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  • Sustainability in bioenergy
    Biomass is a very versatile resource that can be used to produce heat, electricity, transport fuels and a range of chemicals and materials. It is used in all these applications today, and its future demand is estimated to grow substantially.
  • Wind: Does the cost per kilowatt hour outweigh the benefit?”
    In an increasingly difficult economic climate, with consumers facing increasingly high bills for their electricity, there is a clear demand from many international governments for increasing alternative means of energy supply to the grid.
  • What are the prospects for wind power development through 2012 and beyond?
    Many people interested in renewable energy perceive wind power to be one of the most mature and low cost of the renewable technologies. And with over 200 GW now installed worldwide in nearly 100 countries, it’s not difficult to see why. But the industry has not been without its troubles in recent years. The credit crunch especially provided a difficult landscape for developers to obtain investment in new projects, and important markets such as the U.S. have been on something of a roller coaster over the past few years; the emergence of new reserves of shale gas in the country has compounded problems. And even in China, which has seen a massive surge in development over the past few years, recent months have seen problems with manufacturing overcapacity, with the Government in May halting all new project approvals (though it has recently cleared the way for a further 26 GW of projects, according to RECHARGE magazine). But with all the challenges, the wind industry continues to innovate around areas like aerodynamics, drive train and intelligent operation, as it strives to improve performance and reduce costs further.
  • What are the prospects for competing solar electric technologies?
    The argument about who wins – Solar Photovoltaics (PV), Concentrating Solar Thermal Power (CSP), or Concentrating PV (CPV) – is currently all the rage. But in reality it is too early to identify winners and losers in the overall solar industry. The solar industry, while growing exponentially in recent times, remains in startup phase compared with conventional power, and is now beginning to experience challenges with rapidly decreasing incentives, subpar availability of transmission and distribution, and for PV, almost overnight growth from MW to multi-GW level of demand.
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Blogs

  • Sign of the times
    Posted by David Hopwood • 27 February 2012
    As we enter 2012 with more talk of funding problems and reduced financial incentives, it is apparent how the dynamics – and drivers – for renewable energy have changed, and relatively quic...
    tags: renewable energy cost
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  • Risky business
    Posted by David Hopwood • 20 February 2012
    An interesting report from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) crossed our desk recently. The EIU spoke to 284 senior-level renewable energy executives about the risks in financing, constructing and...
    tags: renewable energy project risk
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  • My biomass breakfast or how I learned to love wood pellets
    Posted by Elizabeth Block • 23 June 2011
    Have you ever witnessed the delivery of wood pellets to an on-site boiler? I thought not. Well, you are fortunate that your blogger here was invited to a “Cool Heating Biomass Breakfast” ...
    tags: biomass, bioenergy
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  • Pie in the Sky - Taster of the Renewable Energy Focus U.S. May/June issue
    Posted by Kari Williamson • 06 June 2011
    There is nothing like cold, homemade pie for a summer picnic, and although yours truly could not help dreaming about this whilst putting the magazine together, it is an altogether different pie on the...
    tags: renewable energy, solar pv, wind, google
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  • All-Energy – Laughing about NIMBYism and nearly talking to a weather celebrity
    Posted by Kari Williamson • 19 May 2011
    In my wanderings around the show floors, I met with some interesting people. One was a chat with S&C’s Andrew Jones on what S&C does to help balance the grid by applying various storage ...
    tags: All-Energy, wind, renewable energy
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