The development of wind and solar projects in Japan will generate highly attractive returns under the feed-in-tariffs recently proposed by the Japanese government, according to clean energy market research provider Bloomberg New Energy Finance. This is despite much higher costs for solar in Japan than elsewhere in the world.
Since the Fukushima nuclear crisis Japan has been grappling with the need to diversify its energy mix. One of the policy measures adopted by the government, a renewable feed-in tariff (FiT) programme, starts July 2012
BYD Co, the Chinese car and battery maker backed by US billionaire Warren Buffett, said yesterday its net profit is expected to plunge by up to 95 percent year-on-year for the first quarter of 2012, dragged mainly by its solar power battery business, according to a report in the Global Times.
Eurus Energy Holdings, a Japanese developer of renewable energy projects, is looking at building a 40 MW solar plant in western Japan, according to a report in Bloomberg.
The United States Commerce Department on Tuesday announced that it would impose duties ranging from 2.9 to 4.73 percent on imports of Chinese solar panels; far lower than hoped for but nevertheless seen as a victory for the American solar industry.
Energy analysts had expected Chinese imports of solar panels to be hit with preliminary duties of 20 percent to 30 percent and the news sent shares in Chinese solar companies soaring on Wall Street.
The city of Datong, famous for its rich coal resources in China’s Shanxi province, is being transformed into a new center for solar energy, according to a report in the China Daily today.
The solar industry has come far within the last few years and is now able to compete with traditional sources of energy in such places as Indonesia and the Philippines according to Sean Nakatani, senior manager of Tokyo Electron Ltd’s (TEL) solar department.
In preparation for an upcoming presentation in at a conference in Bali, Nakatani said that his company sees a very promising trend in solar with Asian markets playing a prominent role not only in the manufacturing of solar modules, but also in their installation.
The Indian Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Friday announced relief for the solar energy sector by proposing to scrap duties on imports of solar-thermal equipment as the country it seeks to reduce project costs for Reliance Power and other developers adding plants as part of his annual budget speech
Claiming it has been left in the lurch by the central government’s National Solar Mission (NSM), Tamil Nadu in southern India is readying its own solar-energy policy.
Suntech Power, one of China’s leading solar companies, claims to have achieved 20.3 percent light-to-electricity conversion efficiency for a photovoltaic cell using commercial-grade polysilicon wafers.
The Solar Energy Research Institute of Singapore has independently confirmed the 20.3 percent efficiency of the improved cell, a step up from the 19.6 percent best cell efficiency of the first generation Pluto cell technology.
China's former energy chief on Saturday said more policy support is needed to promote the use of solar and wind power in the Chinese market, according to Xinhua.
A group of businessmen and residents in the Philippines Subic Bay freeport are lobbying President Benigno Aquino III to consider the sprawling former US naval base for alternative energy projects, including wind and solar farms, instead of a planned coal-fired plant.
India’s gigantic Tata Group has said that it will pursue renewable energy projects for its overseas investments as coal-fired plants become more difficult to justify, according to Bloomberg.
Those hoping to see the rate of renewable energy developments in Japan pick up after a major slowdown in 2011 will have to wait a while yet.
A government announcement on renewable energy policies was expected in January or February but is now delayed to the end of April.
National Central University has opened Taiwan’s first organic solar cell research and testing laboratory.
By combining domestic research resources, the new Advanced Laboratory of Accommodation and Research for Organic PhotoVoltiac (AROPV) is expected to help accelerate efforts by local academic teams to develop homegrown technologies and their commercial application.
The European Union (EU) is gearing up to join the US in filing anti-dumping and anti-subsidy moves against imports of Chinese photovoltaic solar panels, according to reports.
Tokyo Electron, one of Japan’s leading semiconductor equipment suppliers, has agreed to buy the loss-making solar photovoltaic division of Switzerland’s Oerlikon Group. Oerlikon Solar offers turnkey manufacturing lines for thin film solar module mass production using amorphous silicon and tandem-junction technology.
The Kyocera Group and SoftBank Group renewable energy subsidiary, SB Energy Corp., have been selected by Japan’s Kyoto City to build and operate a 4.2- MW solar power plant.
Several communities wiped out in last year’s tsunami-devastated Fukishima Prefecture in Japan may be rebuilt as energy-efficient “future cities” under what some observers are calling highly ambitious plans.
This report by the World Bank spells out what the world would be like if it warmed by 4 degrees Celsius, which is what scientists are nearly unanimously predicting by the end of the century, without serious policy changes.
Companies in Asia reveal expectations that regulations that could lead to rising costs for reporting and reducing GHG emissions will also be the main sources of climate-related business opportunities.
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