LONDON, Jan 24 (Reuters) – The European Commission can win
significant gains from defeat on its carbon market reform if it
can extract concessions for a more ambitious scheme from 2020.

The European Parliament energy and industry committee on
Thursday rejected the Commission’s planned, modest boost to
carbon prices, spotlighting the mountain it has to climb.

LONDON, Jan 22 (Reuters) – The European Union has failed to
recruit an independent monitor to oversee the auction of carbon
emissions permits, a concern in a market that suffered a 5
billion euro ($6.7 billion) fraud in 2009 and after the
cancelling of an auction last week.

It is a mystery why no single applicant registered interest
in a tender last year for a three-year contract worth 25 million
euros ($33 million).

LONDON, Jan 17 (Reuters) – The European Union will have to
introduce mandatory standards to limit power plant emissions,
given a failure to introduce carbon capture and storage (CCS)
technology plus rising coal consumption and the construction of
new coal power plants.

A market-based approach to limit coal emissions through CCS
has failed.

The Commission had hoped to motivate the building of CCS
pilot plants mostly through its emissions trading scheme. But
the carbon price hit a record low on Thursday, and the savings
from avoiding carbon emissions are just not sufficient to
support the technology.

LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) – A prospective shortage of
capacity to manufacture high-voltage power cables threatens
grand European projects to build offshore wind and other
renewable power projects in remote areas and link isolated
countries to the grid.

More government backing is needed to support technology
development, new entrants and manufacturing capacity in
transmission.

LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) – The latest forecasts from a
foremost climate research institute that global warming has
slowed present a new challenge to policymakers on how to inject
urgency into the campaign to cut emissions of greenhouse gases.

Climate change is a growing problem. Each year in the past
decade has been hotter than the 1981-2010 average, and extreme
heat waves are becoming more frequent.

LONDON, Jan 9 (Reuters) – The LED lighting industry is set
to dominate the global market more than a century after its
discovery, benefitting from a widespread ban of conventional
incandescent bulbs and as the market share of competing green
replacements fade.

Light emitting diodes (LEDs) have a vital edge in that they
have superior energy efficiency and longer lifespans compared
with rivals, while a global glut in LED chips means they are
becoming more competitive.

LONDON, Jan 8 (Reuters) – The latest short-term extension of
a U.S. wind tax credit risks creating a glut of capacity unless
states ratchet up regional renewable power targets.

The U.S. wind market has followed a boom-bust cycle because
the main subsidy is usually only extended for a year or two,
creating a surge to develop projects before the next expiry
deadline, contributing to a record year in 2012.

LONDON, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Increasing German renewable power
is under-cutting wholesale electricity prices across its
borders, which may harm energy investments in neighbouring
countries.

The overall picture is of widening impacts on grids across
central Europe from the ramp up in German renewables.

LONDON, Dec 18 (Reuters) – A proposed law could ease British
planning regulations for shale gas developers after the country
gave the green light for a resumption of exploration last week,
but local support will be vital for even limited production.

A high population density in much of the European Union and
Britain is partly responsible for planning regulations which
include detailed public consultation which in the present form
will test the development of a shale gas industry in its
infancy.

LONDON, Dec 17 (Reuters) – European countries may be
responding too slowly to the risk that they could cause
blackouts across the power grid because they set solar
installations to cut out suddenly if wider power supply
outstrips demand.

At present, about half of solar panels in Europe would
disconnect instantly if their local network frequency deviates
from managed levels by a certain amount, due to settings
designed to protect home appliances from damage.