Temperatures Have Risen Rapidly In The Pyrenees In Recent Decades, Research Shows

03.07.2017

Temperatures in the Pyrenees mountain range have been climbing particularly rapidly in recent decades — with maximum temperatures there rising by more than half a degree Celsius by decade from 1970 to 2013 — according to a new study from the Rovira i Virgili University’s Centre for Climate Change.

Overall, temperatures there rose by around an average of 0.11° Celsius per decade over the last century (1920—2013). As something of a comparison here, the temperature rise in Spain over the last 30 or so years has been 2.5° Celsius, and the average temperature rise in Europe as a whole over the same time period has been 0.95° Celsius.

The lead author of the new study, Núria Pérez-Zanón, commented on the temperature rise in the Pyrenees: “However this change is particularly marked in the most recent period (1970 to 2013), when maximum temperature rose by over half a degree per decade (0.57 °C per decade).”

A press release provides more: “In order to analyse this climate change in the Pyrenees, a team from Rovira i Virgili University’s Centre for Climate Change collected hundreds of climate series from meteorological observatories on the southern side of the Central Pyrenees and analysed the most complete and representative series from the area for the period 1910–2013.

”According to the paper, climate change had a greater impact during the latest period, particularly in the spring and summer months. Between 1950 and 2013, the percentage of hot years doubled, while the percentage of cold years decreased by half. There has been an upward trend in this parameter, with 18 of the last 20 years being hot years.”

Notably, the rise in minimum temperature in the Pyrenees was less extreme than the rise in maximum temperature — at around 0.23° Celsius per decade over the 1970–2013 time period.

As far as seasonal variation goes, spring has been the season that has warmed the most — with regard to both maximum and minimum temperatures. Accompanying this, there has been a drop in annual precipitation, though it is as of yet considered to be “not significant.”

“Individual series were subject to strict daily and monthly quality control to detect anomalous values, as well as homogeneity adjustments to minimise bias introduced by non-climate-related changes, such as location, modifications to the surroundings, or the equipment itself,” continued Pérez-Zanón.

As a reminder here, the Iberian peninsula as a whole is facing a harsh future as regards climate change — with rising temperatures and increasing aridity expected to put an extreme damper on regional agricultural productivity within just the near future.

The new findings are detailed in a paper published in the International Journal of Climatology.

Source: cleantechnica.com

Study: Climate Change To Wipe Out Half Of Ethiopia’s Coffee-Growing Area

03.07.2017

coffee-beans — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

The birthplace of coffee, Ethiopia, is likely to lose up to half of its total coffee-growing area by the end of the century as a result of anthropogenic climate change and its effects, according to a new study.

As it is, still nowhere near the end of the century, rising temperatures and changing precipitation patterns in Ethiopia are already damaging coffee production in some parts of the country where “special” varieties are grown.

This may not sound as though it’s all that important but it’s probably worth realizing here that there are currently around 100 million people worldwide who are involved in coffee bean farming — so the industry is intimately involved in the economies of many regions around the world. If the coffee industry does end up collapsing in Ethiopia, as the study predicts, then there will no doubt be serious economic problems that follow.

The press release provides a bit more clarity: “Without major action both in the coffee industry and in slashing greenhouse gas emissions, coffee is predicted to become more expensive and worse-tasting. The research combined climate-change computer modelling with detailed measurements of current ground conditions, gathered in fieldwork that covered a total distance of 30,000 km within Ethiopia. It found that 40-60% of today’s coffee growing areas in Ethiopia would be unsuitable by the end of the century under a range of likely warming scenarios.”

There is a means of dealing with the effect of climate change on coffee production in the short term, though an expensive one: moving production uphill. Even this approach will have run its course by 2040, since it won’t be possible to move production any further uphill at that point.

Researcher Aaron Davis from the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew noted: “It literally reaches the ceiling, because you don’t have any higher place to go.”

Commenting on the loss of production at the heritage site Harar, Davis stated: “In one area, there are hundreds if not thousands of hectares of dead trees. It is a world renowned name and has been grown in that area for many centuries. But under all (climate change) scenarios, it’s going to get worse.”

“Some of the origins, what you would call terroir in the wine industry, will disappear, unless serious intervention is undertaken,” he continued. “It would be like losing the Burgundy wine region. Those areas are found nowhere else but Ethiopia, and because of the genetic diversity, the diversity of flavor profiles is globally unique.”

Something that’s perhaps just as important as the loss of cultivated area will be the loss wild arabica and robusta coffee genetics — which could well result in the loss of genetics that would help to improve crop resistance against drought and disease. To improve resistance against the impending effects of climate change, in other words.

As explained by Prof Sebsebe Demissew from the University of Addis Ababa: “Coffee originates from the highland forests of Ethiopia, and it is our gift to the world. As Ethiopia is the main natural storehouse of arabica genetic diversity, what happens in Ethiopia could have long-term impacts for coffee farming globally.”

The new study is detailed in a paper published in the journal Nature Plants.

Source: cleantechnica.com

The Road To 100%: Meeting Hawaii’s Clean Energy Goals

02.07.2017

At the GreenBiz Verge Honolulu last week (formally the Asia Pacific Clean Energy Summit), I had the opportunity to connect with the renewables and sustainability community from across the state (and beyond). The event ‘welcomes those seeking to seize the renewable energy opportunity’ and the diverse crowd included government, military, local businesses, international companies, startups, and more.

