-
1. Ocean Energy Groups Line Up for Scotland's Saltire Prize
-
2. SolarWorld CEO: Solar Module Prices to Slide More Than 10% by 2010
-
3. Positive Energy Raises $14M from NEA
-
4. Exxon to Spend $170M on Carbon Capture, Storage Technology
-
5. Daily Sprout
-
6. Nissan, NEC Could Give Electric Vehicle Batteries a $1.1B Boost
Ocean Energy Groups Line Up for Scotland's Saltire Prize
David Ehrlich - Big Green
There’s a cash prize in them thar waters! The government of Scotland said today that its £10 million ($14.5 million) Saltire Prize for ocean energy has pulled in 33 registrations of interest from around the world. Scotland, already a major hub for wave and tidal power research, raised its ocean energy profile when it announced the creation of the Saltire Prize in April.
At the time, the Scottish government called it the world’s largest single prize for marine power technology. Although it’s open to groups from other countries, they must prove the commercial viability of their technology in Scotland’s waters.
The registrations of interest follow the release earlier this month of some criteria for the competition. The prize will be awarded to the team that can demonstrate a commercially viable wave or tidal power system that generates at least 100 gigawatt hours of power over two years. The technology will also be judged based on cost, environmental sustainability and safety.
The government did not disclose which groups registered interest in the prize, but it’s likely a who’s-who of the ocean energy industry. In a statement, Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond would only say that the interest comes from “some of the great companies and best minds in the world,” including groups from the U.S., Australia, South Africa, India, Mexico, Italy, France, Norway and Spain, as well as Scotland and England.
The Scottish government said the potential wave and tidal capacity in its waters is estimated at 21.5 GW, with studies showing that Pentland Firth, off the northern tip of Scotland, could provide almost 10 percent of total UK electricity demand.
Scotland currently has the only full-scale wave and tidal power testing site in the world, the European Marine Energy Centre in Orkney. North America could get its own, with plans underway in Nova Scotia for a facility in the Bay of Fundy.
The next step for the Saltire Prize — which gets its name from the X-shaped cross, known as a saltire, that’s on the flag of Scotland — is the publication of an official application in June 2009.
Click here to save cost on your IT demands
SolarWorld CEO: Solar Module Prices to Slide More Than 10% by 2010
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
SolarWorld AG’s photovoltaic solar module prices will decline more than 10 percent during the next two years, tightening a squeeze on the German manufacturer’s profit margins. That’s the forecast revealed in an interview with SolarWorld CEO Frank Asbeck set to be published in tomorrow’s edition of the German newspaper Handelsblatt, Reuters reports.
Asbeck, who led an out-of-the-blue bid for assets of German automaker (and GM subsidiary) Opel last month, isn’t the only solar exec expecting slashed prices next year. Earlier this month, the chief executive of rival Suntech, Zhengrong Shi, said he expects oversupply and top-to-bottom cost cuts to help drive the company's prices down 20-30 percent compared with the third quarter of this year. Shi added that the sector as a whole could slash prices by half as soon as 2013.
At the same time, module makers like SolarWorld have new competition from polysilicon suppliers: With a major glut on the horizon for 2009, BusinessWeek reports, they’re starting to break into the higher value-added module and wafer business.
With a drop of only 10 percent, SolarWorld’s retail prices may not keep pace with the competition through a looming industry shakeout. However, the company’s anticipated 30 percent sales increase could help it stay in the game. According to Reuters, SolarWorld could see its operating profit margin slip to 30 percent, down from the 32 percent EBIT margin reported for the first nine months of 2008. In an effort to climb back up, the company plans to double its R&D budget to 40 million euros (about $57.3 million) in 2009, up from 20 million euros this year.
Click here to save cost on your IT demands
Positive Energy Raises $14M from NEA
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
The Arlington, Va.-based company, which was one of our 25 up-and-coming startups to watch in the smart home energy space, was founded in March 2007 and had previously raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding. Essentially, Positive Energy helps utilities’ customers cut energy consumption with tools like home energy reports, energy-focused utility web sites and carbon calculators.
Those kind of tools are becoming increasingly attractive to utilities as a way to help them curb the growing demand for energy in the most cost-effective way possible. According to the California Public Utilities Commission, adding energy efficiency programs costs about half of what it takers to add more base-load generation.
And local and state policies are encouraging utilities to embrace those types of tools, too. California was one of the first states to implement utility decoupling, or the separating of utility profits from electricity sales. Such a move helped Pacific Gas & Electric customers save more than 118 million megawatt hours of electricity and $22 billion, and to prevent 135 million tons of CO2 from being emitted over the life of the utility’s energy efficiency programs. For California, that means per capita energy use has remained relatively stable, in marked contrast to the rest of the country, where demand has jumped by 50 percent, according to the California Energy Commission.
