Environment Forum

North American photovoltaic market predicted to double in 2011

Renewable energy lobbyists on Wednesday held a press conference to warn that the failure of Congress to extend a key financial incentive would be disastrous for the solar and wind industries. At the same time, IDC, a research firm, released a report predicting that the North American photovoltaic market will double in 2011.

So what gives?

What has the renewable energy industry worried is the expiration at year’s end of a Treasury program that lets developers take a cash grant to cover 30 percent of the cost of big solar, wind and geothermal projects in lieu of taking an existing investment tax credit.

Since most green energy companies have no profits to offset with the tax credit, the cash grant has become crucial to obtain financing to build multibillion-dollar solar power plants and wind farms.

“It’s simply the most important policy for continuing growth of renewable energy in the United States,” Rhone Resch, president of the Solar Energy Industries Association, said Wednesday during a press conference.

While some of those projects are photovoltaic farms that install tens of thousands of solar panels like those found on residential roofs or on the ground in huge arrays, many are solar thermal power plants that use mirrors to heat liquids to create steam to drive an electricity-generating turbine.

While the tax credit and federal loan guarantees are critical for such utility-scale projects, the residential and commercial rooftop market depend on a host of state and federal incentives that won’t be as affected if the cash grant program disappears.

Greens party soars to new heights in Germany

Germany’s Greens party are already the world’s most successful environmental party – having spent seven years in government of one of the world’s largest economies as junior coalition partners to the centre-left Social Democrats. The Greens wrote Germany’s renewable energy law that helped the country become a major player in wind and solar energy technology between 1998 and 2005 — and the party is chiefly responsible for raising the share of renewable energy to 16 percent of the country’s total electricity consumption.

Although in opposition since 2005, the Greens’ popularity has nevertheless soared to record levels over 20 percent in recent months and the party – which only recently celebrated its 30th anniversary – is doing so well in opinion polls that they could possibly end up heading coalitions in two state elections next year ahead of the SPD in Baden-Wuerttemberg and the city-state of Berlin. 

Pollsters say the Greens are benefitting from an increasing awareness in environmental issues, such as climate change and the public’s opposition to government plans to extend nuclear power in Germany beyond 2021. The Greens are also profiting from voter frustration over broken promises by the ruling parties.

So what’s their secret? Why is the unabashedly pro-environment party so successful in an industrial nation like Germany? We got the chance to chat with the co-chairman of the Greens, Cem Oezdemir, who explained why the Greens are doing so well –but also warned that good opinion polls do not always translate into good election results.

“We’re thrilled about the good run in opinion polls but there’s no danger of us getting arrogant about it like the other parties might,” Greens party co-chairman Cem Oezdemir said in an interview with Reuters at the Greens’ party headquarters in Berlin – under a roof with a photovoltaic system on top. “We’re not going to suddenly start changing our positions according to how the political winds are blowing. We’re sticking to our guns and concentrating on our core issues. We’re not going to squander our political capital and we’re not going to make promises before elections that we forget about after the elections.”

That, in essence, is why the Greens have climbed to around 20 percent in national opinion polls this year from the 10.7 percent they won in the last federal election. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s centre-right coalition has, by contrast, lost credibility and plunged in the polls because many of the pre-election promises the ruling parties made were quickly scuppered after the vote. Pollster and analysts agree the Greens have taken advantage of the weaknesses of the other parties.

The Greens have also been helped by such things as their consistent opposition to a new rail station in the southwestern city of Stuttgart that will cost billions of euros. They are the only party that has argued against the mammoth project from the start and, because most voters in the state are also opposed, have gained from that stance.

This Earth Day, call for clean energy

– Michael Brune is Executive Director of the Sierra Club, the largest grassroots environmental organization in the United States and author of Coming Clean: Breaking America’s Addiction to Oil and Coal. –

This year marks the 40th anniversary of Earth Day, and people are looking back at an amazing 40 years of environmental successes. Americans have come together in their neighborhoods, cities, states and nationally to demand cleaner air and water – and they have been successful.

