Climate Change, Conflict Leave 224 Million Undernourished in Africa

21.02.2018

An official with the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warns that climate change and conflict are leading to food insecurity for millions of people living in Africa.

“Undernourishment appears to have risen from about 21 percent to nearly 23 percent between 2015 and 2016,” Bukar Tijani, FAO’s assistant director general for Africa, said Monday at a conference in Sudan.

“Over the same period, the number of undernourished rose from 200 million to 224 million in Africa. This is a cause of concern for all of us,” he said, noting that the continent’s population is expected to reach 1.7 billion by 2030.

This rise in undernourishment and food insecurity is linked to the effects of climate change and natural disasters, Tijani later explained to AFP.

“This very strongly is related to climate change. We had floods, we had droughts and we had crop failures,” he said.

Tijani added that conflicts in Somalia, South Sudan and the Central African Republic further exacerbate food insecurity.

“When you look at those conflicts, it has also brought challenges because even when food is available it is not affordable and it cannot reach those conflict areas.”

A 2017 FAO report shows that, after years of decline, hunger is on the rise again and “visibly worsened in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, South Eastern and Western Asia.”

As Leah Samberg, a postdoctoral research associate with the Global Landscapes Initiative, noted from the report: “At the same time, these regions are experiencing increasingly powerful storms, more frequent and persistent drought and more variable rainfall associated with global climate change. These trends are not unrelated. Conflict-torn communities are more vulnerable to climate-related disasters, and crop or livestock failure due to climate can contribute to social unrest.”

Source: ecowatch.com

Singapore to Bring in Carbon Tax from 2019

21.02.2018

Singapore yesterday revealed plans to introduce a carbon tax that will see large emitters charged for the pollution they release into the atmosphere.

The tax rate will start in 2019 at S$5 (US$3.79) a tonne, before then ramping up after 2023 with the aim of hitting S$10-s$15 (US$7.50-$11.37) by 2030.

Announcing the plans in his budget speech yesterday the city-state’s Finance Minister Heng Swee Keat said the tax would apply to facilities producing more than 25,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year.

“Singapore produces less carbon emissions per dollar of GDP than most countries,” Swee Keat said in his budget speech, according to AFP. “We intend to further reduce our emissions intensity to make a bigger effort to combat climate change.”

The move will mainly impact Singapore’s refineries, chemicals and semi-conductor companies, and should encourage firms to make their operations more energy efficient, Swee Keat added.

But the planned Singapore tax is still well below the €30 (US$37) per tonne climate scientists and economists believe is necessary to cover the environmental costs of pollution.

An OECD report last week concluded energy taxes around the world are far too low to deliver environmental benefits or deep emissions cuts, despite rising political interest in such policies.

Source: businessgreen.com

Climate Change To Lead To More Frequent UK Flooding, Warns Environment Agency

21.02.2018

Climate-changes — Foto-ilustracija: Pixabay

5.2 million properties in England are at risk of flooding, and increases in the frequency of intense bouts of flooding are expected across England due to changes in the country’s climate, warns the nation’s Environment Agency.

The UK Environment Agency last week launched its Flood Action Campaign after warning that intense bouts of flooding are set to become more frequent across the country after changes to the country’s climate. Specifically, the UK Met Office records show that since 1910 there have been 17 record-breaking rainfall months or seasons and 9 of them have occurred since 2000. Increases in extreme weather events have long been a sign of the impacts of climate change and now Englanders must begin to prepare for more frequent intense storms and rising sea levels.

Hence the launch of the Environment Agency’s Flood Action Campaign, an advertising campaign using social media and online advertising to warn of the increased risks of intense flooding, and to encourage younger people to check their flood risk at GOV.UK, sign up for free warnings, and to be prepared to take action if and when flooding hits.

The focus is targeted on younger people as recent research has shown that 18 to 34-year-olds are currently the least likely to perceive flood risk in their area, know how to protect their homes, or know where to go for information. As such, this age group is at highest risk of fatality because they are less likely to understand the risk to their own lives.

“Climate change is likely to mean more frequent and intense flooding. Floods destroy — lives, livelihoods, and property,” explained Sir James Bevan, Chief Executive of the Environment Agency. “Our flood defences reduce the risk of flooding, and our flood warnings help keep communities safe when it threatens. But we can never entirely eliminate the risk of flooding. Checking your flood risk is the first step to protecting yourself, your loved ones and your home.”

