There simply couldn’t be a better time to talk about how renewable energy is financed, and how changes in financing are affecting the entirety of a market that has matured at a rapid pace.
As bankers, project developers, analysts and regulators gather for another year at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum – Wall Street, they will be standing before that overused but apt metaphor: A crossroads. Keep reading →
It’s not just oil that’s turning Kansas’ rural communities into America’s latest boomtowns.
Wind turbines are being built right next to oil rigs, bringing an additional rush of jobs and revenue to the small towns along the southern border of the state — as well as big paychecks to local landowners. BP Wind Energy is currently building the biggest wind farm in the state, and it plans to begin production by the end of this year. The project has already brought 500 jobs to the three counties its wind turbines span: Harper, Barber and Kingman, according to BP. These same counties are also filling up with hundreds of oil workers, as big fracking and exploration companies seek to tap the billions of barrels of oil that are estimated to be in the Mississippian limestone formation.
Smart meters are great, limits remain: An outage further up the delivery chain for power means no information for them to consolidate and analyze.
It is now well known that the US power grid has reached its twilight years and requires massive capital investment to overhaul. Sensor technology is a less expensive option than replacement that can help extend the useful life of elderly equipment. Keep reading →
A forum hosted by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to explore potential impacts of alternative fuel vehicles on critical infrastructure heard a good news, bad news scenario from the CEO of the PJM Interconnection, the regional grid operator.
PJM CEO Terry Boston told the forum that with smart grid controls in place and re-charging properly synchronized between midnight and 7 a.m., the electric distribution system could accommodate 25 million EVs, according to coverage of the forum in the Philadelphia Inquirer. Keep reading →
As US natural gas producers note the benefits of existing infrastructure while seeking ways of stimulating demand for newly abundant shale gas, questions continue to swirl about the total cost of conversion.
Beyond the potential of natural gas for the long-haul trucking industry, as championed by Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, gas advocates say private cars are a clear target market, since gas as an auto fuel is currently roughly less than half the cost of gasoline, while at the same time emitting much lower levels of greenhouse gases. Keep reading →
Westport Innovations said Tuesday it reached an agreement with Caterpillar to use natural gas technology for mining trucks and locomotives. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. The Vancouver-based company makes direct injection, natural gas technology for heavy-duty vehicles. “The substantial price difference between natural gas and diesel fuel is resulting in a strong financial incentive to enable off-road applications to take advantage of low natural gas energy costs without sacrificing operational performance,” said David Demers, chief executive officer of Westport Innovations. Read more: http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2012/06/05/caterpillar-westport-team-up-on-natgas-vehicles/#ixzz1wvszEJsH
Mass transit use jumped 5% in the first quarter of 2012, as high gas prices and a rebounding economy put more people on the bus and train. Over 2.65 billion trips were made using trains, buses, ferries or street cars in the first quarter of 2012, according to the American Public Transportation Association. That’s up from 2.5 billion trips in the same period last year. The increase was one of the largest quarterly jumps on record, and comes on the heels of a 2011 ridership rate that was the second highest since 1957 — when widespread use of the car and suburbanization began to turn many people away from mass transit. Of course, high gasoline prices were a defining theme at the start of 2012. Gas rose to nearly $4 a gallon — its highest level ever for that time of year — as an expanding economy and fears over Iran drove up the price of oil.
The greatest roadblock to developing smart grids in the US is not high up-front investment, good news when 65 million electric vehicles could be on the road by 2025, according to the results of a recent annual electric utility industry survey. Infrastructure firm Black & Veatch queried over 500 qualified industry participants about some of the most prescient issues of the day and the results may surprise you.
The top issues the industry is concerned about in 2012 are aging infrastructure, reliability and the environment. Aging infrastructure steadily crept to the top of the list over the past three years – in the 2009/2010 survey the issue ranked sixth in a list of the top ten. The importance of security has also gained importance according to the survey participants. Keep reading →
A Chinese worker checking the power lines in Haikou, south China’s Hainan province.
China’s 12th Five Year Plan recently released by the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST) is, as we would expect, an ambitious initiative that affects several major industries and includes a commitment to several breakthroughs in key core technologies. Actually, ambitious may be an understatement. Keep reading →
Essentially starting from scratch, Haiti has a unique opportunity to build the kind of sustainable power generation, transmission and distribution system that could be replicated in other developing nations.
Although deep poverty remains a challenge, the country’s leaders say they are eager to move forward into the twenty first century with governmental and economic stability supported by reliable energy infrastructure. Keep reading →
