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  reprint New analysis from Climate Policy Initiative (CPI) and the Indian School of Business shows that, with the appropriate policies, the Budget 2015 target of 60 GW of wind power by 2022 can easily be met with minimal government financial support. In the report, Reaching India’s Renewable Energy Targets Cost-Effectively, CPI found that, in absence of any subsidies, wind power is already cheaper than the total cost of power from a new build imported coal plant, at INR 5.87/kWh for electricity from wind power and INR 6.81/kWh for electricity from imported coal. The comparison with imported coal is key because this is the fuel that additional renewable energy will likely replace, rather than domestic coal or natural gas , which are limited in supply. The analysis also finds that wind power will continue to remain competitive beyond 2022. Because the government has a constrained budget, a cost-effective policy path to achieving its renewable energy targets is crucial. Th...

reprint In an industrial park on the outskirts of Pullman, Wash., 10 white storage trailers sit side by side, neatly arranged in two rows. These are no ordinary storage units. Arranged on racks inside are the guts of a large rechargeable battery, the kind of device that can store and release utility-scale amounts of electricity. But this is no ordinary storage battery , either. In contrast with the typical lead-acid batteries used to start car engines or the lithium-ion cells that power electric vehicles — both of which are largely solid — this battery is mostly liquid. The chemicals that react to produce electricity are dissolved in water and circulated into and out of the heart of each cell, where the reaction occurs. For that reason, it is called a flow battery, and the one in Pullman, a demonstration project that will be tested over the next year and a half, is one of the largest in the world. It can store about 3.2 megawatt-hours of energy and discharge a meg...

reprint A major new Deutsche Bank report has predicted that energy storage – the “missing link of solar adoption” – will be cheap enough – and technologically ready – to be deployed on a large-scale within the next five years. The solar industry report, published on Friday, said that while costs for the greater majority of available battery technologies remained prohibitive, economically competitive batteries were the “killer app” and the “holy grail” of solar penetration. But with many costs already lower than published literature would suggest, Deutsche Bank believes this ultimate solar and renewable energy goal might not be far out of reach. “Using conservative assumptions and no incentives, our model indicates that the incremental cost of storage will decrease from ~14c/kWh today to ~2c/kWh within the next five years,” the report says. “When overall system cost decreases are considered, we believe solar + batteries will be a clear financial choice in ma...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com reprint Energy is used to heat and to cool buildings and homes, transport goods, and power the economy. But with ageing infrastructure, poorly integrated markets, and uncoordinated policies, our consumers, households and businesses do not benefit from increased choice or from lower energy prices. It is time to complete the single energy market in Europe . _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ Delivering on this top priority set out in President Juncker's political guidelines, today the European Commission sets out its strategy to achieve a resilient Energy Union with a forward-looking climate change policy. The Energy Union means in particular: Solidarity clause : reducing the dependence on single suppliers and fully relying on their neighbours, especially when confronted with energy supply disru...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 There is a boom in renewable energy sources coming online worldwide, but the predominant types – solar and wind – are problematic due to their variable nature. For most regions of the world, the sun cannot be expected to shine nor the wind blow when required. What is needed is a way to capture that energy when available, perhaps in the middle of the night, when demand is low, and then store it until it can be used when demand rises. But this is not a trivial problem to solve. _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ According to the European Wind Energy Association , at the end of 2013, the UK had 10.5GW of wind turbine capacity installed, with more in planning and construction. As the percentage of energy generated from renewables increases, the intermittency problem becomes more acute, as has been ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint Download: Quarterly Notes on Sustainable Water Management - Q01/2014 Today's wind industry, even with the necessary batteries and other grid-scale storage, is energetically sustainable, Stanford scientists say. - However, storing stochastic renewable-based energy is the key challenge that hasn't been solved at all. The worldwide demand for solar and wind power continues to skyrocket. Since 2009, global solar photovoltaic installations have increased about 40 percent a year on average, and the installed capacity of wind turbines has doubled. The dramatic growth of the wind and solar industries has led utilities to begin testing large-scale technologies capable of storing surplus clean electricity and delivering it on demand when sunlight and wind are in short supply. Now a team of Stanford researchers has looked at the "energetic cost" of manufacturing batteries and other storage technologies for the electrical grid. At issue ...

-- a _kt75 | reprint _download the Background: Inside Sustainability: Facts, Figures, Bullshit - Part II: Alternative Energy and other _kt75 | publications Global installed wind power capacity increased by 12.4 percent to more than 318 gigawatts in 2013 led by China and Canada, industry figures showed on Wednesday. Capacity rose from around 283 GW at the end of 2012, data from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) showed. However, installations slowed in 2013 to about 35.5 GW, almost 10 GW less than a year earlier mostly on a drop in the United States. "Outside of Europe and the U.S., the global market grew modestly last year, led by China and an exceptionally strong year in Canada," GWEC Secretary General Steve Sawyer said in a statement. "China is a growth market again which is good news for the industry. The government's commitment to wind power has been reinforced once again by raising the official target for 2020 to 200 GW, and th...

-- a _kt75 | reprint    A recent Bloomberg press release got wide coverage with its claim that wind power is now cheaper than coal. But a new report from the OECD shows that when you cover the full cost to the grid, variable renewables like wind don’t add up as favourably. It is often claimed that introducing variable renewable energy resources such as solar and wind into the electricity network comes with some extra cost penalties, due to “system effects”. These system effects include intermittent electricity access, network congestion, instability, environmental impacts, and security of supply. Now a new report from the OECD titled System Effects of Low-Carbon Electricity Systems gives some hard dollar values for these additional imposts. The OECD work focuses on nuclear power, coal, gas, and renewables such as wind and solar. Their conclusion is that grid-level system costs can have significant impacts on the tota...