Huhne: We will stop big projects swallowing green subsidies
The UK energy secretary has promised to ensure that industrial-scale solar farms do not swallow up too much of the money dedicated to incentivising small-scale renewables projects.
Answering Energy Source readers’ questions, Chris Huhne said that access to feed-in tariffs could be limited to make sure smaller-scale projects get a fair share.
China’s incipient cleantech boom
While the rest of the climate-change world went to Cancun to watch the UN just about rescue its process, a team of intrepid HSBC researchers travelled to China, from where they returned with bullish news on clean energy.
In a mammoth report entitled Low-carbon China, the team found that the country was on track to outstrip its own targets on clean technology by a long way. This chart below shows the bank’s forecasts for solar and wind for 2015 and 2020 at around 50 per cent and 65 per cent above official targets.
Renewables target ‘very difficult to meet’
With just over a fortnight to go before climate talks start again in Cancun, a new report warns that the renewables share in final energy consumption will be “very difficult to meet”.
Despite growth by renewable energies generation in 2009 (15 per cent for wind and 53 per cent in solar photovoltaics) the 20 per cent target is a “very challenging target”, according to a report published today by Capgemini, the consultancy.
Solar funding easier to access in Europe than the US
The US government’s loan guarantee scheme has come under scrutiny in recent days after the collapse of the JV between Constellation and EDF for a new nuclear plant. But it appears the similar scheme for the solar energy industry is also coming under fire.
A fascinating Reuters report today spells out some of the problems US solar sector has had securing financing on the back of such guarantees. The authors write:
Applicants to the loan guarantee program have complained the process is too lengthy and murky, leading to just a handful of projects winning approval.
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