The social media campaign has gone all out seeking to inform and warn people of the risk of flooding in England. The Campaign website provides information and resources for people to determine the potential risks to their property, and what to do in the case of an emergency.

Those of us outside the UK might not necessarily think of England as particularly prone to flooding, and, as has already been shown, obviously a lot of people within the UK and England are similarly unaware of the dangers, but after the lengthy drought came to an end in 2012 in a torrent of water, almost 8,000 homes and businesses were flooded across England. This was followed in the winter of 2012-14 with coastal surge and record sea levels on the north and east coast, which led to 12 storms in succession helping to make it the wettest winter for 250 years, with 11,000 homes flooded.

Things only got worse in the winter of 2015-16 with widespread flooding affecting 17,000 properties across northern England. The named storms Desmond, Eva, and Frank helped December 2015 to go down in history as the wettest month ever recorded in England.

Source: cleantechnica.com

Energy Taxes Too Low To Avoid Extreme Anthropogenic Climate Change, OECD Study Finds

21.02.2018

The energy taxes that are currently in place in the world’s top economies aren’t extensive enough to aid in the mitigation of anthropogenic climate change to a large degree, according to a new study from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

In other words, these energy taxes aren’t curtailing energy use to much of a degree, nor are they driving a shift toward lower carbon-intensity energy modalities, nor are they spurring large-scale energy efficiency improvement efforts.

The findings are the result of a study that analyzed the use of energy taxes in 42 different OECD and G20 economies between the years of 2012 and 2015. The economies in question collectively represent around 80% of global energy use and anthropogenic carbon emissions.

The study reads: “A bird’s eye view of effective taxes per ton of CO2 across all countries reveals that there is hardly any change in the tax rates on emissions outside the road transport sector…Taxes continue to be poorly aligned with environmental and climate costs of energy use, across all countries.”

Reuters provides more:

“The study did not include carbon market prices, such as in the EU’s Emissions Trading System, but the OECD said they do little to change the report’s findings. The OECD found that almost all taxes are too low to help combat global warming, compared to a benchmark level of €30 per ton of carbon dioxide (CO2) — a conservative minimum estimate of the damage from emitting one ton of CO2.

“In the road transport sector, 97% of emissions are taxed and rates were above €50/tCO2 for 47% of emissions in 2015, compared to 37% in 2012. In non-road sectors, which collectively account for 95% of carbon emissions from energy use, 81% of emissions were untaxed and rates were below €30/tCO2 for 97% of emissions.

“Coal, which accounts for almost half of carbon emissions in the 42 countries, goes untaxed in many countries, and was taxed above €5/tCO2 in just 5 countries examined. Taxes on oil products were relatively high at over €100/tCO2 on average across all sectors and particularly high in road transport, a sector which remains almost entirely dependent on oil products.”

Notably, taxes for diesel fuel use in the transport sector are still much lower than for petrol/gasoline use in all but two of the economies in question, although shifts do seem to be appearing on that count, according to the report.

As a conclusion, the report reads: “Apart from transport fuel tax increases in some large low- to-middle income economies, and some first steps toward aligning diesel taxes with gasoline taxes, there is no structural change to the pattern of taxes on energy use between 2012 and 2015.”

This is a bleak assessment, though by no means surprising. Governmental actions over the last few years regarding climate change have involved talk, argument, public spectacle, and not much more. Regardless of political affiliation, or ideological beliefs, there’s not much of anything being done to mitigate the severity of the climate changes that are coming on the governmental level.

Source: cleantechnica.com

Germany Considers Free Public Transport to Fight Air Pollution

20.02.2018

elektricni-bus — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

In car-obsessed Germany, the government is considering free public transportation in some of its most polluted cities to reduce road traffic and emissions from private vehicles.

“We are considering public transport free of charge in order to reduce the number of private cars,” three ministers wrote in a letter to EU environment commissioner Karmenu Vella in Brussels.

“Effectively fighting air pollution without any further unnecessary delays is of the highest priority for Germany,” the ministers added.

A trial of the proposal is planned for the cities of Bonn, Essen, Herrenberg, Reutlingen and Mannheim “at the end of the year at the latest.”

