Groupe Renault Announces Carsharing Pilots with New Renault Mobility Services

22.07.2016

Groupe Renault today announced Renault MOBILITY, which has been in its pilot phase since June 2016 at the La Défense site (France), in partnership with the Schumacher group Renault Bellini dealership. With this service, Renault will offer the public and companies its vehicles under a car sharing scheme, with both electric and combustion engine vehicles (ZOE, Captur, Clio). Renault brand aims to develop its solutions in urban and rural areas through its network of partners, to offer a truly local service.

“With Renault MOBILITY, Renault offers a Renault brand vehicle or other, made easily accessible and available at any time. The aim is to meet all travel needs, from individuals to whole fleets, with flexible and adaptable solutions at the best price,” said Christophe Chevreton, Renault France director of the new mobility project.

In addition to individual use, a company’s employee may then use a Renault brand vehicle or other, under the carsharing scheme both for his business and private travel. The cost will be borne by the company for all business use and billed to the employee for his private use. This service has been in place at Plessis-Robinson (France) since the end of 2015.

A new player in the carsharing market in France, Renault MOBILITY uses the technological solutions provided by RCI Mobility, a subsidiary of RCI Bank and Services. The system will be launched officially for the Paris Motor Show, which will take place in October.

Source: media.renault.com

To Fight Climate Change, We Need to ‘Uberize’ the Energy Industry

22.07.2016

Organizing capital, in isolation, isn’t enough to get hundreds of Elon Musks dedicating themselves to building companies that develop critical new wind, solar, nuclear and battery technology.

In June, Hemant Taneja attended a breakfast organized by Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and Bill Gates, with top business and policy leaders from around the world. The investors in the meeting were dedicated to increasing funding of early-stage energy companies. Of course, that’s a much-needed step. As the data below shows, exponential decrease in solar costs has led to exponential increase in solar capacity, despite limited technology investment. This has been principally driven by consistent, long-term policy that drove deployment at scale.

Uber and Tesla show that when companies create amazing consumer experiences, large, fragmented markets can organize fast around a new solution. Customer adoption of Uber, the enthusiasm for Tesla electric cars, and advances in self-driving vehicles have brought the transportation sector to a point of no return. The days of internal combustion engine and gasoline are numbered. Just think about that: in less than a decade, cars running on electric power will be a utility that we can access on demand. Far fewer of us will own cars. The most in-demand new cars will be electric. That is an amazing step forward towards reducing CO2 in the atmosphere.

The swift change to electric-powered transportation makes it all the more important to transform the 21st-century electricity system. An effective way to do that will be to employ the lessons from Uber and Tesla and let entrepreneurs lead the established companies.

How? A crucial early step will be to align utilities with entrepreneurs instead of against them. Let’s create regulatory and business models that give utilities a path to evolve their role from operating mammoth power plants and transmission grids to operating software-powered platforms that interconnect the small-scale power solutions in homes and small businesses. This then becomes a platform that supports entrepreneurial solutions, much like the internet or the iPhone and app store. Utilities can prosper, providing reliability and resiliency in the power network, while faster-moving entrepreneurs create ever more effective ways to generate, move, trade, market, share and store power.

Entrepreneurs will come in hoards to tackle this great mission if they can take advantage of the economies of unscale that have propelled other sectors. Airbnb is an unscaled response to hotels, re-assembling demand for places to stay in a whole new way. The Honest Company took advantage of unscaling to profitably compete against Procter & Gamble in consumer brands.

What can entrepreneurs do in the field of energy? One important role: solve the problem of power storage. A major barrier to unscaling electricity is that it can’t be stored effectively. Tesla and a number of global companies are racing to build affordable battery technology for homes and businesses. Once energy can be stored cost effectively in small quantities, much less of it needs to be produced centrally and distributed on power grids.

Put all of this together, and this is systems thinking about the problem. It follows market principles, centering solutions around what customers actually want. We need to bring to the power industry the same mindset we apply to internet-based “utilities” like Facebook and Google. After all, how are they any less important to life today than energy?

