Tag: news

In April of this year,​ ​t​he British Government​,​ through its Department of Energy & Climate Change​,​ announced “​…plans to turn the Government estate as well as factories, supermarkets and car parks into solar hubs​.​” This is huge! ​Translation? Government support for solar PV distributed generation (DG). ​Yay!​ The UK solar industry (at least some companies) do​ not share my excitement

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A first gold rush driven by generous subsidies led to an uncontrolled boom in solar power projects in Japan, of which, however, only a very small percentage actually got built. Now, however, the government has taken charge and serious developers are entering the market. The liberalisation of the Japanese retail market in 2016 is expected to give another boost to

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What is it like to rent an EV in Beijing? Over the Labor Day holiday, we decided to find out. For all the articles about Beijing’s air pollution problems and ambitious goals for electric vehicle adoption, we had trouble finding one that covered the actual experience of renting or owning an EV in China. We had heard of the few

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China has thrilled the solar industry in the past few years with bigger and bigger solar installation targets. Of course, this also came on the back of solar capacity oversupply and a solar manufacturer shakeout that put many non-Chinese solar companies out of business, but it has also helped to pull manufacturers out of a financial crisis and further drive

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Rooftop solar is an unstoppable force in the Australian market that will drive the nation’s total installed solar capacity well past 20 gigawatts, regardless of any attempts by the incumbent utilities to thwart its development, Bloomberg New Energy Finance says. Kobad Bhavnagri, head of BNEF in Australia, told the 2014 Solar Conference and Expo in Melbourne on Thursday that BNEF

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Thanks to its partnership with Tesla Motors, Panasonic now possesses 39% of the plug-in vehicle battery market — crushing its closest rivals, NEC at 27% market share and LG Chem at 9%. The market as whole is continuing to grow relatively rapidly — having more than tripled over the past three years. It currently rests at about 1.4 GWh per

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Electric vehicles already were a hard sell in China. Now, battery-pollution concerns have made the task even tougher. Graphite used in US luxury electric-vehicle maker Tesla Motors Inc’s batteries has been tied to pollution problems in China. The announcement that China, a leading graphite producer beset by severe smog problems, will shut down dozens of graphite mines and processing facilities

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We have just become aware of a last-minute attempt by the auto dealers lobby, via pressure on legislators, to bar Tesla from selling its vehicles direct to consumers in the state. This extraordinary maneuver amounts to a sneak attack to thwart due process and hurt consumer freedom in Missouri. In the last week before Missouri’s legislature ends its current session,

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Sales of plug-in electric cars last month stayed about level with last month’s, based on the reports from all makers of plug-in electric cars sold in the U.S. (except for two that refuse to provide sales data). With all data now in, it was a steady month for plug-in sales, but not a spectacular one. The Nissan Leaf battery-electric hatchback

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If you’ve bought an electric vehicle recently, chances are you may have enjoyed some of the myriad incentives currently offered on plug-in cars. Income-tax credits, purchase rebates, sales-tax exemptions, and various non-monetary incentives have been used worldwide to spur plug-in car sales growth. Now, data from the International Council on Clean Transportation show they’re working pretty well. Mostly. An ICCT

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