The letter was signed by German Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks, Agriculture Minister Christian Schmidt and Chief of Staff of the Federal Chancellery Peter Altmaier.

According to AFP, which first reported on the letter, other proposed measures include further restrictions on emissions from vehicle fleets like buses and taxis, low-emissions zones and support for car-sharing schemes.

DW reported that some of the cities selected for the free public transportation trials were unclear about the specifics of the proposal.

“It’s not in the planning phase yet,” a spokeswoman with the city of Bonn told DW. Rollout dates have yet to be announced and the federal government did not specify about how it will subsidize the free public transportation.

But Bonn Mayor Ashok Sridharan, who was informed about the government’s plans over the weekend, said he was happy his city was selected as one of the “lead cities.

“We also have one or two ideas that we can also propose, since we’ve been working on this topic for some time,” Sridharan told DW.

As the AFP noted, the proposal comes just over two years after Volkswagen’s “dieselgate” emissions cheating scandal. The German company was forced to pay billions in fines and helped prompt its plans to electrify much of its fleet. Other carmakers, including fellow German brand Daimler, have since faced their own emissions scandals.

Last year, Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW announced a €500 million ($593 million) plan to upgrade more than 5 million newer diesel cars in Germany and offer trade-in rebates on older models. They have also agreed to pay into a public transit fund to reduce diesel pollution.

The government “should make sure that the car manufacturers finance the emergency measure” of free transport, Greenpeace told AFP.

Environment ministry spokesman Stefan Gabriel Haufe clarified Wednesday that the measure is not intended to help the car industry pay for cleaning up its polluting cars already on the road.

“In the long run, you can’t reduce excess emissions levels in cities unless you cut nitrogen emissions from diesel engines,” he said at a news conference. “We have seen speculations that we would like to reduce the burden on the car industry. That is absolutely not the case.”

Source: ecowatch.com

KiWi Power on 4GW Battery in South Wales

20.02.2018

energy-storage — Photo-ilustration: Pixabay

Multi million pound 4GW battery officially unveiled at Parc Stormy in Bridgend to provide balancing services to onsite solar, AD, wind turbine and cement facilities.

A 4GW battery facility designed to provide grid balancing services for a cluster of onsite renewable energy technologies near Bridgend in South Wales has been officially switched on by developer KiWi Power.

The multi-million pound battery facility at Parc Stormy took three months to build and is one of the largest in the UK to be installed at a customer site, according to KiWi Power.

Officially unveiled yesterday, the battery will provide energy storage at Cenin Renewables’ 20-acre cluster of clean technologies, which generate 3.2MW of power in total.

The site features a solar farm, an anaerobic digestion plant, a wind turbine, and a low carbon cement production facility, explained the firm’s managing director Martyn Popham.

“This is all about having green energy in reserve and we are delighted to be working with KiWi Power to play our part delivering a reliable, sustainable power source whilst providing local economic development and helping Wales reach its low emissions targets,” said Popham. “Smart batteries are both green and cost-effective, reducing the need for inefficient backup power stations by allowing excess energy to be stored and used when the sun isn’t shining and the wind has stopped blowing.”

Yoav Zingher, CEO of KiWi Power, said the Parc Stormy facility formed the latest addition to its portfolio of batteries as part of its strategy to “monetise the highest value battery systems across Europe”.

“Our state-of-the-art technology enables large power users like Cenin to reap the rewards from battery energy storage, with no upfront investment or risk to them, reducing their bills and their carbon footprint,” he said in a statement.

Source: businessgreen.com

China Reassigns 60,000 Soldiers to Plant Trees

20.02.2018

Earlier this year, the Chinese government announced plans for a major reforestation project—growing 6.66 million hectares of new forests this year, an area roughly the size of Ireland.

To achieve this goal, China has reassigned more than 60,000 soldiers to plant the trees. According to the Asia Times, a large regiment from the People’s Liberation Army, along with some of the nation’s armed police force, have been withdrawn from their posts near the northern border to work on the task.

The majority of the troops will be dispatched in the heavily polluted industrial province of Hebei, which has pledged to raise total forest coverage to 35 percent by the end of 2020.

China’s State Forestry Administration aims to increase the whole country’s forest coverage rate to 23 percent from 21.7 percent by the end of the decade. Then from 2020 to 2035, China plans to further boost the percentage of forest coverage to 26 percent.