If we do this right, no utility will ever again build a large-scale carbon-based power plant. Such a thing won’t be necessary if every home is generating electricity on its roof and the grid works more like the internet, moving power to where it’s needed and storing excess in new-age batteries for reliable access. Just as anyone can now be a hotelier because of Airbnb, in a decade anyone will be able to be a power company once these new technologies are in place. In an unscaled era, the mini power plant in a home or small business will be better, cheaper, cleaner and more resilient than the next massive power plant.

Customers will have choices, and if new energy technologies are better, cheaper and cleaner than old ones, that’s what customers will choose.

Source: weforum.org

Small Increase in Energy Investment Could Cut Premature Deaths from Air Pollution in Half by 2040

22.07.2016

Each year an estimated 6.5 million deaths are linked to air pollution with the number set to increase significantly in coming decades unless the energy sector takes greater action to curb emissions. Air pollution is a problem felt around the world, particularly the poorest in society. No country is immune as a staggering 80% of the population living in cities that monitor pollution levels are breathing air that fails to meet the air quality standards set by the World Health Organization. Premature deaths from outdoor air pollution are projected to rise from 3 million today to 4.5 million by 2040, concentrated mainly in developing Asia. Meanwhile, premature deaths from household air pollution will decline from 3.5 million to 3 million over the same period, although they continue to be heavily linked to poverty and an inability to access modern energy.

In its first ever in-depth analysis of air quality, the IEA’s World Energy Outlook (WEO) special report released today highlights the links between energy, air pollution and health. It identifies contributions the energy sector can make to curb poor air quality, the fourth-largest threat to human health, after high blood pressure, poor diets, and smoking.

Energy production and use – mostly from unregulated, poorly regulated or inefficient fuel combustion – are the most important man-made sources of key air pollutant emissions: 85% of particulate matter and almost all of the sulfur oxides and nitrogen oxides. Millions of tonnes of these pollutants are released into the atmosphere each year, from factories, power plants, cars, trucks, as well as the 2.7 billion people still relying on polluting stoves and fuels for cooking (mainly wood, charcoal and other biomass).

The air quality outlook is not set in stone, but rather it is a policy choice. The report presents strategies tailored to various country circumstances to deliver cleaner air for all. A Clean Air Scenario demonstrates how energy policy choices backed by just a 7% increase in total energy investment through 2040 produce a sharp improvement in health. Under such a scenario, premature deaths from outdoor air pollution would decline by 1.7 million in 2040 compared with our main scenario, and those from household pollution would fall by 1.6 million annually.

The IEA strategy for cleaner air requires the implementation of a number of proven policies. Actions to deliver access to clean cooking facilities to an additional 1.8 billion people by 2040 are essential to reducing household emissions in developing countries, while emissions controls and fuel switching are crucial in the power sector, as is increasing energy efficiency in industry and emissions standards that are strictly enforced for road transport. Overall, the extra impetus to the energy transition means that global energy demand is 13% lower in 2040 than otherwise expected and, of the energy that is combusted, three-quarters is subject to advanced pollution controls, compared with only around 45% today.

Aligned with its energy policy strategy for cleaner air, the WEO special report highlights three key areas for government action:
1. Setting an ambitious long-term air quality goal, to which all stakeholders can subscribe and against which the efficacy of the various pollution mitigation options can be assessed.
2. Putting in place a package of clean air policies for the energy sector to achieve the long-term goal, drawing on a cost-effective mix of direct emissions controls, regulation and other measures, giving due weight to the co-benefits for other energy policy objectives.
3. Ensuring effective monitoring, enforcement, evaluation and communication: keeping a strategy on course requires reliable data, a continuous focus on compliance and on policy improvement, and timely and transparent public information.

Source: iea.org

These Are the Cities where the Fewest People Drive to Work

21.07.2016

Nearly 90% of Hong Kong’s residents commute without using a car, while more than 80% of Parisians travel to work on foot, by bike or using public transport, according to research outlined in JLL’s Benchmarking the Future of World Cities report.

But rapid urbanisation is putting significant strain on infrastructure – affecting both public transport and private car users.

To address the problem, cities – and innovators – are building effective and forward-facing public transport systems. For example, Shanghai has built 21 subway lines, London opened its East-West and North-South cycle ‘superhighways’, and Elon Musk has pioneered a ground-breaking Hyperloop.