A startup that can help a utility save on that kind of level could convince a lot of utility customers to sign up, or at least start testing out its tools. NEA must think so, and its $14 million investment will go very far in the world of software development. Positive Energy is also an example of a company using the tools of infotech — web, software, networks — to fight climate change. For more information and companies with similar aims, check out our upcoming Green:Net conference in March in San Francisco.
Click here to save cost on your IT demands
Exxon to Spend $170M on Carbon Capture, Storage Technology
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
At the urging of state officials, Texas oil giant ExxonMobil has undertaken a $70 million project to capture and store 6 million metric tons of emissions annually from its natural gas plant in La Barge, Wyo., an increase of 50 percent from the current 4 million tons per year. Better known for denying humans’ contribution to climate change, the company plans to spend another $100 million testing technology for stripping carbon out of natural gas by 2010, the Wall Street Journal reports.
To be sure, $170 million is little more than pocket change for Exxon, with its record-breaking profits. But while the company now lets about half the La Barge plant’s emissions spit out into the atmosphere, the new project — combined with expertise acquired during decades of dabbling in carbon sequestration (see our FAQ on the technology) — could give Exxon an odd lead in the race to devise emissions-control technologies ahead of carbon pricing schemes supported by President-elect Barack Obama.
“Certainly, Exxon isn’t usually thought of as being in the forefront of environmental progress,” Environmental Defense Fund’s A. Scott Andersonbut told the WSJl, “but the fact is they are deeply involved in carbon capture and storage technology.” Here’s hoping the company’s pledged carbon storage testing will yield more results than the clean coal lobby’s meager R&D.
Click here to save cost on your IT demands
Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Tesla vs. Recession: Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk says the Model S sedan factory is no longer a done deal, but the company will survive the recession if it watches expenses “like crazy.” — San Francisco Chronicle
Here Come the Californians: California Democrats hold key positions for legislating climate change mitigation, promoting clean energy and cracking down on toxic chemicals. — Washington Post
Nuclear Energy 101: Universities and colleges in the U.S. are working with energy companies to develop or restart nuclear education programs. — Forbes
South Korea Sets Sights on Efficiency: The South Korean government announced a goal of improving energy efficiency by 11.3 percent by 2012, and allocated $14.2 billion for efforts to reach it. — Green Car Congress
Solar Panel Snatcher Strikes Again: Forty solar panels were stolen from the City of Napa’s water treatment plant in the third major solar theft reported in wine country over the last month. — St. Helena Star
Click here to save cost on your IT demands
Nissan, NEC Could Give Electric Vehicle Batteries a $1.1B Boost
David Ehrlich - Automotive
The world of electric vehicle batteries has been heating up over the past few weeks, and now it looks like Nissan Motor and NEC are accelerating their plans for hybrid and electric vehicle battery production. The two Japanese companies are expected to invest at least ¥100 billion ($1.1 billion) to manufacture large-capacity lithium-ion batteries, according to a report in the Nikkei business daily.
The Nissan-NEC venture plans to roll out enough batteries to equip a total of 200,000 electric and hybrid vehicles per year by 2011 or later, said the paper. That’s a big boost from an announcement back in May, when the venture — called Automotive Energy Supply — said that it would invest ¥12 billion over three years to build the batteries, with a targeted production capacity of only 65,000 units.
The reported increased investment from Nissan and NEC follows the creation of a battery consortium earlier this month by more than a dozen U.S. technology companies as a reaction to Asian dominance in the battery market.
That U.S. consortium could end up competing on its home turf with Nissan and NEC. Nikkei said that Nissan and NEC plan to build a new factory in Japan in 2011 or later, but are also looking at setting up factories in the U.S. and Europe to take advantage of low-interest loans offered by local governments for the production of low-emission vehicles.
This month has also seen battery news from Toshiba, Panasonic, and Honda Motor. Toshiba said it plans to build a second factory for its rapid-charge electric vehicle lithium-ion battery, with construction to start next fall. Panasonic announced an agreement to buy Sanyo for ¥800 billion in a deal that it said focuses on the combination of the solar and electric vehicle lithium-ion battery businesses of the two companies. And Honda signed a deal with Japanese battery maker GS Yuasa to form a ¥15 billion joint venture for the development of lithium-ion batteries for hybrid vehicles.
Nissan is a partner with Renault in a number of electric car charging infrastructure projects around the world, and is working with California’s Better Place on projects in Israel, Denmark and Australia.
Click here to save cost on your IT demands
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment