Tag Archives: europe
How China Will Transform The Energy Industry
When I started in the energy business back in the early 1980’s, the utility paradigm was to continually build more power plants to serve growing customer loads. This lead to environmental and economic difficulties, especially as the cost of completing planned nuclear power plants skyrocketed. At the utility where I worked, Pacific Gas and Electric, [...]
The Solar Rooftop Boom in NYC
Things move fast in the city that never sleeps and solar’s been keeping pace. By the end of 2012, the amount of rooftop solar photovoltaic installations in New York City had boomed to 14 megawatts from 5.5 megawatts at the end of 2011—an increase of 8.5 megawatts in a year. That’s according to recent data [...]
Europe 2012: $2.35B Invested in Smart Grid
The Joint Research Centre (JRC), a Directorate-General of the European Commission that provides independent scientific and technical advice to the European Commission to support a wide range of EU policies has published an update of the 2011 report “Smart Grid projects in Europe: lessons learned and current developments,” which is the most comprehensive inventory of [...]
Foxconn Goes Solar
Infamous Foxconn, best known for the deplorable working conditions for Chinese workers that make Apple’s iPod and other products, is intent on developing a strong presence in the solar industry. The company first announced this decision in 2011 at the height of overcapacity in the industry. The last thing that was needed was a big new player that would bring [...]
2030 EU Sets Energy Efficiency Targets Announced
Yesterday The European Commission took the first step towards developing a 2030 framework for EU climate change and energy policies. It adopted a Green Paper which launches a public consultation on the content of the 2030 framework. The Commission also published a Consultative Communication on the future of carbon capture and storage (CCS) in Europe, [...]
Top 7 Solar Consuming Countries
The concept of solar power has been around for some time, but it’s never been considered a practical means for satisfying the world’s energy needs. But as better methods for capturing and converting the sun’s rays into usable energy are developed, solar power is becoming widely adopted across many countries. Here’s a look at a [...]
In Focus: The European Supergrid
The European Supergrid is a project still in the works and is designed to provide huge amounts of benefits to European countries but how about the rest of the world? Read on to find out. Defined as “a pan-European transmission network facilitating the integration of large-scale renewable energy and the balancing and transportation of electricity, [...]
Using Solar Energy To Save The Lives Of Soccer Players
In 2003 Cameroonian soccer star Marc-Vivien Foe collapsed on the field and died due to a heat related cardiac event during a World Cup match (see video below). In the summer of 2022 Qatar will host the World Cup. As one can imagine it gets rather hot in Qatar during the summer and there are some very [...]
Germany: Doing Just Fine Without Nuclear
Freezing temperatures in both Belgium and Germany have put both countries’ power systems to the test this week, but neither country has experienced electricity blackouts despite the lack of nuclear power. Two of Belgium’s seven nuclear reactors – Doel 3 and Tihange 2 – were switched off this summer, following the discovery of cracks, cutting [...]