On the first day, Hawaii Governor David Ige gave a talk about the current successes and the future opportunities for renewable capacity for the state. And as with most things here in the islands, it’s a pretty sunny situation.

Gov. Ige made headlines recently for signing legislation that made Hawaii the first US state to agree to the Paris Climate Accord after President Trump pulled the US out of the agreement. As reported by NPR, “the law commits the state to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to align with the principles and goals of the Paris Agreement.”

Needless to say, the Governor received a pretty warm welcome from this climate-focused crowd.

And he continued to prove that Hawaii is one of the leaders in climate change action by citing multiple state projects that ensures Hawaii is on track to reach 100% renewables by 2050, one of the most progressive renewable action plans in the country.

According to documents I reviewed from HECO (the state utility), Hawaii is currently at 26% renewables, and on track to 48% by 2020, and 67% by 2030.

This is a state average, since different islands have such different needs and abilities — Oahu has the highest population and most demand, while Molokai (part of Maui County with about 7,000 residents), is perhaps going to be the first to reach 100% renewables by 2020. Gov. Ige stated that the current island renewable capacity rates are 54% on the Big Island, 42% on Kauai, and 37% on Maui.

Ige shared an exciting list of improvements, innovation, and accomplishments across the counties (Honolulu, Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, which includes the islands of Molokai and Lanai).

The Hawaii Department of Transportation has undergone significant efficiency projects at the airports on Kauai, Maui, Oahu, and the Big Island. The DOT reports that guaranteed energy savings is more than $606 million over a 15-year period with the addition of this second phase, started in May 2017. Efficiency measures include replacing almost 50,000 florescent lamps with LEDs, adding trim to LED fixtures, and installing 15,683 photovoltaic roof-mounted panels, for a total of 5.3 megawatts at Honolulu International Airport alone. In total it will amount to nearly 8 megawatts of energy savings and power generation.

In 2016 Hawaii had a record heat wave, and this was particularly challenging to schools. Many of Hawaii’s schools are aged, and don’t have a infrastructure to support air conditioning or fans. This left classrooms as hot as 110°. The Hawaii Department of Education worked with the Legislature to bring ‘Cool School’ efforts to help the schools.

This $100 million project includes air conditioning (which includes PV-powered AC), passive cooling (using heat-reflective paint, night-time vents, insulation, ceiling fans), and electrical efficiencies (to keeps costs low as AC is added).

The state brings in about $5-6 billion worth of fossil fuels each year. But reducing this need is a priority for the state, and in March Gov. Ige signed legislation for energy efficiency for new buildings that is slated to save $14 billion in energy costs over the next 20 years.

Blue Planet Foundation reports that the new building energy codes will apply to all state construction, until two years in when counties will be required to take action too. This replaces “decade-old building efficiency rules.” Additionally, Hawaii Energy has been ‘aggressively’ promoting rebates and working with local companies to increase adoption of energy efficiency initiatives, delivering 1.2 million kW of savings over the lifetime of equipment.

There are so many good things to watch as Hawaii moves towards its progressive and aggressive clean energy goals, and here’s hoping it inspires other states to improve their own energy goals.

Source: cleantechnica.com

UK Renewables Hit Record Production

02.07.2017

Clean energy delivered record amounts of power to homes and businesses around the country during the first three months of this year, according to official figures published yesterday that underscore the growing influence renewables wield on the UK electricity grid.

New data from the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) revealed that renewables powered 26.6 per cent of the UK’s electricity needs between January and March 2017, a one per cent rise on last year’s figures and the highest ever level for quarterly production.

Onshore wind led the charge, with production up an impressive 20 per cent on last year thanks to increased capacity, although offshore wind saw production dip by two per cent due to lower wind speeds. Hydro production fell 15 per cent due to low rainfall levels, but solar soared 16 per cent to 1.7TWh on the back of increased capacity.

Meanwhile, levels of energy generated from coal power slumped from 15.8 per cent last year to 11.3 per cent in Q1 2017.

The clean energy industry cheered the news, hailing it as a sign of the UK’s quickening transition to a cleaner grid. “Renewable energy is a mainstream technology, which is cheaper and more advanced than ever,” RenewableUK’s executive director Emma Pinchbeck said in a statement. “Our innovative industries have matured to the point where we now reliably provide over 25 per cent of the UK with clean, sustainable power.”

Scotland in particular boasted a strong performance. Generation rose 13 per cent compared to the same period last year to hit record levels, while capacity soared 16 per cent.

“Scotland’s total installed renewable capacity – that’s the amount of renewable electricity we are capable of producing – now stands at 9.3GW – four times what it was only a decade ago,” Paul Wheelhouse, the Scottish government’s Minister for Business, Innovation and Energy, said in a statement. “These statistics reinforce our country’s reputation as a renewable energy powerhouse and are a vindication of the Scottish government’s energy policy.”

Source: businessgreen.com

Global Insurer Zurich Sets New Green Goals after Outstripping 2020 Emissions Targets

01.07.2017

Insurance giant Zurich has announced a raft of new green targets after hitting its 2020 carbon and energy reduction goals several years ahead of schedule.

The Swiss firm revealed yesterday that since 2007 it has more than halved its carbon emissions from its buildings and business travel, as well as cutting its energy consumption per employee by over 40 per cent – targets it had originally sought to achieve by 2020.

Zurich – which claims to have been ‘carbon neutral’ since 2014 – said it was now sourcing 45 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources as it drives towards its goal of 100 per cent renewable power by 2020.

The carbon and energy efficiency targets were reached early thanks to investments made in sustainable projects according to Zurich, such as its newly built headquarters in both Schaumberg, USA, and Zurich, Switzerland – both of which achieved LEED ‘platinum’ certification for sustainability from the US Green Building Council.

But the insurer said hitting several of its 2020 targets “does not mean the journey is at an end” and it therefore set a number of new environmental targets for 2025.

Using 2015 as a baseline, the company is now aiming to cut its CO2 emissions from facilities and business travel by at least 20 per cent per employee by 2025, as well as cutting its energy consumption by 20 per cent over the same timeframe.

Anja-Lea Fischer, Zurich’s group head of environmental performance, said the company did business today “to shape a more resilient tomorrow”.

“Taking care of the environment is not only the right thing to do, it also makes sense from a business perspective,” said Fischer. “We actively aim to mitigate environmental risks and advance our understanding of those risks – through our flood resilience program, by making impact investments and by reducing our own environmental footprint. This latest achievement is a great example of Zurich’s commitment to sustainable business practices and shows what we can accomplish working together across our businesses.”

Source: businessgreen.com

FRENCH STARTUP INCUBATOR “NUMA”: Going Global to Fight Climate Change

01.07.2017

Data-City — Photo: Youtube / Printscreen / NUMA Paris

Photo: Youtube / Print Screen / NUMA Paris

In the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Accords, many American mayors promised to work with sister cities across the globe to continue to battle climate change. Pledges have been made, but what will concrete plans look like?

A new initiative between French startups and C40 Cities, a global coalition of cities battling climate change, believes they have part of the answer. Beginning this fall, DataCity, a platform developed in a French startup incubator, NUMA, will expand internationally. By pooling information, new ideas, and smart city strategies across the globe, organizers hope to build a network for collective action between city leaders and high-tech innovators, and provide means for taking action.

“It’s a very practical tool for cities to implement solutions predicated on cities and climate impact,” says Clemence Fischer, head of NUMA’s Smart City Program.

A Paris-based accelerator with hubs in eight different cities including New York and Bangalore, India, NUMA focuses on global challenges, including climate change and transportation. It’s built on the idea that early collaboration fields more usable results: government officials, corporations, and entrepreneurs meet to define and scope problems before devising solutions and potential ideas, hoping to encourage the kinds of cross-disciplinary exchanges that weed out impractical ideas before anyone expands development resources. When representatives from Paris government and French utilities can meet with developers and designers, for example, they can formulate solutions grounded in real-world issues that will be developed with a more intimate knowledge of data, existing systems, and infrastructure.

DataCity represents this kind of holistic thinking. The NUMA incubator brings together partners, as well as public and private data sets, to inspire startups, analyze performance, and help develop tools to make cities more green and efficient. For instance, last year, a DataCity startup working with SFR, a French mobile provider, analyzed usage patterns in specific Paris neighborhood to adjust municipal lighting systems, determining low-traffic periods when street lamps could be dimmed without the need for installing expensive new sensors. The concept cut energy usage by up to 10 percent in tests.

The intelligent lighting concept was one of 10 ideas devised during last year’s DataCity program, says Fischer, including an analysis of tourist bus traffic and a text-based trash collection system that sent SMS warnings to building managers when pickups trucks were on their way. That program, if applied to the city of Paris, could reduce the number of bins on city streets by 46 percent, Fischer estimates. With this international expansion of the DataCity program, promoters believe similar shared solutions could make a sizable impacts globally.

Promoters and organizers envision a network of DataCity programs becoming a clearinghouse for strategies for efficiency and reducing energy use, and platform for sharing ideas, data, and success. Final cities haven’t been decided for the fall expansion yet, but New York City is a possibility. And according to Margaux Salmon-Genel, the DataCity World Program Manager, the network hopes to expand to 40 cities across the globe by 2018, and create an “international platform of city collaboration, to learn from each others challenges.”

Source: curbed.com

1 Million Plastic Bottles Bought Every Minute, That’s Nearly 20,000 Every Second

30.06.2017

A new report highlights the astounding amount of plastic bottles humans go through and the environmental havoc it wreaks.

Citing figures from consumer market research company Euromonitor International, The Guardian reported that 1 million plastic bottles are bought every minute—or about 20,000 per second—around the globe.

About 480 billion plastic bottles were purchased globally in 2016 but less than half gets recycled, meaning most of this waste ends up in our oceans and landfills.. Even worse, the report notes that the world’s increasing thirst for bottled beverages, especially in economically growing Asian countries, will bump these figures up another 20 percent, or 583.3 billion bottles, by 2021—fueling a crisis that experts believe will be as serious as climate change.

In the U.S., Americans went through about 50 billion plastic water bottles last year with a dismal 23 percent recycling rate. A North American study last year found that 22 million pounds of plastic goes into the waters of the Great Lakes each year. The researchers from Rochester Institute of Technology said that Chicago, Toronto, Cleveland and Detroit are the worst contributors to plastic pollution. In Lake Michigan alone, an equivalent of 100 Olympic-sized pools full of plastic bottles get dumped into the lake every year. Like in the oceans, the plastic trash in the Great Lakes breaks down into microplastics, which are consumed by fish and other aquatic life and moves up the food chain.

