Category Archives: Renewable energy

Investment in new Australian wind and solar farms stalls amid ‘raft of barriers’, report finds

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First half of year had slowest pace of final approvals in Clean Energy Council’s six years of tracking, but backing for power storage was more promising

Investment in new wind and solar farms has all but stalled with developers facing a “raft of barriers” despite strong political support, the Clean Energy Council said in its latest quarterly report.

The first half of 2023 produced the slowest pace of final investment approvals in the council’s six years of data tracking. Just four generation projects accounting for 348 megawatts – or roughly the size of a single coal-fired power station unit – secured financial commitment in the June quarter.

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UK windfarm red tape to cost billpayers £1.5bn a year, say analysts

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Analysis finds Treasury rules on new windfarms likely to stifle energy generation and keep bills high

New offshore windfarms will be strangled by government red tape, costing UK billpayers £1.5bn a year, an analysis has found.

The latest government auction for new offshore windfarms, due to be completed in September, could result in few projects making it through Treasury rules, according to the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU), a non-profit organisation.

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Electrical union wants Australia’s net zero targets boosted by ‘substantial’ investment and state ownership

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Exclusive: Influential leftwing unions to tell Labor’s national conference party it must seize ‘most significant economic opportunity since the Industrial Revolution’

Australia’s shift to net zero emissions should be accelerated by “substantial public investment” in renewable electricity including expanded state ownership, influential leftwing unions will argue at Labor’s national conference.

The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) will use the party conference to call on the Albanese government to seize the “most significant economic opportunity since the Industrial Revolution” to drive down power prices for households and create secure, well-paid jobs for thousands of Australians.

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Future uncertain for key Tasmania to mainland power transmission link after $2bn cost blowout

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Federal government in discussion with states after cost of Marinus Link nearly doubles, putting decarbonisation and energy goals at risk

Tasmania is optimistic the Albanese government will lift funding for a key new transmission link to the mainland after projected costs blew out by at least $2bn.

The Marinus Link was originally priced at $3bn in 2021 for its two-stage construction of separate cables across the Bass Strait, each with 750 megawatt capacity.

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Fury as Alberta cuts renewables during Canada’s worst fire season ever

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Critics of the policy expressed concern that decision will weaken investor confidence in solar and wind energy in the region

A decision by Canada’s largest oil and gas-producing province to halt new wind and solar projects has prompted disbelief among environmental groups and economists. The move comes as the country struggles with its worst wildfire season on record, a situation that experts agree is worsened by the climate crisis and a reliance on fossil fuels.

Alberta last week announced a six-month moratorium on large solar and wind projects so it can review policies surrounding the projects’ construction and impact on the power grid, as well as rules for their eventual decommissioning.

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Starmer says Sunak’s lack of investment in wind power is ‘gift to Putin’

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Labour leader claims Conservatives’ onshore turbine ban costs families £180 each and makes UK reliant on gas imports

Keir Starmer has condemned the prime minister’s climate policies, declaring the failure to invest in renewables such as wind turbines a “gift to Putin”.

The Labour leader also described the Conservatives’ onshore wind ban as “ludicrous” and said it now means every family in the country is paying £180 more on their energy bills.

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Will Ghana’s gas gamble perpetuate a cycle of fossil-fuel related debt?

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West African country is enduring hard times – and critics say plan to import liquefied natural gas will only make things worse

John Gakpo has milled corn to make kenkey – a cornmeal dumpling and Ghana’s staple food – in a dimly lit wooden shack in a suburb of the capital, Accra, for 15 years.

In the past, his earnings have been sufficient to provide for his family – but not any more.

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Australia news live: NSW to review ‘red flags’ systems after child abuse charges; premier calls for urgent meeting of state agencies

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Chris Minns calls meeting of state government agencies after Queensland childcare worker was charged with 1,623 child abuse offences. Follow live news updates today

In a back and forth between Patricia Karvelas and prime minister Anthony Albanese on whether he supports a federal treaty, he says the no voice to parliament campaign is trying to muddy the waters:

What the no campaign want to do is to focus on everything that’s not happening.

What is happening is a vote in the last quarter of this year for a voice to parliament. And what that is about is recognising First Nations people in our constitution and then listening to Indigenous Australians so as to get better results. That’s what the focus is on. And what I find, I think, very enlightening, is … the no campaign want to talk about everything except for the question.

Well, where does it say that? It doesn’t even say that in the Uluru statement. It doesn’t say that, it doesn’t speak about the commonwealth negotiating treaties. It doesn’t say that Patricia. So don’t get sucked into it.

Today, the Greens need to vote for this legislation. You can’t say that you’re supporting housing, supply, public housing and then vote against it.

I’m not prepared to negotiate on Radio National, Patricia. People talk all the time across the parliament all the time.

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Victorian electricity transmission charges could more than double if Australia’s longest power line proceeds

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Proposed 800km VNI West will be costlier than alternatives and won’t solve grid bottlenecks holding back new solar and wind, thinktank says

Victorians face a more than doubling of transmission charges on electricity bills if the state government proceeds with plans for what is likely to be the most costly and longest single power line in Australia’s history, a thinktank says in a new report.

The report by the Victoria Energy Policy Centre (VEPC) argues the proposed 500 kilovolt VNI West transmission line linking Melbourne’s outskirts with Wagga Wagga on an 800km path will be far costlier than alternatives and faces extensive landholder opposition. It also will not solve grid bottlenecks holding back new solar and windfarms in the state.