This should serve as an inspiration for the current and future work to help our planet and the challenges we face along the way. While our rivers were at one time catching fire, it is now our rapidly warming planet we turn the focus to.

Our country is chained to outdated, dirty energy sources such as coal and oil, which are in turn causing global warming. Burning coal for power creates 30 percent of our country’s global warming pollution – not to mention the health impacts it has on people and our land and water.

Pollution from coal plants adds $62 billion a year to health care costs, according to the National Academy of Sciences. Research from the American Lung Association shows that coal pollution causes more than 12,000 hospitalizations, 38,000 heart attacks and 24,000 deaths each year.

Coal is a bad investment. Instead of spending millions to artificially extend the life of the outdated coal fleet, we should take the opportunity to diversify our energy mix and to expand investments in existing clean energy technologies that can provide power without the dangerous and harmful effects of coal.

Chinese solar player Yingli looks to score at World Cup

Chinese solar power companies have shone amid the downturn in the solar industry,  converting their low cost advantage into bigger market share and profits.

Now, China’s Yingli Green Energy Holding Co Ltd is making a play to raise its global profile.  It’s taking its solar panels to the world’s biggest sporting event, the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, and has signed up to help sponsor the event.

The news makes Yingli the first renewable energy company to sponsor the World Cup — where the world’s best football (or soccer for U.S. fans) teams compete —  as well as the first Chinese company to seal a global sponsorship deal with FIFA, the world’s governing body for football.

(The Wold Cup this year, coincidentally, is in South Africa, which announced last year government support for solar akin to solar incentives in Germany, the world’s largest market.)

The move reflects Yingli’s desire to increase its brand awareness. And that could pay off, Piper Jaffray analyst Jesse Pichel says.

“With a minimal investment, (Yingli) will be able to leverage the FIFA marketing machine, the Yingli brand will catch millions of viewers’ eyes, sitting side by side with the most powerful consumer brands in the world like Coca Cola, Adidas, and Sony, and (Yingli) will further improve its bankability,” Pichel said in a note.

Some solar power companies — such as Silicon Valley-based SunPower Corp — already have branding and marketing campaigns targeted at consumers.

from The Great Debate UK:

Good eco-sense is good business sense too

- Juliet Davenport is founder and CEO of Good Energy, a renewable electricity supplier. She is unique in being the only female founder in the UK of an energy supply business, traditionally a male-dominated sector. The opinions expressed are her own. Reuters will host a "follow-the-sun" live blog on Monday, March 8, 2010, International Women's Day. Please tune in. -

Regardless of their views on climate change and man’s contribution to it, most business leaders agree on one point – as fossil fuels get scarcer and the UK decarbonises our economy, our energy prices will continue to rise.

The UK’s recent cold snap gave us a foretaste of what we could be in for – with some businesses having their gas supplies cut to relieve pressure on pipelines - although it appears that the widely reported claim that the UK had just eight days’ gas supply left was political bluster and scaremongering.

The Department of Business, Energy and Regulatory Reform’s 2008 Energy Markets Outlook projects that the UK could rely on imports for 80 percent of its gas needs by 2020, with huge implications for cost and energy security – and that income pouring out of the country.  And the International Energy Association forecasts serious energy "crunches" occurring within the next 10 years.

As all effective CEOs know, good business isn’t just about keeping your costs down, it’s about forecasting your costs with a degree of certainty.

When it comes to energy, investing in decentralised renewable generation doesn’t just give businesses good environmental credentials – increasingly important for today’s consumers – but control over their energy costs, with accompanying financial and competitive benefits.

Such investments - where the fuel, be it wind, sunshine, biomass or water, is effectively free - can enable a firm to set its energy prices with relative certainty for the next 20 years, providing an effective hedge against the unpredictable gas and electricity markets.

Will Germany kill its energy golden goose?