A widely reported study by the World Economic Forum and Ellen MacArthur Foundation determined that by the year 2050, the ocean will contain more plastic than fish. Not only that, researchers from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia and Imperial College London found that 99 percent of seabirds will swallow plastic by 2050.

Many people opt for bottled water because they think it’s cleaner or tastes better. But Annie Leonard, the executive director of Greenpeace USA notes that’s not necessarily true and is a wasteful way to spend our dollars.

“A four-year review of the bottled water industry in the U.S. and the safety standards that govern it, including independent testing of over 1,000 bottles of water found that there is no assurance that just because water comes out of a bottle it is any cleaner or safer than water from the tap. In fact tap water is tested more frequently than bottled water,” Leonard wrote. “In fact, a lot of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is just treated water from our municipal water systems; the same place our tap water comes from.”

Leonard continued, “As for the plastic containers that bottled water comes in, plastic’s made from oil and there’s nothing good about drilling that stuff up.”

She’s right. Besides choking fish and seabirds, the production of plastic bottles requires an enormous amount of resources. The Pacific Institute estimates that the production of bottles for American consumption requires the equivalent of more than 17 million barrels of oil, that the bottling process produces more than 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, and that it takes 3 liters of water to produce 1 liter of bottled water.

It’s clear that the world needs to give up this wasteful and environmentally damaging addiction.

Source: ecowatch.com

Next Three Years Will Decide Fate of Our Planet’s Climate, Experts Warn

30.06.2017

climate-change- — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Never has the paradox been greater. While the most powerful politician in the world is a climate denier, scientists are now warning that we have just three years to start making radical reductions to greenhouse gases.

Put it another way: that is the term of the Trump presidency. We have three and a bit years left of Trump (if he does not get impeached in the meantime) and we have three years left to save the climate, and begin to bring emissions down by 2020.

Writing in the scientific journal Nature, leading climate scientists have issued their sternest warning yet that time is seriously running out to prevent runaway climate change.

“Should emissions continue to rise beyond 2020, or even remain level, the temperature goals set in Paris become almost unattainable,” they warn. “Lowering emissions globally is a monumental task, but research tells us that it is necessary, desirable and achievable.”

Indeed, if action is not taken by 2020, we could see that Paris agreed limit of 1.5 to 2 degrees being surpassed quite quickly.

They tell world leaders to be driven by the science rather than “hide their heads in the sand.” “Entire ecosystems” were already collapsing, they warn.

The article was signed by more than 60 scientists, including professor Michael Mann of Pennsylvania State University as well as politicians such as former Mexican President Felipe Calderon and ex-Irish President Mary Robinson, and former UN climate chief Christiana Figueres.

“We stand at the doorway of being able to bend the emissions curve downwards by 2020, as science demands, in protection of the UN sustainable development goals, and in particular the eradication of extreme poverty,” said Figueres, also the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, under whom the Paris agreement was signed.

Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, another signatory, added, “The math is brutally clear: while the world can’t be healed within the next few years, it may be fatally wounded by negligence [before] 2020.”

The article outlined six goals for 2020 which could be adopted at the upcoming G20 meeting in Hamburg July 7-8, including increasing renewable energy to 30 percent of electricity use; plans from leading cities and states to decarbonize by 2050; increasing the percentage of new electric vehicles to 15 percent as well as reforms to agriculture, finance and industry.

The good news is that, despite Trump in the White House, climate action is carrying on at a local level. So far, the mayors of more than 7,400 cities worldwide across the world have vowed that Trump’s withdrawal from the Paris agreement will do the opposite of what Trump intended: encourage much greater efforts at the local level to combat climate change.

At the first meeting of a “global covenant of mayors,” city leaders representing just less than 10 percent of the world’s population come together this week to commit to the carbon reductions pledged by Obama, not Trump.

“The Trump administration better watch out for U.S. cities,” said Gregor Robertson, mayor of Vancouver. “They are on the rise, and I think will prevail in the end, turning the tide, and making sure the U.S. is a climate leader rather than what is happening currently.”

Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, added, “We are creating a groundswell of climate leadership by the mayors because cities large and small, rural and urban, in blue and red states, experience the effects of climate change every single day. Climate change touches us all and unites us.”

Kassim Reed, the mayor of Atlanta, told reporters bluntly, “Right now you have a level of collaboration and focus and sharing of best practices that I haven’t seen … My firm belief is that President Trump’s disappointing decision to withdraw from the agreement will actually have the opposite effect in terms of execution.”

Source: ecowatch.com

World’s Largest Wind Turbine Will Be Taller Than Empire State Building

30.06.2017

When it comes to the latest wind turbine technologies, size matters. A group of six institutions and universities is designing an offshore wind turbine that will stand 500 meters in height. That’s taller than the Eiffel Tower and the Empire State Building.

The research team, led by researchers at the University of Virginia, believes that its wind turbine concept will produce 50 megawatts of peak power, or about 10 times more powerful than conventional wind turbines.

