Cleantech

Global wind capacity to exceed 300 GW this year

As Cleantechnica reported, according to data collected from the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) and the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), global wind capacity may exceed 300 gigawatts this year. As Greenpeace pointed out (see left), this represents the capacity of all power plants in Mexico and South and Central Americas. In 2012, the global […]

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Solar costs drop by a hundred

To pursue my quest for the best information about cleantech and sustainability, I have recently added one social media to my collection. I am now gathering – and sharing information – via Tumblr. This allowed me last week to find great graph on how solar costs have been decreased, cut and slashed by a factor

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Grid parity for solar PV is already here in 105 countries

I have already noted quite a few times in the past month that grid parity is slowly but surely approaching. What if it were already the case ? To the Applied Materials blog and REneweconomy it is already here in over a hundred countries. Yes, solar photovoltaic installed on rooftops is now cheaper than electricity

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Renewables are surging much faster than thought

A close observer of renewable energy markets I am amazed at how fast they are growing around the world. Many countries are banking on them to get out of the current triple crisis. Even if the efforts being done are lacking the necessary scale, results are very encouraging. Portugal is getting 70 percent of its

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Can France achieve 15 GW of solar PV capacity by 2020 ?

To Cleantechnica : ” A study recently published by the French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) suggests that France’s Solar PV target for 2020 should be 15 GW instead of its current 5.4 GW. “ ” According to ADEME, solar PV has the potential to reach grid parity in France in the coming few years, and therefore is

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Solar electricity, A/C and water. All-in-one.

To Climate Progress, Swiss researchers working with IBM ” have built a new solar dish, called the High Concentration PhotoVoltaic Thermal system (HCPVT) that tackles the waste heat problem by using it to generate fresh water.” Yep, a solar installation that generates fresh water, thus solving two common problems faced in developing nations around the world.

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Turning trash to gold : global waste market to double

According to a leading American bank, the global waste industry could double to $2 trillion by 2020. This is due to as Business Green notes to ” the combination of urbanisation, looming resource shortages and environmental regulation “ This takes into account municipal and industrial waste management, recycling, waste-to-energy and sustainable packaging. Europe is seen

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IEA : Cleantech is progressing too slowly

In another wake up call, the prestigious Paris-based International Energy Agency has called for a significant increase to clean up the global energy system as the effort ” has stalled “. As the IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven stated : “Despite much talk by world leaders, and despite a boom in renewable energy

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Selling solar power in India’s slums

I have already written a few posts on how poor populations of Asia or Africa are leapfrogging from no electricity to renewables without going through the distributed fossil fuels electricity phase. Electrical grids are expensive and so is coal. In countries with so much sun such as India, solar energies such as solar PV looks

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Portugal : Renewables supplied 70 percent of electricity

According to the Portuguese utility REN, renewable energies supplied a massive 70% of domestic consumption of electricity in the first quarter of 2013. As the press release notes, this is due to particularly favorable conditions. Hydro supplied 37 percent of the total while wind provided 27 percent. Last year, both energy sources only accounted for

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