China is the world’s largest emitter and remains heavily dependent on coal, but has been cleaning up its act in recent years due to concerns over the impacts of air pollution and climate change. The country is investing heavily in renewable energy, energy efficiency and electric cars.

Source: ecowatch.com

City of London Switches on Energy Efficient Lighting Strategy

20.02.2018

A set of innovative proposals to deliver more energy efficient use of lighting for buildings across the Square Mile are being drawn up by the City of London Corporation.

The local authority claims its lighting strategy, which was launched for consultation on Friday, is the first of its kind in London. It includes plans for remotely operated lighting to both improve the look of historic buildings at night, as well as reduce energy consumption and curb light pollution.

Using “state-of-the-art” technology, the Corporation wants to see urban spaces coated in various lighting types, levels and colours at different times during the night, complementing work already underway to upgrade the city’s street lighting to energy-saving LEDs.

It said the strategy would assess the balance between darkness and street and commercial lighting, with surveys suggesting some streets “may be excessively lit compared to how many people actually use them, or that the current street lighting adds little because of the impact that nearby commercial lighting may already have”.

The strategy will also consider the role lighting has on crime prevention, reinforcing road safety, and light pollution, the latter of which studies have shown can disrupt ecosystems and reduce biodiversity as well as impacting on human sleeping patterns, it added.

The Corporation is working with lighting designer Speirs and Major on the strategy, which it plans to implement in phases throughout the city.

Chris Hayward, chairman of the Corporation’s planning and transportation committee, said the strategy would improve the quality of life for workers, residents and visitors in the square mile.

“We want our streets to be safer, more sustainable and more inviting,” he said. “Poor street lighting is a constant issue for London and it is time to change that. It is vital that the City of London continues to invest in smart technology and infrastructure to maintain its position as a leading financial and business centre, as well as a leading cultural destination.

“Light will be used to celebrate and safeguard our streets while enhancing the experience for the Square Mile’s growing night time economy.”

Source: businessgreen.com

IKEA Urges Clean Energy Switch with Customer Tariff Offer

20.02.2018

IKEA is urging customers to switch to clean energy by offering a 100 per cent renewables tariff deal it claims could potentially save households more than £300 a year on their electricity bills.

The Swedish retail giant has teamed up with the Big Clean Switch campaign to secure an exclusive 100 per cent renewable electricity deal for its customers if they sign up to collectively switch their energy supplier, in a move aimed at saving both money and emissions.

First revealed to BusinessGreen last year, IKEA’s clean energy switch campaign was initially aimed at employees, but has now been expanded today to also help customers switch to renewable electricity.

It follows Ofgem’s announcement last week of plans to trial collective switching with around 50,000 consumers with the aim of combatting the lack of consumer engagement in the retail energy market.

Hege Sæbjørnsen, sustainability manager at IKEA UK, said the move demonstrated that the firm’s commitment to sustainability went beyond minimising the environmental impact of its own operations to also include that of its customers.

IKEA has previously pledged to produce as much energy as it consumes in its own operations by 2020 as it works towards its aim of sourcing 100 per cent renewable electricity. Last year, renewable energy accounted for 41 per cent of the energy it used in the UK, Sæbjørnsen said.

“We want to provide our customers with innovative solutions that will help them live a more sustainable life at home and save money in the short and long-term,” she said. “By partnering with the Big Clean Switch, we hope to make switching to renewable electricity simple, accessible and affordable to everyone.”

Pre-registration for the clean energy tariff – which is only available until March 26 – opens today, with interested customers encouraged to sign up at the furniture retailer’s Save and Switch website.

When the campaign officially goes live on March 6, a network of renewable electricity suppliers will then compete to offer the best value deal, meaning the more people who sign up the better the deal is likely to be, according to the Big Clean Switch Campaign.

The non-profit has also previously worked with a group of local councils in Greater Manchester to encourage residents to collectively switch to 100 per cent renewable energy tariffs.

Jon Fletcher, campaign director at Big Clean Switch, said the non-profit’s aim was to be “a voice for change”.

“We want to give as many people as possible the opportunity to switch to renewable electricity and our partnership with IKEA is a big step forward in helping more people achieve this,” said Fletcher. “Every person who makes the switch plays a vital role in taking the necessary action to help reduce the impact of climate change.”