“Our mission is to conceptualize, design and demonstrate morphing technologies for 50-megawatt wind turbines that can reduce offshore levelized cost of energy by as much as 50 percent by 2025,” they state.

A typical wind turbine stands around 70 meters tall with blades about 50 meters long. But the team’s Segmented Ultralight Morphing Rotor dwarfs the field with rotor blades that are 200 meters long, or as long as two football fields.

“We call it the extreme scale,” aerospace engineer and University of Virginia professor Eric Loth told Digital Trends. “There’s nothing like it.” The project is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Digital Trends reports the blades will face downward and can be assembled in small segments, making it easier to manufacture, transport and put together on site.

Loth added that the blades will also be adjustable, meaning they can fan out during peak wind conditions and contract if weather conditions are damaging.

“Like a flower, the petals are spread out, and we reach out and grab as much wind as we can,” he said.

As Loth explained to Scientific American, these mega turbines will be more cost-effective than existing turbines because wind blows stronger and more steadily at greater altitudes, allowing you to “capture more energy.” Furthermore, the long blades catch the wind more efficiently.

The team wants the massive structures to stand at least 80 kilometers offshore, where winds are usually to stronger and is far enough away to avoid the path of migratory birds.

The turbine’s design was inspired by palm trees, whose trunks bend with the wind.

“Palm trees are really tall but very lightweight structurally, and if the wind blows hard, the trunk can bend,” Loth said. “We’re trying to use the same concept—to design our wind turbines to have some flexibility, to bend and adapt to the flow.”

According to Scientific American, the prototype has yet to be tested. The researchers are currently designing the turbine’s structure and control system and will build a mini-model this summer that stands about two meters in diameter. They plan to test a larger turbine with 20-meter-long blades in Colorado next summer.

Source: ecowatch.com

Sunrun Expands Into Seven New States, Nearly Doubles Market Reach

30.06.2017

Sunrun, one of the United States’ leading residential solar developers, announced this week that it has recently completed expanding into seven new US state markets, nearly doubling its market reach in just under four months.

The California-based company bills itself as the largest dedicated residential solar, storage, and energy services company, though it falls behind larger companies like SolarCity. However, while its nationwide ranking may not explode immediately, Sunrun has just finished expanding its market share, extending its reach into seven new markets — New Mexico, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Wisconsin, Washington D.C., and Florida — states which, according to recent analysis, add nearly 12 million candidate homes for residential solar systems. This effectively doubles the company’s addressable market, thanks also to expanding operations in Pennsylvania, and re-entering Nevada after the state’s policymakers passed legislation re-allowing solar net metering. (Vivint Solar, another of Sunrun’s competitors, similarly announced that it was re-launching its Nevada services following the passing of the same legislation.)

These recent expansions subsequently bring Sunrun’s total market reach up to 22 states and Washington, D.C., and according to the company’s announcement, “offer another proof point of the inevitability of solar. It demonstrates that falling solar installation costs, combined with strong consumer demand for energy choice, are increasing homeowners’ access to solar power.”

“Expanding to these new markets will give homeowners the opportunity to power their homes directly from their rooftops, making energy more affordable and the electric grid cleaner and more reliable,” said Lynn Jurich, CEO of Sunrun. “Better yet, we provide this service by creating one of our country’s other great needs: new, highly paid jobs that can be neither exported nor automated.”

The move takes advantage of larger global swings in solar cost momentum, which has surprised just about everybody — even the optimists among us. A new report published this week by GTM Research Solar Analyst Ben Gallagher predicts that the average global solar price could decline by 27% by 2022 — and there’s very little that is likely to stem this downward trend.

Unless you are a solar company in America, each of which is currently waiting to hear whether the country’s International Trade Commission (ITC) will rule in favor of a trade filing by Chinese-backed solar company, Suniva, which has asked for a $0.40/watt tariff for cells and a floor price of $0.78/watt on modules. Separate reports from the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) and GTM Research have expanded on just what a Suniva favorable ruling could do, with SEIA explaining that 88,000 jobs, or a third of the country’s solar workforce, would be lost, while GTM warns the ruling could slash two-thirds of expected installations through to 2022.

One cannot help but hope that Sunrun haven’t unintentionally stretched themselves too thin on pretenses which will prove false if the ITC rules in favor of Suniva.

Source: cleantechnica.com

China To Install 403 Gigawatts Of Wind Energy Over Next Decade, According To MAKE Consulting

30.06.2017

Over the next ten years, China is expected to install an annual average of more than 25 gigawatts of new wind capacity, resulting in a cumulative growth across the decade of about 403 gigawatts, according to new figures from MAKE Consulting.

Renewable energy analysts MAKE Consulting published its China Wind Power Outlook 2017 report this week, in which it analyzes the Chinese wind energy industry and predicts its path across the next ten years. Between 2017 and 2020, curtailment issues and policy restraints are expected to restrict annual wind energy capacity additions to below 25 gigawatts (GW), but beyond that, grid-connected wind energy capacity is expected to increase. Over the next ten years between 2017 and 2026, MAKE predicts that an average of in excess of 25 GW will be added annually (obviously backloaded to post-2020) to result in a cumulative 10-year capacity addition of 403 GW.