Will Germany kill the goose laying the golden eggs?    Germany is understandably proud of its renewable energy sector — wind and solar power supply more than 15 percent of the country’s electricity. Its Renewable Energy Act (EEG) has fuelled its rapid growth over the past decade and been copied by more than 40 countries around the world.    But is the party over?    A new centre-right government announced plans to slash the EEG’s guaranteed feed-in tariffs (FIT) that utilities are required to pay the myriad of producers of solar energy, many of whom feed the modest amounts of solar power from their roofs into the local grid. The EEG already foresees a FIT decline of about 10 percent per year — a built-in incentive to keep overall costs falling.    Environment Minister Norbert Roettgen wants an additional 15 percent cut in April on top of the 10 percent from Jan. 1, 2010 and ahead of the next 10-percent cut on Jan. 1, 2011. In the past decade, the previous two environment ministers from the Greens party and the centre-left Social Democrats (SPD) worked closely with the solar industry before making changes.    Roettgen made it clear those days of compromise were over. He said he spoke to solar firms last week before proposing the cuts, but rejected their offer to a one-off mid-2010 cut of 5 percent. “This is not a compromise,” he told journalists in Berlin on Wednesday. “It’s a bullseye.”  He said the cuts would save consumers about 1 billion euros a year over the next decade. Consumer groups and some industry groups had wanted deeper cuts, Roettgen noted.    Solar companies in Germany, which have until now worked closely with the government on reducing the tariffs the utilities pay to producers of green electricity, criticised the cuts which amount to about 35 percent within 13 months. They fear they will cripple the sector and kill jobs. Roettgen said he wants solar power, which now generates about 1 percent of Germany’s electricity, to be providing 4 to 5 percent by 2020 even though the support is being slashed by one-third in the course of 13 months. He portrayed the cuts as if he were doing the industry a favour.     Several leading German companies — such as SolarWorld, Q-Cells and Solon — said there were dark days ahead for the solar industry. They pointed out that prices, and support, were already falling steadily and would reach grid parity by the middle of the decade. Why, they asked, ruin a good thing? Frank Asbeck, CEO of Germany’s biggest solar company by revenue SolarWorld, called the plans unacceptable. As my colleague Christoph Steitz reported here, the cuts would cause problems for solar companies around the world.    Carsten Koernig, managing director of the BSW solar industry lobby, said “a radical cut like that will rob German companies of the foundation for business”.    Claudia Kemfert, an energy policy expert at the independent DIW economic research institute, said: “This level of 15 percent is quite problematic. It means a 25 percent cut within a few months and I consider that to be too much. It’s going to hit the small and medium sized companies very hard. It’s going to bring a lot of uncertainty into the market.”    The German Renewable Energy Association also used strong language, saying: “The radical cuts endanger the expansion of renewable energy.”

Is it a done deal? It’s hard to say at this point. There could be a lot of resistance from key conservative-ruled states such as Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, Bavaria and Baden-Wuerttemberg. They have important solar power industries and in the past succeeded in watering down attempts to cut the FIT.

Major California port sees greener trucks

One of California’s biggest ports has cleaned up its fleet of 8,000 trucks.

The Port of Long Beach has cut nearly 80 percent of emissions from truck engines at the port since it started its ban of old diesel-fueled trucks. That’s roughly 200 tons less of soot — known as particulate matter — in the air at the port annually.

In 2008, the port of Long Beach, together with its sister port in Los Angeles started to green their truck fleets, targeting trucks built before 1989. Together the ports make up the busiest cargo hub in the United States.

In 2010 the ban at Long Beach ramps up to prohibit trucks from 1993 and older, plus trucks from 1994 to 2003 that have not been updated with exhaust filters to meet strict emissions standards.

The move at Long Beach has drawn controversy from the trucking industry, but reflects a broader trend toward smart mobility and to make transport hubs around the world greener.

Now the port of Long Beach is dealing with its ships, trains and terminals to reduce pollution.

Over the next several years, the port is building an electrical system so that ships can plug in for power and turn off their engines. Currently cargo ships run their diesel engines for operations – such as keeping containers refrigerated — while at port. Long Beach is also looking at automated terminals to help reduce greenhouse gases, said Art Wong, a spokesman at the port.

Obama gets high marks for green record: environmental group

President Barack Obama came into office with climate change and the environment on his list of top priorities.

Nearly a year later, one of the top environmental groups in the United States says that Obama has made the grade so far.