Source: businessgreen.com

Australia’s First Solar Farm Co-Located With Wind Formally Opened

19.02.2018

Obnovljivi izvori energije — Foto: Pixabay

Australia’s first large-scale solar farm co-located with a wind farm was formally opened this month, the first of more than a dozen projects likely to follow suit within the next few years.

Wind and solar have been paired in various off-grid locations, but the 10MW Gullen Range solar farm south of Crookwell in NSW is the first large-scale solar farm on Australia’s main grid to be co-located with a major wind farm.

It shares facilities with the 165MW Gullen Range wind farm, and could soon be joined by the 100MW Biala wind farm which Beijing Jingneng Clean Energy wants to develop later this year.

The Gullen Range solar farm was actually switched on and began contributing to the grid late last year, but the formal opening was made this week after testing and commissioning were complete.

The wind-solar combination will be repeated at Goldwind’s White Rock project, near Glen Innes, where a 20MW solar farm is being built next to the 175MW wind farm of the same name, and at Windlab’s Kennedy energy park in north Queensland (15 MW solar, 43.2 MW wind, and 2MW of storage).

APA is adding a 20MW solar array to the Emu Downs wind farm north of Perth, DP Energy plans a huge wind, solar combination in South Australia, and CWP is also planning a solar farm to adjoin its Sapphire wind farm in northern NSW. Others are also in the pipeline.

The advantages of a wind-solar combination are two-fold: one is the shared infrastructure such as sub-stations, which lowers costs and minimizes environmental impacts; and another is the timing of the output.

Solar, of course, only produces during the day, while many wind farm produces significant quantities of electricity at night.

This graph below shows the output of the two facilities over the past month, although the huge difference in size of the two projects make direct comparisons difficult.

The Gullen Range solar farm received funding of $10 million from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which was keen to see such co-locations put into effect.

“This is a historic moment for clean energy in Australia,” said Weiwei Shi, General Manager of BJCE Australia. “Gullen Solar Farm is an important demonstration project – right at the forefront of renewable energy integration technology.”

BJCE deputy general manager Derek Powell said the Biala wind project would initially be developed on a merchant model, meaning the output would be sold into electricity markets, rather than relying on a contracted off-take.

“We think there is the strong business case for renewables and it is getting stronger,” Powell told RenewEconomy. BJCE aims to grow a portfolio of 1GW of wind and solar by 2020.

The two facilities are owned and operated by New Gullen Range Wind Farm, a joint venture between Hong Kong-listed Beijing Jingneng Clean Energy (75 percent) and Chinese wind energy giant Goldwind (25 percent). The solar farm was built by Decmil Group and Balance Services Group.

Source: cleantechnica.com

US Renewables Account For 18% Of Energy Mix, Hot On The Heels Of Nuclear

19.02.2018

Renewable energy deployment grew at a near-record pace in 2017, increasing by 14% to account for 18% of total US electricity generation, double its contribution a decade ago, and bringing it hot on the heels of the nation’s nuclear energy fleet, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s new Sustainable Energy in America Factbook 2018.

Published on Thursday, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) published its 2018 edition of the Sustainable Energy in America Factbook for the Business Council for Sustainable Energy. The Factbook provides the latest market information for a wide variety of American industries including renewable energy, energy efficiency, and natural gas.

According to the latest findings, renewable electricity generation in 2017 increased by an impressive 14% to an estimated 717 terawatt-hours (TWh), up from 628 TWh in 2016, bringing renewable energy’s contribution to the total US power mix up to 18%, double its contribution a decade ago. This near-record growth took place despite strong headwinds set in motion by the election of Donald Trump as US President, thanks in part to a rebound in hydro generation which increased by 13%, benefiting from stronger reservoir levels on the West Coast after prolonged drought.

“Sustainable energy deployment soared to record levels in 2017, cementing its role as a key contributor to US energy,” explained Rachel Luo, the lead BNEF author of the report. “At 18% of the power mix, renewable energy resouces including hydropower are making nearly as large a contribution to US electricity generation as the country’s nuclear fleet. Meanwhile, the falling price of newer technologies such as lithium-ion batteries is fueling the transformation of both the transportation and power sectors.”

Not to be outdone, however, BNEF tracked “a chart-busting number of wind and solar projects” that were built in 2016 and had the first full year of operation in 2017, bringing nearly 23 GW (gigawatts) worth of new projects to play and increasing non-hydro generation by 15% to 413 TWh.