As of the end of 2016, China had installed 23 GW of new wind capacity, bringing its cumulative total up to 168.7 GW, following on from a record-breaking 2015, when it installed 30.5 GW of new wind. However, China’s big issue for new wind capacity is curtailment issues, where wind turbines are not necessarily connected to the grid, or when electricity generated is simply lost along the way. This has been a big issue in China for some time, and while China is moving to address these issues, we’re not likely to see ready fixes until the beginning of the next decade.

The Chinese National Energy Administration (NEA) instituted a new alert system that would provide warnings — red, orange, or green — to states and regions in an effort to prevent further investment in wind power capacity due to curtailment issues. At the launch of the system, China gave a red alert to five provinces — Jilin and Heilongjiang in northeast China, and Gansu, Ningxia and Xinjiang province in western China — nearly all of which are the traditional wind regions. As a result, curtailment issues have grown so large that policy has been enacted to minimize further problems.

Nevertheless, the NEA, in the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan for Wind Power published in November of last year, set its targets at 210 GW worth of grid-connected capacity and the wind power generation target at 420 TWh, each by the end of 2020. The NEA also introduced a green certification system to support the country’s non-hydro Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) target by 2020. The NEA also reduced the onshore wind feed-in tariff levels across three consecutive years from 2014 to 2016, in an effort to lighten the burden of subsidy funding for renewable energy sources. The Chinese Government is therefore set to publish at least 2 or 3 additional reductions to the onshore wind FiT level before 2023.

Already this year, China’s wind capacity increased 13% in the first quarter over the same quarter a year ago, bringing the country’s cumulative wind energy capacity up to 151 GW. Capacity additions were focused in the provinces of Qinghai, Shaanxi, Henan, and Hebei saw the largest wind energy capacity increases during the first quarter of 2017.

The Chinese offshore wind industry is also expected to get a boost, according to MAKE Consulting, and is expected to begin adding GW-level capacity annually by 2018. By 2026, MAKE predicts that China’s cumulative grid-connected offshore wind capacity could reach 26 GW.

Source: cleantechnica.com

More Than 250 US Mayors Commit To 100% Renewable Energy Amidst Adoption Of New Climate Resolution

29.06.2017

Obnovljivi grad — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

More than 250 United States mayors have adopted a new bipartisan climate change resolution that includes a push for US cities to commit to 100% renewable energy by 2035, further widening the divide between US cities and their new Commander in Chief.

The resolution was adopted at the 85th Annual Meeting of the United States Conference of Mayors, which was held from June 23 to 26 in Miami Beach. The resolution is in fact an all-encompassing energy resolution, including numerous functions intended to reverse climate change, and increase US city leadership in the fight against climate change. The resolution focuses on a wide variety of issues that US cities will attempt to take leadership on, including energy efficiency, the electrification of the US transportation sector, driving city and energy technology innovation, and of course supporting cities in their transition to 100% renewable energy generation.

Specifically, the US mayors agreed to support onshore and offshore wind energy production, concluding that “The United States Conference of Mayors supports greater federal, state, and local investment in the development of wind energy” and “supports a continuation of the [Investment Tax Credit (ITC)] for as long as necessary to secure the long-term viability of the domestic wind energy industry, including the offshore wind energy industry, and more specifically, the passage of the Offshore Wind Act.”

“Local leaders are taking command in the fight against global warming even as the Trump administration tries to trample climate progress at home and abroad,” said Chad Tudenggongbu, senior renewable energy campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “We applaud the U.S. Conference of Mayors for recognizing that we don’t have four years to wait to take meaningful climate action. A clean, equitable and sustainable energy system shouldn’t be about politics. It’s about the wellbeing of people, the economy and the environment.”

It should come as no surprise that so many US mayors have committed to this resolution so soon after US President Donald Trump announced that he was withdrawing the country from the Paris Climate Agreement. In the immediate aftermath, there was a countrywide revolt against the President’s decision (not to mention global condemnation). Prime among those revolting was Pittsburgh Mayor William Peduto, who issued an Executive Order committing the city to the Paris Climate Accords, despite Donald Trump claiming that he had been elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris” — it seems Pittsburgh disagreed. This was unsurprisingly followed by the announcement that membership of the Mayors National Climate Action Agenda, also known as the Climate Mayors, had grown from 61 to more than 200 within days of Donald Trump’s announcement.

Only a few days later, and the We Are Still In movement was formed, and stood to represent more than 1,000 mayors, governors, state attorneys general, CEOs, and other prominent US institutions and persons, each of which was committing to the Paris Climate Agreement. “Today, on behalf of an unprecedented collection of U.S. cities, states, businesses and other organizations, I am communicating to the United Nations and the global community that American society remains committed to achieving the emission reductions we pledged to make in Paris in 2015,” said Mike Bloomberg, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Envoy for Cities and Climate Change, who was part of the team that created We Are Still In.

“I am confident the broad array of leaders and organizations that have signed today’s declaration, and many others that will join in the days to come, will work together to reduce U.S. carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2025, just as we had pledged in Paris. These groups will take vigorous and ambitious actions to address climate change, and we will communicate those actions in a transparent and accountable way to the UN. The United States can, and will, meet its commitment under the Paris Agreement.”