Paris, ranked second, has a consistently highly ranked transport system, while Shanghai, in third, already has an extensive subway system, with further expansion planned by 2030.

Seven of the top 10 cities on the list are Western European. The JLL report highlights the strength of public transport systems in not only these major European cities, but also medium-sized ones. “Their size and relative compactness makes systems manageable, affordable and comfortable,” write the report’s authors.

Environmental concerns, including both short-term smog and pollution, and the longer-term contribution of car emissions to climate change, are driving change.

Oslo announced plans last year to ban all vehicles from its center within the next few years. Meanwhile, Paris has already held car-free days, with further initiatives announced this year. Designated routes will be car-free on Sundays and public holidays, while other routes will see cars banned entirely.

By 2020, only cars made in or before 2011 will be allowed in the city.

But ending our love affair with cars won’t be easy. An Australian study showed that “commuters are unlikely to sacrifice the comfort of the private car for a minor time saving”. To encourage more people to use public transport, we’ll need to break this emotional attachment to the car, argues the author. At the same time, breakthroughs in electric car technology also offer hope for cleaner commutes.

Source: weforum.org

We Are Developing on the Basis of Maximum Optimization of our Processes

21.07.2016

The basis of socially responsible functioning of each company is the fact that it becomes aware of the importance and necessity of its own impact on improving general social conditions and the environment in which it operates. This is the reason why the energy efficiency has become a permanent commitment and strategic scheme of the Atlantic Group to reduce the impact on the environment through the rationalization of energy and water consumption, decreasing of waste and increasing of waste separation, generally in all our processes.

Special projection was done in order to improve energy efficiency of the companies in Serbia and it was financed with the help of EBRD. This project was a part of a broader strategy to improve the system of all Atlantic Group’s production processes and also to support the regional activities with more rational usage of resources and energy, cost reduction, and environmental protection. In addition to savings related to efficiency, it is expected that the planned investments in operating companies in Serbia will additionally reduce the CO2 emission for 600 tonnes per year. Savings in the use of gas and electricity, as well as water consumption in production processes are enabled by investing in Atlantic Group’s new equipment in Serbia.

In particular, for plants in Serbia we have collectively reduced the energy consumption, from expended 75,539 MWh in 2012 to 53,140 MWh in 2014, which represent significant savings of resources and they go along with our general strategic setting to develop on the basis of maximal optimization of our processes. Waste management and pollution prevention remains our permanent priority, and that is the reason why the amount of sorting and separation of waste was increased in the whole Atlantic system in 2014. The amount of recycled waste is increased for 8 percent compared to the previous year. We already recycle almost 50% of waste in Štark and Grand on an annual basis and there is a tendency that this percentage will continue to grow. Other important environmental activities are carried out simultaneously in four key areas: integration of ecological perspective in all business areas and functions, integration of environmental values in exiting projects, a range of activities for raising of the ecological values of employees, and also the second year in a row, we report on sustainable Corporate Social Responsibility which are in accordance with GRI principles (Global Reporting Initiative).

Montreal Protocol Negotiations to Phase-Down Climate Warming Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) Enter Crunch Time

21.07.2016

EU Commissioner for Climate Action and Energy Miguel Arias Cañete will be in Vienna on 21-22 July to take part in negotiations on amending the Montreal Protocol to achieve a global reduction in the use of climate warming hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs ). An HFC phase-down would be a concrete step towards implementing the Paris Agreement on climate change.

In 2015 in Dubai all Parties to the Montreal Protocol agreed to work towards an HFC amendment in 2016. The outcome of the Vienna negotiations will be decisive for the prospects of achieving this.

On 21 July, in the margins of the negotiations , the Commissioner will take part in the High-Level Assembly held by the Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC). The aim is to secure an ambitious HFC amendment to the Montreal Protocol for the meeting of the parties in Kigali, Rwanda, in October.

