Industry news

Two thirds of new US electricity generation capacity were from the wind sector in October. Five wind farms, with a cumulative capacity of 547 MW, went online. There were also 102 MW of biomass and 31 of utility-scale solar power. This is becoming a familiar picture, with renewable sources accounting for the most added generation during 8 months so far

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Between 2012 and 2013, the amount of money invested globally in climate change mitigation and adaptation dropped by $28 billion. At a time when scientists say we need to start seeing a dramatic surge in zero-carbon energy sources, the drop seems like bad news. It’s certainly not good by climate action standards. But it’s not as bad as it sounds,

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Two weeks ago, utility Southern California Edison launched a real-world experiment in grid-edge economics, one that’s going to unfold in real time and at gigawatt scale. In a first for the utility industry, SCE announced it would buy hundreds of megawatts of distributed solar, behind-the-meter batteries, automated demand response and targeted energy efficiency as part of its 2,200-megawatt Local Capacity

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As the year winds down, powerful conservative groups are working feverishly to kill a potential tax package with extensions of renewable energy incentives. But that doesn’t seem to worry some in the sector who remain optimistic that a favorable package will get through Congress in the lame-duck session. “I keep my Pollyannaish hope alive,” said Kathy Weiss, vice president of

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We’ve reached a point in the hybrid and electric car market where we’re patiently, yet frustratingly, sitting around waiting for someone to produce a high-powered and long-capacity battery, all while being inexpensive and available for the standard market, rather than just the luxury vehicle segment. Electric cars have advanced by leaps and bounds, with implausible technology becoming another aspect which

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THE FUTURE IS GOING TO BE MIGHTY FUTURISTIC, STARTING RIGHT NOW What Is It? Having pioneered and legitimized the hybrid electric car with the Prius 20 years ago, Toyota is aiming to do the same with hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles as it launches the 2016 Mirai (the word means “future” in Japanese). The product of 20 years of R&D,

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From the driver’s seat of the Toyota Mirai, the world’s first mass-produced hydrogen fuel cell car could be a plusher and more powerful version of the Prius – if it wasn’t for the H20 button on the dash which releases a trickle of water. Until now, car companies have been slow to bring hydrogen fuel cell vehicles to market. But

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Toyota Mirai and Hyundai Tucson Fuel Cell owners will be able to refuel their new FCVs for free for three years, but only because it’s hard to put a price on hydrogen. According to Autoblog, a seminar held at the Mirai launch regarding hydrogen revealed the fueling stations currently in place in the United States aren’t able to accurately measure

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Progress is being made in the rechargeability and reaction kinetics of sodium-air batteries by researchers from the Canadian Light Source and Western University. The understanding of sodium-air battery systems and their chemical composition and charging behaviour will play a role designing more road-worthy batteries for EVs. The limited mileage of today’s EVs because of the low energy storage of current

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A Power-to-Liquids (PtL) demonstration rig which is the first of its kind in the world was officially inaugurated on 14 November by Dresden-based sunfire GmbH. The ceremony was attended by German Federal Minister of Education and Research Johanna Wanka, Board Member Pieter Koolen of venture capitalist Bilfinger (in which Total and EDF participate) as well as a number of other

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