Source: cleantechnica.com

Air Pollution & Dust Cuts Solar Cell Energy Output By Over 25% In Some Parts Of The World, Study Finds

29.06.2017

A new study has now quantified the solar cell energy output loss occurring around the world as a result of air pollution and dust — bringing one of the most serious limitations of solar photovoltaic reliance in the more polluted parts of the world to the forefront, and giving us a better view of what exactly is going on.

Going by the new study, solar cell output in some parts of the world is cut by over 25% as a result of airborne particles (particulate air pollution) and dust.

The regions that are the most affected according to the study are also some of those that have installed the most solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity in recent years: India, China, and parts of the Middle East.

“My colleagues in India were showing off some of their rooftop solar installations, and I was blown away by how dirty the panels were,” commented Michael Bergin, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke University and lead author of the study. “I thought the dirt had to affect their efficiencies, but there weren’t any studies out there estimating the losses. So we put together a comprehensive model to do just that.”

The press release provides more: “With colleagues at the Indian Institute of Technology-Gandhinagar and the University of Wisconsin at Madison, Bergin measured the decrease in solar energy gathered by the IITGN’s solar panels as they became dirtier over time. The data showed a 50% jump in efficiency each time the panels were cleaned after being left alone for several weeks.

“The researchers also sampled the grime to analyze its composition, revealing that 92% was dust while the remaining fraction was composed of carbon and ion pollutants from human activity. While this may sound like a small amount, light is blocked more efficiently by smaller man-made particles than by natural dust. As a result, the human contributions to energy loss are much greater than those from dust, making the two sources roughly equal antagonists in this case.

“The manmade particles are also small and sticky, making them much more difficult to clean off,” noted Bergin. “You might think you could just clean the solar panels more often, but the more you clean them, the higher your risk of damaging them.”

Of course, the air pollution that is in the air itself also reduces solar cell output — it’s not just the buildup on the surface of the solar panel that does. To assess the effects of the air pollution itself, the researchers enlisted the help of the professor of climate sciences at Duke (and an “expert” in the use of the NASA GISS Global Climate Model), Drew Shindell.

The press release continues: “Because the climate model already accounts for the amount of the sun’s energy blocked by different types of airborne particles, it was not a stretch to estimate the particles’ effects on solar energy. The NASA model also estimates the amount of particulate matter deposited on surfaces worldwide, providing a basis for Bergin’s equation to calculate how much sunlight would be blocked by accumulated dust and pollution.

“The resulting calculations estimate the total loss of solar energy production in every part of the world. While the United States has relatively little migratory dust, more arid regions such as the Arabian Peninsula, Northern India and Eastern China are looking at heavy losses — 17% to 25% or more, assuming monthly cleanings. If cleanings take place every two months, those numbers jump to 25% or 35%.”

Local variations can of course be significant, though, it should be remembered. For instance, if there are construction zones nearby then the amount of dust in the air will be significantly higher than would otherwise be the case. Seasonal variation can be significant as well.

As far as differences between different regions, they are about what you’d expect — dust is more of a problem on the Arabian Peninsula than air pollution is, and the reviser is true in India and China, where the air pollution problem is significant and still fast growing.

Bergin commented on that: “China is already looking at tens of billions of dollars being lost each year, with more than 80% of that coming from losses due to pollution. With the explosion of renewables taking place in China and their recent commitment to expanding their solar power capacity, that number is only going to go up.

“We always knew these pollutants were bad for human health and climate change, but now we’ve shown how bad they are for solar energy as well. It’s yet another reason for policymakers worldwide to adopt emissions controls.”

That’s something that is easier said than done considering the degree to which much of modern industrial culture relies upon cheap fossil fuel energy — air pollution or emissions controls of course drive up the price of energy use notably.

It should probably be remembered here that, while renewable energy use has been growing rapidly in recent years that it still represents only a very small part of the global energy mix. In general, renewables have simply increased in concert with an energy system that is itself growing rapidly — fossil fuel use has remained for the most part steady. In other words, renewables have to date simply been mostly additive to the energy system — not subtractive of fossil fuel reliance, due to growing energy use globally.

If extreme anthropogenic climate change is to be avoided to any real degree, then this will need to change (rapidly) in the coming years.

The new study was detailed in a paper published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Source: cleantechnica.com

GTM Predicts 27% Drop In Solar Prices By 2022

29.06.2017

A new report from GTM Research has highlighted what is becoming an increasingly common refrain these days — solar prices simply continue to fall, and they’re not slowing down, either, with GTM predicting that average global solar project prices will decline 27% by 2022.

The latest to sound this refrain is GTM Research Solar Analyst Ben Gallagher, who authored a new solar PV system pricing forecast this week which predicts that the continuing downward trend in solar project prices will not simply be driven by price decreases in modules, but from reductions in inverters, trackers, and even labor costs. Further, every region is expected to benefit as well.

“Component prices are beginning to lose their price variance from country to country,” writes Gallagher. “Beyond a handful of local content requirements, many of the policies that created regional hardware pricing have been eroded by market forces.”

The most recent record prices come from India, unsurprisingly, given that Gallagher explains that the country’s system of tenders has produced consistently and extremely competitive bidding, which obviously leads to “almost unimaginably low system pricing.” In fact, according to Gallagher, “India is seeing the lowest system prices of any major solar market in the world, ever.” Most recently, the report highlights, India has utility-scale solar PV system pricing of 65 cents per watt — that’s seemingly impossible, if we were to time travel back a few years.