“The massive and historic transformation of the U.S. energy sector clicked into a higher gear in 2017, despite new policy uncertainties,” the authors of the Factbook concluded. “Renewable deployment grew at a near-record pace, energy productivity and GDP growth both accelerated, and the U.S. became a serious player in the global liquefied natural gas market. All of this combined to squeeze U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to a 25-year low, while keeping costs in check for consumers.”

The strong performance should also continue with an impressive 18.4 GW of new renewable energy projects added to the mix during 2017, second in number only to the 22.7 GW installed during 2016. When looked at in the long-term, renewable energy has accounted for 55% of all new capacity build across the past 10 years, with non-hydro renewables representing the largest share of all US new installations with 62% in 2017.

Further, it appears that the strong growth in renewable energy generation capacity has begun having an impact on the country’s greenhouse gas emissions levels, bringing US GHG emissions to a 25-year low while still creating jobs.

“The performance is proof that clean energy delivers for the American economy,” Lisa Jacobson, President of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, declared in summarizing the findings of this year’s Factbook. “The 2018 Factbook demonstrates that energy efficiency, natural gas and renewable energy are generating jobs and cleaner air while reducing energy use and boosting the productivity of the American economy. The focus of national energy policy in 2018 and beyond should be to further enhance and promote the continued growth of these clean energy sectors.”

Source: cleantechnica.com

Arizona Could Implement Huge Energy Storage Mandate, Aim For 80% Renewables By 2050

19.02.2018

As US president Donald Trump throws his support behind “beautiful clean coal,” the American state of Arizona — a Republican Party stronghold — is poised to take the lead on energy storage in the country as it tosses up whether to impose an 80% clean energy target by 2050.

The proposed clean energy overhaul, called the Energy Modernisation Plan, would require an impressive 3GW energy storage to be installed by 2030, meaning it would overtake California and New York for the biggest storage mandate in the country.

The proposal was put forward recently by the Arizona Corporation Commission’s Andrew Tobin as a way to both decarbonize the state’s power supply, and to meet its peak power demand in a cheaper and cleaner fashion.

The plan calls for the state’s investor-owned utilities to source 80% of their electricity from a mix of renewable and nuclear energy by 2050 and deploy 3,000MW of energy storage by 2030, along with reforms to boost energy efficiency, electric vehicles, and biomass.

And the plan’s proposed “Clean Peak Standard” would require utilities to deliver an increasing portion of their renewable energy during peak electricity demand hours, thus encouraging the deployment of energy storage capacity.

As Greentech Media reports, the ambitious proposal would “leapfrog” Arizona ahead of California and New York, “which have dominated the grid modernization discussion so far,” both with 50% by 2030 renewable energy targets, and storage targets of 1,300MW and 1,500MW respectively.

It also demonstrates a similar state vs federal government divide as we have seen play out in Australia, with states leading on the shift to decentralized, renewable energy, while conservative national leaders cling desperately to coal and other centralized fossil fuel generation sources.

“We’re not trying to get on the train; we’re trying to be the engine in the train,” Tobin told Greentech Media. “This is Western people doing things and setting lofty goals and reaching them.”

But as well as shifting the state’s focus to renewable energy and storage, a major aim of the plan would also be to shift the focus away from gas generation, which, according to UtilityDive, Arizona utilities have been doubling down on.

“What this plan is saying is we aren’t going to build our future on natural gas — the backbone of the system over the next 40 to 60 years will not be gas,” said Lon Huber, a consultant who worked to craft the original Residential Utility Consumer Office RUCO) proposal.

If approved, Huber said, the plan would make Arizona “the first state to attempt to modernize its renewable portfolio standard to reflect the recent advances in energy technologies.”

The Clean Peak element of the plan is particularly interesting. According to UtilityDive, regulators would base this on how much electricity from renewables each utility delivers during peak demand hours today.

Utilities would then have to “incrementally increase that baseline figure 1.5 percent per year on average until 2030,” according to Tobin’s plan.

As Greentech Media notes, “that will, in all likelihood, require energy storage to make renewable power plants dispatchable on command.”

