CleanTech Report 2019.05.23

The North African kingdom came 13th internationally in a list of 40 countries that have invested heavily in developing clean energy sources.

One of the independent power producers (IPPs) that have signed power purchase agreements with Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi (ESCOM), German firm Droege Energy, intends to install floating solar power panels on the Lake Malawi at Monkey Bay in Mangochi to generate power to be linked onto the ESCOM grid.

The Sustainable Energy Fund for Africa (SEFA), managed by the African Development Bank on 17 May 2019 approved a $995,000 grant to support the roll out of a sustainable procurement framework for Independent Power Producers (IPPs) in Ethiopia.

Japan is aiming to host the first Olympic Games powered solely by renewable sources.

A whopping 74 per cent of India’s electricity generation comes from coal-fired power plants, and coal use in the country continues to increase, but we may be seeing the beginning of the end of coal’s rein as renewable energy investments have begun to outpace those in fossil fuels.

New policy initiatives in China will trigger an increase in the consumption of renewable energy and lower curtailment rates, while at the same time also create challenges for the country’s coal-fired power producers, who will see utilization declines.

The center-right Liberal Party in Australia has claimed victory in the Australian general election, in which climate change and how it relates to energy policy was a critical issue.

French financial services giant Natixis is set to back more renewable energy projects in Australia as it looks to make its balance sheet greener by color-coding projects according to their environmental impact.

Tweed Shire councilors voted last week for the installation of a 604 kW ground-mount solar power system at the Banora Point Wastewater Treatment Plant.

Experts agree that microgrids are the future of renewable energy, and technology companies are ramping up their efforts to perfect these innovative systems.

The government wants to use the money raised via the bond to finance sustainable projects in the years ahead. The target volume is €4bn to €6bn, but this will be increased to around €10bn in due time, the finance ministry said.

As the world’s leading manufacturer of solar products, Jetion Solar brought the world’s thinnest dual-glass product, the JeThrü, to last week’s Intersolar Europe 2019 show.

Zodiac Aerospace Equipo de Mexico, an affiliate of France’s Safran Group, will buy renewable power and clean energy certificates from Mexican energy retailer ESCO Comercializadora Energetica under a new off-take deal.

Mexico pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 22%-36% by 2030 as part of its National Determined Contribution (NDC) to the Paris Agreement. However, the country is already on track to miss these targets by a wide margin and has not specified any plan to achieve its emissions goals.

The Central American country has launched the National Decarbonisation Plan, which outlines a roadmap with ten focus areas, each with specific goals to achieve decarbonization.

Saudi Elenex exhibition sees the launch of seven solar power schemes with a combined power capacity of 1.52 GW

Countries of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), which today are powered mostly by fossil fuels, are now implementing far-reaching renewable energy programs. Saudi Arabia has a target to achieve 59 GW of renewables by 2030.

Renewable energy projects under construction and development are expected to conclude in 2021 with a combined power generating capacity of some 1,270 megawatts.

If SunPower is going to return to profitability anytime soon, it’s going to need to make a lot of improvements from where operations are today. It needs to increase scale, grow margins, and expand product offerings beyond just solar panels into a larger suite of energy services.

The Trump administration reached an agreement with Canada and Mexico to lift tariffs on metal imports, resolving a yearlong standoff that inflamed North Atlantic tensions and complicated efforts to ratify a revised trade deal.

Sen. Susan Collins introduced a bipartisan bill Wednesday to bolster energy storage, an emerging technology geared at solving renewable energy’s most persistent problem: using it when the sun isn’t shining or the wind isn’t blowing.