Of course, one of the reasons for India’s dramatically low costs is the fact they pay their labor force next-to-nothing, resulting in much lower soft costs, as shown below.

But is there a downside to India’s tender process? Is it sustainable? Gallagher explains:

“The competitive tender process has a harmful side effect: There are reportedly widespread concerns about the viable lifetimes of many of the systems currently installed, as it is suspected that many were hastily constructed using poor-quality components. Developers will look to [engineering, procurement and construction providers] to safeguard their investment by raising installation and procurement quality-control standards and reduce long-term O&M headaches.”

The report also looks into the potential pricing impact in the United States of the Suniva 201 filing, which could have significant and dramatic disruption on the US solar sector. I’ve already covered this news a little bit lately, primarily in the wake of news from the Solar Energy Industry Association’s claim that the US solar industry could lose 88,000 jobs, or a third of its workforce, if the US International Trade Commission (ITC) rules in favor of Suniva’s request for a tariff and price floor on solar parts. Additionally, GTM Research dug into the ramifications of the move — a move which, if approved by the US ITC, would place a $0.40/watt tariff for cells and a floor price of $0.78/watt on modules — which could slash US solar installations by two-thirds through 2022.

Source: cleantechnica.com

Here Comes the Sun: LEON Switches to 100 Per Cent Solar Power for the Summer

29.06.2017

Healthy fast food chain LEON has switched to sourcing 100 per cent solar power over the summer months, as part of its supply deal with Opus Energy.

The company made the switch last week to coincide with the summer solstice. The deal sees the firm move from its usual sourcing of a mix of renewable power to a 100 per cent solar deal, which sees the power it uses matched by power from 1,000 solar projects around the country.

“Solar power plays a vital role in our renewable energy mix, and the UK is one of the world leaders in solar deployment,” said Steve James, director corporate solutions at Opus Energy.

“At Opus Energy we are very proud of our ability to provide 100 per cent sustainable, cleanly-sourced energy to our customers, as well as supporting those who want to generate their own power and make the most of our natural resources – especially in the midst of this year’s heatwave.”

The UK has set a series of solar and renewable power output records in recent weeks with renewables generation peaking at 19.3GW earlier this month thanks to a combination of strong winds and warm weather.

LEON said the switch to solar power would also help promote its new summer menu and was in keeping with its commitment to natural and healthy food.

“At LEON we worship at the alter of the sun,” said Kirsty Saddler, director of brand and marketing at the company. “We think it is the most epic source of energy for us here on earth. Our Summer Seventeen menu will bring you the best of nature’s solar powered produce. We think nature has humankind’s best interests at heart so the more natural the food, the better it is for you.”

Source: businessgreen.com

London to Upgrade 5,000 Buses to Euro VI Air Quality Standard by 2020

29.06.2017

London’s 5,000 most polluting buses are to be upgraded to the latest Euro VI emission standard by 2020 under a new retrofit programme announced yesterday by the city’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan.

Under the £86.1m programme, around 5,000 buses will be retrofitted with a new exhaust system in a bid to reduce air pollution from their tailpipes by around 95 per cent.

City Hall said it was aiming for the entire London bus fleet to meet the Euro VI standard as a minimum by 2020.

In the latest move in the Mayor’s ongoing drive to clean up the capital’s air, Transport for London (TfL) will work with bus operators and five chosen suppliers to install the new bespoke exhaust systems.

The Selective Catalytic Reduction (SCR) equipment, which is designed to reduce nitrogen oxide (NOx) and particulate matter emissions, will also be installed alongside diesel particulate filters, City Hall said.

Following a competitive tender process, five suppliers – Amminex, Baumot Twintec, Eminox, HJS and Preventia – were selected to provide and fit the exhaust equipment, with more than 40 new apprenticeships being created to support the retrofit programme.

Khan said there was “no doubt that by cutting the emissions of more than half of the fleet by up to 95 per cent, this innovative retrofit programme is going to make a huge difference to Londoners”.

It follows the launch last week of the Mayor’s draft green transport plan – a wide ranging strategy featuring proposals to expand the green bus network, introduce a ‘Toxicity-charge’ for the most polluting vehicles, and deliver a low emission taxi fleet. Under the strategy, all 9,200 buses across London are set to be zero emission by 2037 at the latest.

Meanwhile, Khan has also said more than 50 tube stations and five tunnels are to be fitted with industrial vacuum cleaners in order to clean up the air on the London Underground, according to the Evening Standard.

The moves come in the wake of an emergency air pollution alert which saw warnings displayed on road signs, bus stops and on the underground network last week.

The incident prompted Khan to request an emergency meeting with the government’s new Environment Secretary Michael Gove, whom the Mayor urged to “get a grip on the national air quality health crisis”.

In addition to the retrofit programme, diesel-only buses are gradually being phased out across the capital, and from next year all new double decker buses will be hybrid, electric or hydrogen powered.

TfL’s managing director of surface transport, Leon Daniels, said air pollution had reached “unacceptable levels” in London, but he described the retrofit programme announced today as “one of the most ambitious of its type” and would help to tackle the problem.

“By retrofitting 5,000 buses – over half of our fleet – with the latest green engine technology, we will be able to reduce vehicle exhaust emissions significantly,” said Daniels.

Source: businessgreen.com

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