On 22 July the Commissioner will participate in a Ministerial Roundtable Discussion at the opening of the Third Extraordinary Meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. He will also meet with members of the High Ambition Coalition, the alliance of developed and developing countries that helped shape the successful outcome in Paris. In the margins the Commissioner will meet with US Secretary of State John Kerry, and Catherine McKenna, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

HFCs are part of the family of fluorinated gases that have replaced certain ozone depleting substances used in refrigeration and air-conditioning systems. This follows the successful efforts of the Montreal Protocol – the international agreement designed to reduce the production and consumption of gases damaging the Earth’s ozone layer. While HFCs do not damage the ozone layer, they are potent greenhouse gases, with a global warming effect up to 15 000 times greater than carbon dioxide (CO₂), and their emissions are rising strongly.

Photo: dreamstime.com

Source: ec.europa.eu

Revealed: Vatican Bank Officials Tied to Fossil Fuels

21.07.2016

Two Vatican Bank board members have financial links to the fossil fuels industry, with one reported to have donated to a leading climate sceptic organisation, according to an Energydesk investigation.

The news comes with the trouble-hit institution still reeling after two board members unexpectedly resigned in May, citing concerns over the way the Bank was being run.

Now with Pope Francis himself having spoken out against the fossil fuel industry, our investigation has found that two members of the bank’s board have senior roles in companies which either operate in the energy sector or have millions of pounds invested in it, including in oil giants Shell and Exxon.

Vatican Bank board member Sir Michael Hintze is the chief executive of Cayman Island-based private hedge fund CQS Cayman which holds $8.3m worth of stocks in energy companies, including $1.7million in fracking giant Devon Energy and Anadarko Petroleum, according to analysis byBloomberg.

Hintze was also chief executive and portfolio manager of CQS Rig Finance before it was liquidated in 2014. Launched by CQS Cayman, CQS Rig Finance constructed and maintained oil and gas rigs, as well as other equipment used by the oil and gas industry.

The Australian-born hedge fund manager is also a trustee of the right-wing thinktank the Institute of Economic Affairs, which has a history of backing climate sceptic research and Hintz is reportedly a major financial backer of Nigel Lawson’s controversial climate sceptic pressure group the Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF).

GWPF heavily criticised the Pope’s climate encyclical when it was published last year.

The group wrote in a press release: “the Vatican is being led astray by its advisors by statements on climate change that are scientifically lacking and ethically dubious.”

Board president Jean-Baptiste Douville de Franssu advises two funds which together hold shares worth hundreds of millions of dollars in oil and gas companies.

One fund, Carmignac Gestion, holds stocks worth $675.2m in American company Anadarko Petroleum. The firm was forced to pay $5.1billion to settle a case around environmental damage caused by one its subsidiaries in 2014. Carmignac Gestion also holds stocks in Shell and Exxon.

German banker Clemens Boersig, who quit his post at the bank in May, received $218,000 for his role on the board of gas company Linde AG last year and remains on the company’s supervisory board.

The firm, which specialises in industrial chemicals, healthcare and engineering is involved in coal gasification projects in India and has recently shown an interest in the burgeoning Iranian petrochemicals industry, attending an event in Tehran before Christmas. Linde is not solely interested in fossil fuels and backs “hydrogen economy”, a possible replacement for oil.

Douville de Franssu, Hintze and Boersig were all appointed to the bank’s Board of Superintendence, which directs its policies and investment strategy, in July 2014 as part of an effort to reform the institution.

Mauricio Larraín, former US ambassador to Vatican City Mary Ann Glendon and Alfred Xuereb, the non-voting secretary, the church’s representative on the board were appointed to the bank’s board at the same time; as was Carlo Salvatori who quit his post, along with Boersig, in May.

Vatican Bank board members enjoy a five-year mandate, but both Boersig and Salvatori chose to quit their posts early. At the time, Reuters reported that both men were frustrated at the slow pace of change at the institution.

Douville de Franssu sits on the board of three investment companies: La Francaise des Placements SAS, Carmignac Gestion SA and private Belgian firm Petercam SA.

Both La Francaise des Placements SAS and Carmignac Gestion hold extensive investments in oil and gas companies.

Along with stocks in Anadarko, Luxembourg-based asset management firm Carmignac Gestion holds more than $20.7m in Exxon Mobil and $22.6m in Shell. La Francaise des Placements holds stocks worth $10m in Shell.

