Category Archives: Wind Power

Premier claims WA a ‘renewable energy powerhouse’ but leaked document shows wind and solar projects have ‘stalled’

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Exclusive: Government document confirms electricity from large-scale renewables has flatlined, with one campaigner saying pipeline has ‘little sign of life’

Officials have warned the Western Australian Labor government that work to build wind and solar farms for the state’s main electricity grid has stalled under its leadership, a leaked document shows.

A confidential state government document reveals state bureaucrats advised the government that the “decarbonisation work program” in Perth’s electricity grid had “stalled to date”. It said there were “few new wind developments” advanced enough to be added to the grid before the promised closure of a coal power station in 2027.

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Offshore wind farm developer asks Labor to delay application on Illawarra project until after election

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Chris Bowen accuses Coalition of creating ‘sovereign risk’ by opposing offshore projects as Nationals celebrate ‘major win’

An offshore windfarm developer has asked the Albanese government to pause its application to progress its project off the Illawarra until after the coming federal election, after the Coalition campaigned against it.

BlueFloat Energy was the only applicant asking for a seven-year feasibility licence to further develop its project in the deep waters of the Illawarra offshore wind zone.

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Starmer ‘not telling truth’ over Gaza family asylum decision, claims Badenoch, after PMQs clash – as it happened

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Opposition leader says PM was wrong when he said that the decision was taken under the last government

After PMQs there will be an urgent question in the Commons, tabled by the Lib Dem MP Christine Jardine, on “the potential security implications of the involvement of Chinese companies including Mingyang in energy infrastructure projects”. After that Dan Jarvis, the security minister, will make a statement to mark the publication of the report into Prevent’s dealings with Ali Harbi Ali, the man who killed the Conservative MP David Amess.

Sir Mark Rowley, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has blamed Home Office foot-dragging for a failure to change the rules to allow forces to sack officers who fail vetting procedures, Matthew Weaver reports.

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Burning wood for power not necessary for UK’s energy goals, analysis finds

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Experts say UK should stop biomass burning as electricity sector decarbonisation by 2030 can be achieved without it

The UK should stop burning wood to generate power because it is not needed to meet the government’s target of decarbonising the electricity sector by 2030, according to analysis.

Ed Miliband, the energy security and net zero secretary, is expected to make a decision soon on whether to allow billions of pounds in new public subsidies for biomass burning, despite fierce opposition from green groups.

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Australia news live: Gallagher says she expects Pocock to trump her in ACT Senate race; more ball-shaped ‘debris’ on Sydney beach

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Detectives investigating four separate incidents of children being approached by drivers in white vans in Melbourne

Victoria police detectives are investigating four separate incidents in Melbourne in the last month of children being approached by drivers in white vans.

People like Mr Rogan prey on people’s vulnerabilities: they prey on fear, they prey on anxiety, they prey on all of the elements that contribute to uncertainty in society.

They entrepreneur fantasy outcomes and conspiracy outcomes as being a normal part of social narrative – I personally find it deeply repulsive.

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Heatwave forecast for south-eastern Australia triggers energy supply and fire danger warnings

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Coming hot weather prompts Australian Energy Market Operator to predict shortfall in electricity supplies for NSW and Queensland

South-eastern Australia will endure its first big heatwave of the season in the coming days, elevating fire risks and potentially straining the power grid in some states.

Dean Narramore, a senior Bureau of Meteorology forecaster, said day and night temperatures would be as much as 8-14C hotter than usual for this time of year.

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Subsea cables to help Britain meet green energy goal get green light

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Ofgem gives green light to five interconnectors capable of powering millions of homes

Projects to lay five subsea power cables capable of powering millions of homes have been given the green light as Great Britain prepares to use its giant offshore windfarms to become a net exporter of green electricity in the 2030s.

The energy regulator, Ofgem, has approved three subsea cable projects linking Great Britain to power grids in Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland to help share renewable electricity across borders.

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Sweden scraps plans for 13 offshore windfarms over Russia security fears

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Decision comes after military concludes projects would complicate defending Nato’s newest member against attack

Sweden has vetoed plans for 13 offshore windfarms in the Baltic Sea, citing unacceptable security risks.

The country’s defence minister, Pål Jonson, said on Monday that the government had rejected plans for all but one of 14 windfarms planned along the east coast.

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Great British Energy can become a major power generator, says its chair

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Jürgen Maier’s vision for company includes the potential to borrow its own money in order to rival multinationals

Britain’s new national energy company will eventually become a major power generator, running its own windfarms, tidal power and carbon capture schemes and potentially borrowing its own money, according to its new chair.

Jürgen Maier, the chair of Great British Energy (GBE), told the Guardian in an interview that his vision for the company far outstrips its current scope and would put it on a par with multinational firms such as Denmark’s Ørsted or Sweden’s Vattenfall.

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China to head green energy boom with 60% of new projects in next six years

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IEA says faster clean energy rollout being led by solar power in China with country set to boast half of world’s renewables by 2030

China is expected to account for almost 60% of all renewable energy capacity installed worldwide between now and 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

The IEA’s highly influential renewable energy report found that over the next six years renewable energy projects will roll out at three times the pace of the previous six years, led by the clean energy programmes of China and India.

