increase by at least two percent per year.

Australian hydrogen infrastructure developer H2U confirmed today that it will use Baker Hughes NovaLT gas turbine generators at its South Australian Renewable Hydrogen and Ammonia Supply Chain Demonstrator in Port Lincoln.

Details on the solar and battery storage components are still up in the air, but the wind farm itself was comfirmed to include 120 turbines manufactured by GE Renewable Energy Inc.