In his encyclical last year, Pope Francis stated that destroying the natural world for man’s own benefit was a “sin” against God and future generations.

As a result campaign groups and activists, like 350.org and Naomi Klein, have called for the Vatican Bank to match the Pope’s message on climate change and divest from oil and coal firms.

Vatican Bank spokesperson Max Hohenberg previously told the Guardian: “there really isn’t much to divest”. It is reported that 95% of the bank’s assets are tied up in government bonds. It is estimated that the bank has 6 billion Euros under management.

The Vatican Bank refused to comment on our findings.

Source: energydesk.greenpeace.org

First-Ever Global Standard to Measure Food Loss and Waste

20.07.2016

A partnership of leading international organizations is launching the Food Loss and Waste Accounting and Reporting Standard at the Global Green Growth Forum (3GF) 2016 Summit in Copenhagen. The FLW Standard is the first-ever set of global definitions and reporting requirements for companies, countries and others to consistently and credibly measure, report on and manage food loss and waste. The standard comes as a growing number of governments, companies and other entities are making commitments to reduce food loss and waste.

“The scale of the problem of food loss and waste can be difficult to comprehend. Having this new standard by which to measure food loss and waste will not only help us understand just how much food is not making it to our mouths, but will help set a baseline for action. UNEP welcomes the new FLW Standard and calls on countries and companies to use it to start measuring and reporting food loss and waste, in parallel to taking action to deliver on SDG Target 12.3: Halve food waste by 2030.”said Achim Steiner, Executive Director, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

This standard is a real breakthrough. For the first time, armed with the standard, countries and companies will be able to quantify how much food is lost and wasted, where it occurs, and report on it in a highly credible and consistent manner,” said Andrew Steer, President and CEO, World Resources Institute. “There’s simply no reason that so much food should be lost and wasted. Now, we have a powerful new tool that will help governments and businesses save money, protect resources and ensure more people get the food they need.”

The Food Loss and Waste Protocol is a multi-stakeholder partnership convened by World Resources Institute and initiated at the 3GF 2013 Summit. FLW Protocol partners include: The Consumer Goods Forum, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), EU-funded FUSIONS project, United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), WRAP (The Waste and Resources Action Programme) and World Resources Institute.

The FLW Standard will also help reduce food loss and waste within the private sector. In 2015, The Consumer Goods Forum, which represents more than 400 of the world’s largest retailers and manufacturers from 70 countries, adopted a resolution for its members to reduce food waste from their operations by 50 percent by 2025, with baselines and progress to be measured using the FLW Standard. Some leading companies, like Nestlé and Tesco, are already measuring and publicly reporting on their food loss and waste.

Source: unep.org

Efficiency, Clean Energy Put Dent in CO2 Emissions

20.07.2016

Americans are using less electricity as buildings become more energy-efficient and industrial power demand weakens, and a new report says that is leading to three trends: Declining carbon dioxide emissions, low electric power prices and the decline of coal, which has until recently been the primary fuel used to produce electricity.

Some of the nation’s largest electric utilities have been slow to cut carbon dioxide emissions in recent years, but as coal-fired power plants are shut down and states develop more wind and solar, carbon emissions are falling more quickly, according to the report published Wednesday by Bank of America, the Natural Resources Defense Council, climate think tank Ceres and three major utilities — Exelon, Entergy and Calpine.

U.S. power plants’ carbon dioxide emissions were 14 percent higher in 2014 than they were in 1990. But the good news for the climate is that emissions fell about 15 percent between 2005 and 2014, and early data suggest that they fell another 6 percent between 2014 and 2015, reducing emissions to just above 1990 levels, the report says.

By contrast, spurred by environmental regulations under the Clean Air Act, utilities have cut their nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide emissions — major air pollutants — by more than 75 percent since 1990, and mercury emissions were cut 55 percent since 2000.

“Less progress has been made in terms of reducing CO2 emissions,” the report says.

Generating electricity is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change both in the U.S. and across the globe and the target of the Obama administration’s most sweeping climate policy — the Clean Power Plan. But the way Americans produce and use electricity is changing, and the climate may benefit, according to the report.

