Clean Links (Solar, Wind, Wave, Clean Transportation, Energy Efficiency, Clean Energy Policy, & Cleantech Innovation Link Party)

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Other than our own stories on these topics and more, here’s some top clean energy news from around the internet from the past several days. News on solar energy, wind energy, clean transportation, clean energy policy, wave energy, energy efficiency, and cleantech innovation.

Average c-Si PV module price ($/W) from Chinese Tier-2 suppliers, November 2011 to January 2012. (Source: IMS Research)

Solar Energy

Average prices for crystalline-silicon solar photovoltaic (c-Si PV) modules have fallen below $1/W now. Well, actually, they did so in January, when average prices for c-Si PV modules hit $0.96/Watt in January 2011 and were seen as low as $0.80/W. Note that these prices were for modules from Chinese Tier-2 suppliers. (Related image above.)

China is pushing its solar companies to increase polysilicon and solar cell production despite there being a glut in the market. This is sure to drive down solar prices further, but some say it’s bad for the industry in the long term.

Cuts to the German feed-in tariff for solar power have been proposed in the last week. “The changes to feed-in tariffs for photovoltaics announced late yesterday are even more drastic than expected earlier in the day – and if adopted in their current version, they will almost certainly lead to legal uncertainty and lawsuits,” Renewables International noted last week.

Denmark has received solar panels for its largest solar PV project to date, from solar panel company Canadian Solar. 2,800 solar modules for a rooftop solar PV system in the Danish city of Virum were shipped last week.

JinkoSolar has established a new PV module testing lab with UL.

 

Clean Energy Policy

Congressman Ed Markey and Henry Waxman and a couple of their Republican colleagues in Congress are trying to reignite the idea of putting a price on carbon dioxide in the United States. We’ll see where that leads. (Highly needed!)

A new report on Greece’s clean energy goals and policies notes that the country is committed to getting 40% of its electricity from clean energy sources by 2020, and that most of that would be coming from wind and solar energy.

8 power companies in the EU have stepped up to the plate to bat for more ambitious EU global warming legislation. They want the EU to raise its 2020 carbon dioxide reduction targets from 20% to 30% and/or raise its 2050 target to 80%.

30 countries are now saying they will take some form of action to oppose an EU law that states their airlines have to pay for their greenhouse gas emissions when flying in and out of the EU. Some of the largest countries in that group include the U.S., China, and India.

An anaerobic digestion (AD) plant startup, Tamar Energy, has gotten the financial backing of Prince Charles, financier Jacob Rothschild, and supermarket giant Sainsbury to build 40 AD plants around the UK.

 

Clean Transportation

TXU Energy & the City of Dallas have teamed up to install a number of EV charging stations in Dallas.

Envia Systems, a new lithium-ion battery company, indicates that it can extend EV range and lower EV costs at the same time. Astounding, if it’s true. GM, one of the startup’s investors, is already trying out the batteries.

Streetcars are getting popular again in the U.S. Old streetcars have been restored and put back into service in New Orleans, Philadephia, and Portland in recent years, for example, as Government notes.

CoolPlanet Biofuels recently publicized that it can get 12 times more biofuel yield per acre than corn ethanol. Sounds promising.

 

Wind Energy

Wind turbine company Vestas has received a 102-MW wind turbine order from the U.S. (most details have not been provided at the customer’s request).

 

Wave Energy

SDE Energy has been named the #1 company in the world for sea wave energy technologies by a team of international scientists (as well as 6th for tidal energy and river energy technologies, and in the top 100 for clean energy technologies).

 

Energy Efficiency

A new report out by Vita Energia Solutions finds that UK industrial and manufacturing firms are losing £1.4 billion (~$2.2 billion) a year due to their continued use of old, inefficient lighting technology.

 

Cleantech Innovation

Denmark has been named the top country in the world for cleantech startup creation, according to the first ever Global Cleantech Innovation Index, Coming Clean: The Global Cleantech Innovation Index 2012, produced by Cleantech Group and WWF.

 


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Zachary Shahan

Zach is tryin' to help society help itself one word at a time. He spends most of his time here on CleanTechnica as its director, chief editor, and CEO. Zach is recognized globally as an electric vehicle, solar energy, and energy storage expert. He has presented about cleantech at conferences in India, the UAE, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, the USA, Canada, and Curaçao. Zach has long-term investments in Tesla [TSLA], NIO [NIO], Xpeng [XPEV], Ford [F], ChargePoint [CHPT], Amazon [AMZN], Piedmont Lithium [PLL], Lithium Americas [LAC], Albemarle Corporation [ALB], Nouveau Monde Graphite [NMGRF], Talon Metals [TLOFF], Arclight Clean Transition Corp [ACTC], and Starbucks [SBUX]. But he does not offer (explicitly or implicitly) investment advice of any sort.

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