Sustainable Energy

The coming of the renewable energy revolution has long been heralded by many of the world’s energy market authorities, and as solar and wind energy capacity is installed at record rates, these predictions seem to be being borne out.

But a new infographic published by Meister Consultants Group has shown that almost all of these expert predictions have vastly underestimated the scale at which the renewable energy revolution would happen.

Inside a sprawling single-story office building in Bedford, Mass., in a secret room known as the Growth Hall, the future of solar power is cooking at more than 2,500 °F. Behind closed doors and downturned blinds, custom-built ovens with ambitious names like “Fearless” and “Intrepid” are helping to perfect a new technique of making silicon wafers, the workhorse of today’s solar panels. If all goes well, the new method could cut the cost of solar power by more than 20 percent in the next few years.

By the end of 2014, total installed capacity for solar PV globally amount to at least 177 gigawatts, up from nearly 140 gigawatts in 2013, according to the International Energy Agency's Photovoltaic Power Systems Programme (IEA-PVPS).

Siemens has conducted a review of its wind turbine technology to determine the actual environmental impact of wind energy, from manufacturing through construction and operation. The company’s study found that both onshore and offshore “showed outstanding results."

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The study investigated two offshore wind farms comprising 80 turbines, and two onshore wind projects comprising 40 turbines.

The initial findings are that land-based wind farms pay off faster than their more powerful-yet-construction-intensive offshore cousins.

The Canadian province of British Columbia will once again soon be home to a purchase rebate program for electric cars — the Clean Energy Vehicle incentive program, to be specific — according to recent reports.The incentive program will go back into effect starting on April 1st — so, only a few days from now. Good news for British Columbians considering purchasing an electric car!

This week’s Cleantech Talk news episode is something like a “battery special.” Chris DeMorro and I talk about new research highlighting the fast-dropping price of electric vehicle batteries, the wide variation in the lifetimes of different lithium-ion cells, and VW’s stake in solid-state battery startup QuantumScape. We started off the show chatting about new research highlighting a “hidden benefit” of EVs. Enjoy the show, and chime in down in the comments, or in the comments of the articles about these topics, if you want to carry on the conversation.

A fresh look at actual driving records has yielded a surprising (to some) conclusion about the useful lifespan of electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Conventional wisdom has it that EV drivers will ditch their ride after the battery loses 20% of its storage capacity, but our friends over at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory looked at actual driving records and they say that if you are a typical EV owner, you’re not going to feel the difference.

Demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is growing around the world fairly rapidly, according to new analysis from the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research — with more than 320,000 new EV registrations in 2014, bringing the total global market up to 740,000 vehicles.

Alongside that, battery suppliers saw strong growth — with total revenue hitting €2 billion ($2.17 billion), according the German research company behind the analysis.

Oil prices might be very low, but that’s not going to take away from investments in renewable energy.

That’s at least the consensus from Citigroup, the latest investment researcher to say clean energy won’t be slowed by cheap oil, Bloomberg reported Monday. Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs have also predicted that the oil price slump won’t affect renewable energy growth.