More zero-carbon energy is being produced from wind and solar, and low natural gas prices and mercury pollution regulations are encouraging utilities to shutter coal-fired-power plants and open new ones that run on natural gas, which emits less carbon dioxide, the report says.

“Renewable energy is widely expected to continue its strong growth, which will put the electricity sector in an excellent position to help the U.S. meet its international commitments,” said Starla Yeh, senior policy analyst in the Climate and Clean Air Program at NRDC. “We must reach this milestone to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.”

The most progress in reducing carbon emissions from electric power plants has been made in New England and the South, where many states have cut their carbon emissions rate by greater than 20 percent since 2008.

The South stands out because the region has been traditionally resistant to renewables, but with a greater focus on shutting down coal-fired power plants, six states have cut the rate of their carbon emissions by more than 20 percent between 2008 and 2014. Those states include North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

“The primary factor is a shift away from coal and toward natural gas,” said Dan Bakal, director of electric power for Ceres.

Some Southern states have added renewables and use some nuclear power, but those were not major factors in their emissions reductions, he said.

The states with the highest power plant carbon emissions rates are Kentucky, Wyoming, West Virginia, Indiana and Missouri — all states heavily dependent on coal, according to the report. States with the lowest emissions rates are Vermont, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Maine.

Source: climatecentral.org

UN Secretary-General Invites All Member States to Event on 21 September

20.07.2016

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has invited leaders from all countries to attend a special event on 21 September to deposit their instruments of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession to the Paris Agreement on climate change. The event will also provide an opportunity to other countries to publicly commit to joining or ratifying the agreement before the end of 2016.

The agreement will enter into force 30 days after at least 55 countries, accounting for 55 per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions, deposit their instruments of ratification or acceptance with the Secretary-General.

It is expected that the September event will help efforts to secure early entry into force of the agreement.

In an extraordinary show of support for the Paris climate agreement, 175 countries signed the Paris Agreement at a ceremony in New York on 22 April, far exceeding the historical record for first-day signatures to an international agreement. Signing is the first step toward joining the Agreement, and must be followed by the deposit of the instrument of ratification or acceptance. So far, 19 countries have ratified the Agreement. Many others, including the United States and China, have publicly committed to joining the Paris Agreement this year.

The Paris Climate Agreement, adopted by 195 parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) last December in Paris, calls on countries to combat climate change and to accelerate and intensify the actions and investments needed for a sustainable low carbon future.

The Paris Agreement marked a watershed moment in taking action on climate change. After years of negotiation, countries agreed to limit global temperature rise to well below 2 degrees Celsius, while pursuing efforts to keep temperature rise to 1.5 degrees.

Even as the agreement was adopted, countries recognized that present pledges to reduce emissions were still insufficient to reach these goals. The Paris Agreement mandates regular meetings every five years, starting in 2018, to review progress and to consider whether it is necessary to increase ambition.

Source: un.org

ABB Wins $30 Million Order to Strengthen Norwegian Grid

20.07.2016

ABB has won an order worth more than $30 million from Norway’s transmission system operator Statnett for two substations that will strengthen grid reliability and boost power supplies. The increased transmission capacity will also facilitate the integration of new renewable energy sources such as wind and hydro-power and support the expansion of industrial production. The order was booked in the second quarter of 2016.

The substations will also play a key role in connecting the Norwegian grid to those of the UK and Germany and are a part of the Vestre korridor (Western Corridor) project, to upgrade the transmission network in the region and eventually benefit the Northern European power system.

The Norwegian energy mix is unique with around 99 percent of the electricity produced on the mainland coming from hydropower. The country also has significant potential in wind power both land based and offshore. Other renewable sources being explored include wave power and bio-energy from wood.

“We have a long-standing relationship with Statnett, having worked together on many occasions and are pleased to support them on this important upgrade of Norwayʼs transmission grid, with our leading-edge technologies and project execution expertise” said Claudio Facchin, president of ABB’s Power Grids division. “As part of ABB’s Next Level strategy, we are committed to the integration of renewables and the development of infrastructure to deliver power, efficiently and reliably.”

