A key theme of the Berlin Energy Transition Dialogue conference last week was how Germany’s Energiewende (‘energy transition’) has not only proven how to foster an explosion of renewable generation capacity through support schemes, but also how to integrate those renewables. Grid operators from Germany and Denmark discussed questions of feasibility, past, present and future.
The chief of California’s bulk transmission system operator has slammed net metering as a “subsidy” of wealthy households by poorer ones, claiming it represents an “economic justice issue”.
Puerto Rico’s financially troubled electric power authority PREPA will install a large-scale battery park at a 10MW PV farm, to help integrate the farm’s output and other renewables.
Saudi Arabia’s energy minister has said he believes it will be impossible to keep fossil fuel resources “in the ground” even in the next 50 years but nonetheless sees his country as an ideal potential manufacturer-exporter of PV panels.
The fight is still on to prove the transition to cleaner energy in Germany is proving to be a success, Amory Lovins, chief scientist and head of the Rocky Mountain Institute said yesterday.
The second annual German government-backed event promoting discussion and exchanges of views on Energiewende ('energy transition'), the nationwide policy which has catapulted the country into a leading position on renewable energies including PV, begins today.
Recharge A/S, an investment fund specialising in renewables, will take a 50.1% stake in a €24 million (US$26.7 million) micro grid on a remote Portuguese island that could prove the validity of such projects as an asset class.
In common with every other PV market in the world as it matures, attaining grid parity for the technology is the ultimate goal for Japan. As an electricity market in general, meeting electrical supply with demand will of course become ever-more important.
Japan's government has given its clearest indication to date of planned rule changes around renewable energy policy, including official confirmation that a tender process is being put before its parliament for the 2017 financial year.