Interestingly, the proposal also suggests a pointed policy name change from “Renewable Energy Standard and Tariff” to “Clean Resource Energy Standard and Tariff” – a change the designers said would “allow for the development of broader diversified energy policies relating to clean energy resources, energy storage and energy efficiency,” and not just renewables.

This might excite nuclear energy proponents – indeed, Tobin’s plan expressly recognizes the potential role nuclear energy could play in Arizona’s future low-carbon grid.

But in a state known for its excellent solar resource – and Tucson Electric’s record-breaking solar PPA result of $US0.03/kWh last year – the focus is expected to be on solar and battery storage.

“The overhaul would help Arizona harness its uniquely low-priced solar resource, deliver it at peak times, and do it through long-term contracts that eliminate fuel price risk for consumers,” said GTM, paraphrasing Huber.

“The whole idea is, who doesn’t love solar? And if solar doesn’t have a place in Arizona, where does it have a place?” Tobin said.

Although, as Greentech Media notes, the biggest beneficiary of the plan – if it should be legislated – might be the storage industry, “which would receive long-desired market recognition for holding clean power for use at times of high grid demand.”

Source: cleantechnica.com

In Kenya, An Entrepreneur Is Using Biodiesel To Fight Climate Change

19.02.2018

The story began in 1935, when Taher Zavery’s grandfather emigrated to Kitui, Kenya, all the way from Gujarat, India, to set up a cotton ginning factory. There was no trace of electricity in the region at that time, and today, power is still unreliable, so the entire plant runs on diesel.

Taher Zavery’s company, Kitui Industries, started experimenting with biodiesel in 2008, when oil prices were peaking. This alternative fuel produced from vegetable oil is obtained from crushing cotton seed, and can replace conventional diesel. A first batch of biodiesel was manufactured and sent to the Kenya Bureau of Standards for testing, but was actually sent to be tested in a South African laboratory as Kenya did not have the requisite testing facilities. The first results were very encouraging: the calorific value of the biodiesel was just slightly less per unit when compared to conventional diesel.

Mr. Zavery then set up a small biodiesel plant that he obtained from the UK. Later on, and as they set up a bigger plant, he and his plant engineer embarked on the path of procuring components from China and India while doing the engineering design for a larger plant for themselves.

Biodiesel is perishable: it cannot be stored for more than 90 days as algae starts growing, but thanks to Mr. Zavery’s emphasis on engineering, his entire plant has already been running using the alternative fuel for the last seven years. The assured supply of feedstock — the waste material that is used as the input in the biodiesel manufacturing process, in this case cottonseed — is critical. The factory now works with 7,000 contract local farmers who sell him the cotton for his ginning factory.

The method is quite simple: the cottonseed is crushed and the vegetable oil stored in 10,000 liter tanks. The machines in the ginning factory did not need any modification with the switch to biodiesel, and the company now also runs a fleet of trucks using the same biodiesel.

The cotton yield in this semi-arid zone of Kitui, a region that falls between Mombasa and Nairobi, has been dropping. In the last four years, the average yield has fallen precipitously from around 600 to 700 kilos/acres to 150 kilos/acre, because of erratic rainfalls, which Mr. Zavery is convinced is a sign of climate change.

Small-holding farmers in the region do not have access to any irrigation facility and Mr. Zavery thought he could supply them with pumps they could use to irrigate their fields with. He procured 105 pumps, partially supported by a grant from Power Africa, an initiative of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to expand energy access in Africa. The company had access to an excess quantity of cotton seeds from its catchment area and could increase the production of biodiesel from its current capacity of 5,000 liters per day. The additional fuel would be supplied to the farmers to run the water pumps.

The idea was that the farmers would buy the pumps on loan, which has not proved to be so easy. “Micro Financial Institutions wanted to charge an interest rate of more than 30% and conversations with banks went nowhere,” explains Mr Zavery. Kitui Industries then stepped in as a financier of the first lot of pumps. “This is the place we call home, if we do not work with the farmers, the industry will be dead in two years.”

It did not take long for Mr. Zavery to figure out that the farmers needed additional help to increase their income. The seed they were using was an old one so he has arranged for the import of a drought resistant seed from Israel to be used by the farmers. Better seed, along with irrigation, helped to combat the falling yields. Mr. Zavery also provided small enterprises (from salons to welding shops) with ten diesel generator sets that run on biodiesel, for them to generate electricity.