The scope of the order includes design, engineering, supply, installation and commissioning for the two new 420-kilovolt (kV) substations at Lyse and Fjotland. ABB will supply all the major electrical equipment, including the 420 kV gas-insulated switchgear (GIS), as well as live tank circuit breakers, instrument transformers and surge arresters. In line with ABB’s strategic approach, the project will be executed as part of a consortium in partnership with NCC, a leading civil contractor in the region.

ABB is among the world’s leading suppliers of air-insulated, gas-insulated and hybrid substations with voltage levels up to 1,200 kV. These substations facilitate the efficient and reliable transmission and distribution of electricity with minimum environmental impact, serving utility, industry, building and infrastructure customers including growing sectors like railways, urban transportation and renewables.

ABB (www.abb.com) is a leader in power and automation technologies that enable utility, industry, and transport and infrastructure customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in roughly 100 countries and employs about 135,000 people.

Source: abb.com

Victoria Approves State’s Largest Windfarm Project

19.07.2016

Victoria has approved a $650m, 96-turbine windfarm that will be the largest in the state as it bids to become the nation’s renewable energy leader.

The approval of the Dundonnell project means 300 direct and indirect jobs will be created during construction and the turbines will generate 1000 gigawatt hours of clean energy each year. It is enough to power 140,000 homes.

The windfarm will save an estimated 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year – equivalent to removing 170,00 cars from Victorian roads.

“It is a significant investment and part of our proudly aggressive agenda to make Victoria the renewable energy leader of our nation,” the premier, Daniel Andrews, said on Tuesday.

The planning minister, Richard Wynne, said the project was an example of the appetite for investment in renewable energy.

“Windfarms are expected to attract $35bn worth of investment nationally by 2020, which is great for jobs, the environment and protecting our way of life.”

Works for the Dundonnell project are expected to begin within 12 months and it is expected to be up and running in 2019.

Source: theguardian.com

ABB Wins 1st Commercial Order for Breakthrough 15-Second Flash Charging Technology to Enable CO2-Free Public Transport in Geneva

19.07.2016

ABB has been awarded orders totaling more than $16 million by Transports Publics Genevois (TPG), Geneva’s public transport operator, and Swiss bus manufacturer HESS, to provide flash charging and on-board electric vehicle technology for 12 TOSA (Trolleybus Optimisation Système Alimentation) fully electric buses (e-buses) which will run on Line 23, connecting Geneva’s airport with suburban Geneva. The e-buses can help save as much as 1,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, when compared with existing diesel buses.

ABB will deliver and deploy 13 flash-charging stations along an urban transit bus route, as well as three terminal and four depot feeding stations. This will be the world’s fastest flash-charging connection technology taking less than 1 second to connect the bus to the charging point. The onboard batteries can then be charged in 15 seconds with a 600-kilowatt boost of power at the bus stop. A further 4 to 5 minute charge at the terminus at the end of the line enables a full recharge of the batteries. The innovative technology was developed by ABB engineers in Switzerland.

“We are proud of this breakthrough technology to support Geneva’s vision of providing a silent and zero-emission urban mass transportation for the city. It provides a model for future urban transport and reinforces our vision of sustainable mobility for a better world” said Claudio Facchin, President of ABB’s Power Grids division. “As part of our Next Level strategy, we are committed to developing customer-focused solutions and technologies that help lower environmental impact.”

The decision to deploy TOSA on Line 23 was undertaken after the successful pilot of the first such e-bus on the route from Geneva airport to the Palexpo exhibition center. The Line 23 bus route will be slightly modified in order to provide a fast connection to Praille-Acacias-Vernet, a new suburb being built to accommodate 11,000 flats and office space for about 11,000 employees. When fully commissioned in 2018, the high-capacity articulated buses will depart from both terminuses at 10-minute intervals during peak times. The line carries more than 10,000 passengers a day and the replacement of diesel buses by TOSA e-buses reduces noise as well as greenhouse gas emissions.

As part of a separate award by HESS, ABB will supply 12 flexible drivetrain solutions for the buses including integrated traction and auxiliary converters, roof-mounted battery units and energy transfer systems (ETS), as well as permanent magnet traction motors. Both contracts include five-year maintenance and service agreements to ensure operational reliability, efficiency and safety.