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Electricity prices down almost 60% a year on from Australia’s short-lived energy crisis

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Emissions from national electricity market also fell more than 6% in June quarter, Australian Energy Market Operator says

Emissions from Australia’s main electricity grid dropped more than 6% in the June quarter from a year ago to a record low for the period, and wholesale prices stabilised, the Australian Energy Market Operator (Aemo) said.

For the June quarter, wholesale power prices averaged $108 per megawatt hour on the national electricity market (NEM), down almost 60% from the same period a year ago when the market was suspended during a short-lived energy crisis.

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MPs urge Sunak to attend Cop28 and stay true to net zero

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All-party climate group says backing away from green policies would be catastrophic for the economy

A cross-party group of influential politicians has urged Rishi Sunak to set an example by attending the UN climate summit this November, as both major parties come under pressure over their net-zero policies.

The group of MPs and peers wants him to commit to attending Cop28 in Dubai, and to appoint a secretary of state as special envoy for the climate ahead of the UN general assembly in September, where preparations will be made for Cop28.

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Eastern Australia hit with rising electricity prices despite record warm weather

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Wind output reached record levels in June in the national electricity market, the Australian Energy Regulator said

Eastern Australia’s wholesale power prices increased in the June quarter, although they remained well below the level reached during the energy crisis a year earlier, the Australian Energy Regulator has said.

New South Wales posted the highest spot pricing with an average of $148 a megawatt-hour, up from just over $100/MWh during the first three months of the year. During last winter’s energy squeeze, prices averaged about $320/MWh.

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Aboriginal owners and energy investors team up in plan for $3bn green hydrogen plant in WA

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‘Radically different’ partnership aims to construct more than a million solar panels to power electrolysers

A unique partnership between three traditional owner groups and a major clean energy investor is promising to establish a $3bn green hydrogen project in the far north of Western Australia.

In what could be one of Australia’s biggest clean energy projects, more than a million solar panels will power electrolysers to produce 50,000 tonnes of green hydrogen a year.

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Scottish windfarm built in 1995 to be ‘repowered’ with new turbines

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ScottishPower expects Hagshaw Hill to produce five times as much energy with half the turbines by early 2025

One of Britain’s oldest onshore windfarms will soon be “repowered” so it can generate five times as much green electricity as it did in 1995 – with almost half as many turbines.

The owner of the Hagshaw Hill windfarm, ScottishPower, began dismantling 26 turbines on its site in rural South Lanarkshire on Wednesday.

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China on course to hit wind and solar power target five years ahead of time

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Beijing bolstering position as global renewables leader with solar capacity more than rest of world combined

China is shoring up its position as the world leader in renewable power and potentially outpacing its own ambitious energy targets, a report has found.

China is set to double its capacity and produce 1,200 gigawatts of energy through wind and solar power by 2025, reaching its 2030 goal five years ahead of time, according to the report by Global Energy Monitor, a San Francisco-based NGO that tracks operating utility-scale wind and solar farms as well as future projects in the country.

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Crown estate enjoys huge rise in profits thanks to offshore wind

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Fees for accessing UK seabeds help boost profits to £443m while King Charles says some of surplus will go towards public good

The crown estate has generated record profits of almost half a billion pounds from Britain’s offshore windfarms, as talks continue over how much of the windfall should be shared with King Charles.

The royal property manager made £443m in profits in its last financial year, up by almost £130m from the year before, in large part thanks to payments made by renewable energy companies for the right to access the seabed.

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Solar powers ahead with hopes of a renewables record for solstice month

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As the industry gathers in London this week, there are signs of a new dawn after the damage done by Tory subsidy cuts

Britain’s solar industry delivered record levels of renewable electricity to the power grid earlier this year, but as daylight hours stretch longer around the summer solstice, it could be on track to reach another record.

Solar power generation in June is on track to come within a hair’s breadth of the record set during an unusually sunny May in 2020 at about 20 gigawatt hours, according to Alastair Buckley, the professor of organic electronics at the University of Sheffield.

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New windfarm could be used to power North Sea oilfield

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Electricity generated on Shetland could be used to fuel the proposed Rosebank field, instead of homes

Electricity from a new onshore windfarm could be used to power the biggest undeveloped oilfield in the North Sea, campaigners are warning, ahead of an imminent decision over whether to approve the project.

The huge Rosebank oilfield is three times bigger than the controversial Cambo field that was put on hold more than a year ago. It has the potential to produce 500m barrels of oil and its final approval is expected to reach the energy secretary, Grant Shapps, in the next few weeks. It is expected to be approved after Rishi Sunak hinted last month that it would be “economically illiterate” not to invest in UK oil and gas because Britain will remain reliant on fossil fuels for “the next few decades”.

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England ‘4,700 years from building enough onshore windfarms’

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Thinktank says effective ban on planning permissions means country is way behind on much-needed renewable energy

It would take almost 4,700 years for England to build enough onshore windfarms to help meet the UK’s clean energy needs unless the government lifts an effective block on new turbines, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).

Only 17 small-scale onshore windfarms have been approved in England since 2015 when the government changed planning laws to create a de facto ban on onshore windfarms, according to the thinktank.

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Reintroduction of endangered vulture in Spain paused over planned windfarm

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Conservationists say plan to increase bearded vulture numbers in north-east would be ‘severely compromised’

Conservationists in Spain are calling for a “profound debate” on how best to balance the protection of wildlife with renewable energy demands after efforts to reintroduce endangered bearded vultures to an eastern area of the country had to be paused because of the threat posed by a huge new windfarm.

The bearded vulture – known in Spanish as the quebrantahuesos, or bone-breaker, because of the way it drops bones from a great height so they shatter and yield their marrow – was common across the country until the 20th century, when it was poisoned and hunted to the brink of extinction.

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