Mr. Zavery’s journey is full of lessons for the global transition to renewable energy. The promise of biodiesel to meet global renewable energy needs has been belied. Biodiesel manufacture is often seen to displace land that could have been used for food, but in this part of arid eastern Kenya, biodiesel has the promise to both increase farmer incomes and business profits, without taking away land from food cultivation. The future of a renewable energy world will not be “one size fits all,” it will be a mosaic of solutions suited to local needs. The supply chain for these solutions is however global, as Mr. Zavery imported critical equipment from India and China.

The financing of end customers who can pay back the loan from savings in operational costs is one key challenge as partnerships of renewable energy industries with local financial institutions are notoriously difficult to stitch, as they do not understand the industry and to compensate for heightened sense of risk, demand onerous lending terms. Accessible financing for businesses to implement “pay as you go” schemes (effectively leasing out systems to potential customers) is the way for entrepreneurs like Mr. Zavery to provide solutions to a market they know intimately.

Source: cleantechnica.com

Rooftop Solar Lowers Peak Electricity Demand In Australian Heatwave

19.02.2018

solarni krov — Photo-illustration: Pixabay

Households and businesses played a key role in reducing peak demand and capping wholesale electricity costs in South Australia last month, with data showing that rooftop solar played a major role in reducing and deferring demand peaks in the midst of the heatwave.

Solar Citizens states that rooftop solar was providing more capacity at the demand peak than would have been offered by the now-closed Northern coal-fired power station in Port Augusta.

Because of the rooftop solar capacity, and because a large chunk of it is consumed on site within the household or business that has installed the solar, grid demand (the part that needs to be actively managed by the grid operator) did not actually peak until after 6pm on both a Thursday and Friday in mid-January.

On that Thursday, solar owners produced more power than the capacity of the now-closed Northern coal-fired power station in Port Augusta (see top graph, courtesy of Dylan McConnell of the Climate and Energy College) when grid demand would have peaked just after 3pm on Thursday without the state’s solar.

“Without solar, demand on the grid would have peaked just after 3pm on Thursday,” Dan Spencer, the South Australia campaigner for Solar Citizens said in a statement.

“Instead, rooftop solar provided more power than the now-closed Northern power station in Port Augusta, keeping the lights on with clean energy.”

And on Friday, he noted, rooftop solar reduced the peak by 358.6MW “far exceeding the capacity of the government’s new backup generators.”

Indeed, as energy analyst Simon Holmes a Court notes in this separate piece, the emergency back-up diesel generators ordered by the South Australia government have yet to be switched on, despite claims by federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg.

The results from the rooftop solar capacity in South Australia are not unusual. State network operators and grid owners have reported for the last few years that rooftop solar has pushed back the peaks from mid to late afternoon to early evening.

And, for the first time in more than a century of grid power supplies, it is the customers who are having a major influence on this – a phenomenon that is set to grow as rooftop solar and other “distributed generation” grows to near 50 percent of all supply within a few decades.

“Everyday people generating their own clean power meant that peak demand was pushed back by more than 4 hours until after 7pm on Thursday and by nearly 3 hours on Friday,” Spencer wrote.

Spencer said the failure of Victorian coal plant Loy Yang B during the heatwave on Thursday highlights the need for South Australia to continue investing in renewable energy with storage.

“The failure of Victorian coal during the heatwave meant prices went up for South Australians. With a state election just around the corner, we’re calling on all parties to increase South Australia’s renewable target to bring more local renewables with storage to SA.

“Along with raising South Australia’s renewables target, we’re calling on all South Australian politicians to do more to make cost-cutting rooftop solar accessible to all South Australians,” Spencer said.

“More accessible solar means that more people will be able to take back control of their electricity bills while helping to safeguard the grid.”

South Australia has some 730MW of rooftop solar across the state, and is about to become a major player in utility-scale solar, with the opening of the 6MW Whyalla solar farm, and another 500MW being built or planned at Bungala (Port Augusta), Whyalla steel, and Tailem Bend.

Spencer has been a key campaigner for the Aurora solar thermal project, which will deliver 150MW of capacity, and more than 800MWh of storage, from a new solar tower and molten salt storage facility near Port Augusta.

The Port August office for US developer SolarReserve, is to be formally opened by Premier Jay Weatherill on Tuesday.

Source: cleantechnica.com

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