In a review of his green record, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) highlighted dozens of moves by Obama at home and abroad. They cited the $50 billion the president put in the stimulus package for cleaner energy and energy efficiency; an executive order for federal agencies to set targets to cut emissions by 2020; and the adoption of strict auto emissions standards, modeled after environmental trendsetter California.

Abroad, the group said that Obama has restored U.S. leadership in the arena of climate change. They pointed to Obama’s efforts to secure an accord at the global climate change summit in Copenhagen — an outcome that the president has said people are justified in being disappointed with — and to partner with China, India and Latin America on clean energy.

Perhaps the brightest spot on Obama’s green record is also his biggest challenge in 2010.

Early on in his first year, the president called on Congress to pass legislation to combat climate change. Getting that legislation passed now sits at the top of the list for his second year at the White House, the group concluded.

(Photo:  U.S. President Barack Obama takes a tour of DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Florida in October. Photo credit: Reuters/Jim Young)

Which way will the wind (power) blow in 2010?

The United States became the No. 1 wind power market in the world in 2008. But under the credit crisis in 2009, the building of new wind farms slackened and the United States ceded its top global spot to China.

With the demand for renewable energy still growing, the American Wind Energy Association is eyeing 2010 as a critical year. Here are some of their top trends to watch for:

Second to natural gas: Wind power generates only 2 percent of the U.S. electrical supply. But new wind power generation in the United States has been second only to natural gas generation in terms of new capacity built each year since 2005. Watch for the industry to work to keep that spot.

Wind turbines ratchet up the power: General Electric won a $1.4 billion contract in December to supply 338 turbines for a massive new wind farm in Oregon being built by energy producer Caithness Energy LLC. The size of the turbines — 2.5 megawatts — forecasts a shift to larger turbines, driven by economics, the wind group said. “Taller turbines with larger swept areas produce more power at a lower cost per kilowatt-hour.”

Market for small projects grows: The trade group predicts small wind projects for homeowners and small businesses will see record growth, fueled by an expansion of a 30-percent investment tax credit.

Industry seeks advice on where to put projects: Wind farm developers have to win regulatory approval for their projects, which have sparked conflict with conservationists at times. To ease the process of clearing those hurdles and finding sites for projects, the industry is working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plus other federal agencies and nonprofits to get more clarity on wildlife surveys and other required studies. Will more guidelines be enough to speed up the development?

States, regions work on transmission: The industry is looking to states and regions to move toward investing in transmission needed to move electricity from often remote wind farms to the cities that use the power. The trade group is eyeing the Midwest in particular and whether its independent system operator that manages the regional power grid for 15 states and one Canadian province follows Texas and the Southwest region in how it invests in new transmission lines.

California looks to catch a wave, of energy

Besides surfing, tourism and the ocean views, California may get another benefit from its famed coast: energy.

With shores that stretch for 745 miles along the Pacific Ocean, California could harness more than 37,000 megawatts of ocean power, or enough to supply a fifth of the state’s energy needs, according to the California Energy Commission.

On Friday, California utility Pacific Gas and Electric Co, or PG&E, took a dive in that direction. The company said it signed an agreement with the U.S. Air Force to study a wave energy project near a base and off the coast of northern Santa Barbara County. The utility is also seeking approval from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC.

The proposed project could harness up to 100 megawatts of electricity from waves in the Pacific. If it is built, devices would convert the wave’s energy into electricity, a submarine cable would bring it to shore, where it would feed into the electrical grid at Vandenberg Air Force Base. Any excess electricity would go to the utility’s electrical grid, which is connected to the base.

California will have to wait a few years, however, to see if wave energy will help the state meet its goal for a third of its energy needs to come from renewable resources by 2020.

The study for wave power off of the central coast will take three years and is part of PG&E’s wave energy program. The company is also looking to develop a smaller project in northern California, off the coast of Humboldt County. Together the studies will cost more than $7 million, a spokesman with PG& E said.

“Right now the wave industry is in its infancy,” said Kory Raftery, with PG&E. “It’s comparable to where wind was in the 1970s.”