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Renewable energy auction secures enough power for 11m UK homes

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£1.5bn auction awards record funding for new windfarms, solar farms and tidal power projects

Great Britain’s renewable energy auction has secured enough new clean electricity projects to power 11m UK homes after the Labour government made record funding available to suppliers.

The £1.5bn auction will support 131 new projects including windfarms, solar farms and tidal power projects after ministers increased the amount of funding available to seven times the sums offered last year.

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Australia could save thousands of bats a year with simple tweak to wind turbines, study says

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Raising the wind speed at which turbines start spinning could prevent tens of thousands of bat deaths each year, researchers find

Australian windfarm operators are being urged to embrace a simple measure used overseas that scientists say could dramatically reduce the number of bats killed by turbines.

Curtailment – lifting the wind speed at which turbines start spinning – is used in some European countries and parts of the US and Canada, but rarely in Australia. A global study published in the journal BioScience found it was an effective way to limit bat deaths.

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China adds new clean power equivalent to UK’s entire electricity output

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Data shows continued surge in wind and solar power amid hopes Chinese greenhouse gas emissions may have peaked

China added as much new clean energy generation in the first half of this year as the UK produced from all sources in the same period last year, data shows, as wind and solar power generation continued to surge in the world’s biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.

Electricity generation from coal and gas dropped by 5% in China in July, year on year, according to an update from the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (CREA) thinktank, basing its analysis on data released by the Chinese government on Thursday.

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Danish wind power giant Ørsted delays major US offshore project

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News follows scrapping of two other Atlantic windfarms and axing of hundreds of jobs as costs surge

The Danish company developing the world’s largest offshore windfarm in the North Sea has been forced to delay a major project off the north-east coast of the US, months after cancelling two nearby developments and cutting hundreds of jobs.

Ørsted has pushed back the start of commercial operations at its 704 megawatt Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island and Connecticut by a year, to 2026.

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Labour tries to attract clean energy contracts with record £1.5bn for auction

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The new budget comes after the previous government failed to award a single new offshore wind contract in 2023

The Labour government will make record amounts of funding available to clean energy developers after it increased the value of its summer subsidy auction by 50%, to £1.5bn.

The addition, compared with figures previously announced, means the total budget is seven times the amount available at last year’s auction, the government said.

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PM calls for Barnaby Joyce to be dumped over ‘bullet’ comment aimed at Labor during anti-wind turbine rally

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Nationals MP apologised after telling anti-renewables protesters to ‘load that magazine’ and that the ‘bullet you have is that little piece of paper’

Prime minister Anthony Albanese says Barnaby Joyce should be sacked from shadow cabinet after the National party MP likened ballot papers to “bullets” during a protest against wind turbines.

Speaking to an anti-renewables rally at Lake Illawarra south of Sydney on Sunday, Joyce compared ballot papers to bullets and urged the crowd to “load that magazine” at the voting booth against the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and the energy minister, Chris Bowen.

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Labour told it will need to defeat ‘net-zero nimbys’ to decarbonise Britain

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Opposition in wealthier areas is likely and overcoming it is essential, says Resolution Foundation

The government will need to “take on net-zero nimbys” and ramp up public investment to decarbonise Britain’s homes, transport and electricity system, a leading thinktank has said.

With Keir Starmer promising a rapid transition to decarbonise the power system by 2030, a report by the Resolution Foundation said achieving the target would require more government spending and private investment.

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Cold snap sets record winter demand for electricity in Victoria as NSW windfarms supply third of power

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New peak may be challenged as early as Tuesday evening as mid-winter bites in Melbourne

The wintry blast sweeping across eastern Australia has set a record for electricity demand in Victoria and propelled wind generation in New South Wales to new highs, with energy authorities preparing for another power peak on Tuesday evening.

Victoria broke a 17-year record for maximum winter electricity demand, with the tally reaching 8,612 megawatts at 6pm on Monday, the Australian Energy Market Operator said.

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Labour’s ‘rooftop revolution’ to deliver solar power to millions of UK homes

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Ed Miliband sets new rules on solar panels and approves three giant solar farms as Labour seeks to end years of Tory inaction

Keir Starmer’s new Labour government today unveils plans for a “rooftop revolution” that will see millions more homes fitted with solar panels in order to bring down domestic energy bills and tackle the climate crisis.

The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, also took the hugely controversial decision this weekend to approve three massive solar farms in the east of England that had been blocked by Tory ministers.

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Offshore windfarm zone off Illawarra coast given green light in bid to ‘power Australia’s clean energy future’

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Zone will be 20km off the coast and exclude areas significant for little penguin and for southern right whale migration

The federal government has given the green light to an offshore windfarm zone south of Sydney, making it Australia’s fourth such zone to be declared.

Announcing the project in the Illawarra on Saturday, the climate change and energy minister, Chris Bowen, said the move would bring thousands of new jobs and help “power Australia’s clean energy future”.

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