“The deployment of TOSA on Line 23 is the result of the collaborative efforts of the public and private sector partners who invested in this vision. This innovative project opens the way for the future of mobility, by providing a sustainable and environmentally-friendly mass transport solution for the well-being of our community,” said Luc Barthassat, Geneva’s State Councilor for Transport and Environment.

Geneva is one of the world’s leading cities, recognized as a global center of diplomacy, a financial hub and a technology and innovation center. It is also a popular tourist destination with a high quality of life. It hosts the highest number of international organizations in the world, including global headquarters of institutions like the United Nations and the Red Cross.

ABB provides a range of technologies to support mobility applications such as railways, metros and electric buses and vehicles. Transportation and Infrastructure is one of the three customer groups, served by ABB alongside utilities and industry, and sustainable mobility is a key focus area within ABB’s Next Level strategy.

ABB is celebrating 125 years of its legacy in Switzerland and has been actively involved in the transportation sector including rail. As a recent example, ABB technologies are helping to power and ventilate the recently commissioned 57 km Gotthard base tunnel through the Alps – the world’s longest railway tunnel.

ABB is a leading global technology company in power and automation that enables utility, industry, and transport & infrastructure customers to improve their performance while lowering environmental impact. The ABB Group of companies operates in roughly 100 countries and employs about 135,000 people.

Source: abb.com

NASA Images Show the Amazon Could be Facing an Intense Wildfire Season this Year

19.07.2016

Conditions created by the strong El Niño event that warmed up Pacific waters in 2015 and early 2016 altered rainfall patterns around the world. In the Amazon basin, that meant reduced rainfall during the wet season, plunging some parts of the region into severe drought.

According to NASA, the Amazon is the driest it’s been at the start of the dry season since 2002 — and that probably means the rainforest is in for a particularly nasty wildfire season, according to Doug Morton, an Earth scientist with the U.S. agency and a co-creator of the Amazon fire forecast, which uses climate observations and active fire detections by NASA satellites to predict fire season severity.

“Severe drought conditions at the start of the dry season have set the stage for extreme fire risk in 2016 across the southern Amazon,” Morton said in a statement. The Brazilian states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso, and Pará are reportedly at the highest risk.

Per NASA’s Amazon fire forecast, the wildfire risk for July to October now exceeds the risk in 2005 and 2010 — the last time the region experienced severe drought and wildfires raged across large swaths of the rainforest. So far, the Amazon has seen more fires through June 2016 than in previous years, which NASA scientists said was another indicator of a potentially rough wildfire season.

NASA’s forecast model, developed by scientists at the University of California, Irvine (UC-Irvine) in 2011, focuses on the link between sea surface temperatures and fire activity. Warmer sea surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which occur during an El Niño event, as well as in the Atlantic Ocean are known to shift rainfall away from the Amazon, thereby increasing the fire risk in dry months.

Sea surface temperatures in tropical Pacific waters from October 2015 to April 2016 were at record highs relative to the 2001-2015 average, according to UC-Irvine scientists. At the same time, sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic from January to April 2016 were also above average.

The Amazon fire forecast team also tracks changes in terrestrial water storage (TWS) during the dry season. NASA’sGRACE satellites registered below-average TWS across most of Amazonia in March 2016, which means there was less soil moisture recharge from wet season precipitation than in previous years.

“When trees have less moisture to draw upon at the beginning of the dry season, they become more vulnerable to fire and evaporate less water into the atmosphere,” UC-Irvine scientist Jim Randerson, who built the forecast model together with fellow UC-Irvine scientist Yang Chen, said in a statement. “This puts millions of trees under stress and lowers humidity across the region, allowing fires to grow bigger than they normally would.”

Scientists at NASA and UC-Irvine have been working with South American officials and scientists to make them aware of these data and their implications.

Liana Anderson of Brazil’s National Center for Monitoring and Early Warning of Natural Disasters said in a statement that “fire forecasts three to six months before peak fire activity are important to identify areas with higher fire probability for integrated planning.”

Source: news.mongabay.com

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