We’re Not Red Or Blue — We’re Purple (+ Cleantech News Bonanza)

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Here’s some more cleantech news from around the interwebs from the past few days or so (enjoy!):

Clean Energy (In General)

Punjab’s New Energy Policy Aims For 10% Renewable Energy By 2020: “On Thursday, the Punjab government gave its nod to ‘New and Renewable Sources of energy (NRSE) Policy- 2012’, which focuses at enhancing new and renewable energy sources’ contribution to 10% of the total installed power capacity of the state by 2020.  The policy also seeks to promote renewable energy programs and strategies for fulfilling energy/lighting needs”

Renewable Energy Is Increasingly The “Least-Cost” Option For Grid Expansion: “Last Friday, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) published a report comparing the price of renewable power from various sources. The findings indicate that renewable electricity is now not only the best option for people off the grid, but also increasingly for grid expansion.”

German Power Providers Raise Prices 12%… Despite Lower Prices On Power Exchange: “The price hikes far exceed the increase in the surcharge that covers the cost of renewables power. Experts charge that the lower prices on the power exchange are still not being passed on to consumers.” (Note: this is a topic we’ve taken up a couple times before… or more.)

Transportation

Cargo Bikes, Familes, Redefining Material Wisdom: Cargo bikes are the next big part of a US biking revolution (imho). This post takes a look at that transition practically and more philosophically.

ebuggy Wins European Satellite Navigation Competition 2012: “The ebuggy e-mobility project has won the Hessen region’s European Satellite Navigation Competition 2012. The award is sponsored by the European Space Agency (ESA), the European GNSS Agency (GSA), the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), and Nokia, among others.” (Yes, we’ve covered the ebuggy already… of course. :D)

Solar Power

PV Evolution Labs Introduces New Soiling Measurement System For Solar Photovoltaic Modules: “North America’s premier PV module testing lab, PV Evolution Labs (PVEL), [this week] introduced a new Soiling Station program for measurement of power and energy loss due to module soiling in the field. Soiling is the accumulation of dirt on PV modules, which can reduce annual energy output of a plant by up to 10% depending on the site location. Rather than guess about the level of soiling occurring, PVEL customers can now be certain about the performance of an existing site, or the expected performance at a proposed site.”

DOE Awards $2M To Thin-Film Solar Module Company Stion: “Stion, a manufacturer of high-efficiency thin-film solar modules, announced a $2M award from the US Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative to continue pilot production and scale-up of its ultra high-efficiency thin film modules based on proprietary tandem junction technology.”


 

Wind Power

100MW Lake Winds Energy Park Starts Delivering Electricity: Consumers Energy’s first wind park now consists of 56 wind turbines in Mason County, Michigan. “Consumers Energy is the largest supplier of renewable energy in Michigan. The utility is on track to meet a requirement in Michigan’s energy law that by 2015, 10 percent of the electricity it provides to its 1.8 million electric customers will come from renewable sources in the state.”

69MW Oahu-Based Kawailoa Wind Project Starts Delivering Electricity To Hawaii: “The 69 MW project has the potential to power 14,500 Oahu homes and becomes Hawaii’s largest wind energy project to date.”

Siemens Received 138 MW Wind Turbine Order From South Africa: “Siemens Energy has secured the order for the Jeffrey’s Bay wind power plant with a capacity of 138 megawatts (MW). This marks the company’s market entry into the South African wind power sector. Siemens has now received a total of 16 orders for more than 270 onshore wind turbines from Europe and South Africa since July 2012. The total capacity of these projects of 730 MW is sufficient to supply 730,000 households with ecofriendly electricity, with 560 MW of this total booked in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012.”

Policy & Politics

We’re Not Red Or Blue — We’re Purple: “Throughout the 2012 election process I have wondered – are we as a people just red or just blue? Is our nation really this polarized? Are we, as some pundits suggest, mortal enemies with other Americans, doomed to repeat this year’s obstructionist political gridlock? Or perhaps we are just reacting to compelling and effective extremist propaganda machines, and are victims of a conspiracy to polarize our country?”

Energy Efficiency Bill Gets An Upgrade: “U.S. senators passed a new bill this month called S.3591, the “Commercial Building Modernization Act,” that extends and strengthens the existing 179D commercial building tax deduction for energy efficiency improvements in commercial buildings.”

China & Australia Release Energy White Papers — Huge Differences: “Australia’s white paper is largely about our continued obsession with becoming an alternative “Saudi Arabia” of gas. It has a view we should take over as the world’s largest exporter of gas before the year 2020…. China clearly views its energy security as the most fundamental feature of its future prosperity. It is building renewable energy industries as fast as is economically and technologically possible, as its major ‘nation building’ 21st century project. All government departments are focused on achieving the energy goals.”

Gigatonne Gap Is Growing: “Ever since the Copenhagen climate talks broke up in a haze of hot air and recrimination in late 2009, the United Nations has been keeping tabs on what the world says it wants to do and what it is actually doing.

“It doesn’t make for pretty reading. What the UN found in its first “Emissions Gap Report” was a 10 gigatonne gap between rhetoric and action. That’s 10,000 million tonnes more greenhouse emissions than the world could afford. Two years later, that gap is now around 14 gigatonnes of C02e (carbon dioxide and equivalents).”

Other

Waste To Energy Company Lands Some Big Sales: Blue Sphere Corp. announced this week that “each of its two waste to energy projects – a 5.2 MW plant in North Carolina and a 3.2 MW plant in Rhode Island – has signed a letter of intent with an international compost manufacturing and marketing company at prices of up to $20 per ton of compost.  With a combined daily output of 100 tons, that amounts to $730,000 in annual revenue or $438,000 in annual revenue from the North Carolina plant and $292,000 in annual revenue from theRhode Island plant…. Each project site already has a signed, 15-year power purchase agreement with two of the largest utilities in the United States and an organic feedstock supply agreement pursuant to which the Company will receive $35 per ton of organic waste it receives into each plant.”

10 Cool Things GM Has (Or ‘Have’ If Your British) Done To Reduce Waste: “In October, General Motors published a blueprint for companies to follow to reduce their waste going to landfill.  Buried within it are ten cool things GM has done to reduce its own landfill waste.”

Smart Distribution Networks To Help Germany’s New Energy Policy Succeed: “Siemens Infrastructure & Cities and the municipal utility SWK STADTWERKE KREFELD AG (SWK) are working together to transform the existing power supply system in Wachtendonk on the Lower Rhine in Germany into a smart grid for research and testing purposes. Siemens will supply the necessary components for the smart secondary substations, smart meters, as well as measuring, monitoring, and communication technology. SWK will combine these individual components into a smart system and test them in specially selected low-voltage networks. Other goals include developing and securing a data transmission system from the network to the SWK control center. Through this project, Siemens and SWK will acquire detailed information about the behavior of a distribution network with a disproportionately high number of renewable energy sources. Another goal is to test the applicability of technical components in everyday use in order to obtain insights useful for the further development of the smart grid.”


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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.

Zachary Shahan has 7324 posts and counting. See all posts by Zachary Shahan