The first reactor at the Ningde Nuclear Power Station in China’s Fujian Province became operational on Thursday. The 1.09-GW CPR-1000 reactor, which is largely domestically produced, is the first of four that will be running at Ningde by 2015.
The Japanese government announced yesterday that it will install the world's largest battery to store renewable energy at an electrical substation in Hokkaido, where solar power generation facilities are rapidly increasing, according to a report by the Kyodo News Service.
Financially battered Chinese solar PV maker LDK Solar yesterday announced the sale of its wholly owned subsidiary, LDK Solar High-Tech Co, located in China’s Hefei City of Anhui Province, to an affiliate of the Hefei City government, Hefei High Tech Industrial Development Social Service Corp, for approximately RMB120 million (USD19.4 million).
India looks set to use the same argument on local regulations against the United States that the US has been accusing India of in its dispute over solar trade restrictions at the World Trade Organization.
The rapid expansion of renewable technologies is one of the few bright spots in an otherwise bleak assessment of global progress towards low-carbon energy, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in an annual report to the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM).
“The drive to clean up the world’s energy system has stalled,” IEA executive director Maria van der Hoeven told the CEM, which brings together ministers representing countries responsible for four-fifths of global greenhouse-gas emissions.
China-based LDK-Solar’s announcement that it could not pay almost USD24 million in debt due on April 15 has raised the specter of yet another massive solar-industry failure this year as the company needs to repay a loan 10 times larger by June.
Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has announced that the country added 1.39-GW of clean energy capacity from April 2012 until January this year.
The European Union (EU) has agreed to bestow PHP189 million (USD4.5 million) to the Philippines to help it promote cleaner and more energy-efficient initiatives in the country.
And now for something completely different: A Thai-Chinese “Red Bull” billionaire has teamed up with US aerospace and arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin to pilot a potentially revolutionary system that exploits the temperature difference between the deep sea and the surface to generate electricity.
The Reignwood Group – which produces Red Bull in China and is owned by Chanchai Ruayrungruang (also known as Yan Bin) – plans to use a 10-MW Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) off-shore power plant to provide electricity for a new “green resort community” it is developing somewhere on the coast of Southern China.
Consumer product giant Unilever has announced that its five-year strategy to slash carbon emissions has resulted in the reduction of more than one million tonnes of CO2 from its manufacturing and logistics operations.
Hong Kong-listed China Wind Power has signed a strategic co-operation agreement with CNNC Rich Energy to co-invest in a total of 700-MW of renewable energy capacity.
Nepal, India and Bangladesh are to jointly develop and finance hydropower projects in the Ganges river basin while Bhutan, India and Bangladesh have also agreed to co-operate on maximizing hydropower potential of the Brahmaputra Basin.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is extending USD200 million in loans to the Dynagreen Environmental Protection Group to help small and medium-sized cities in China turn their growing mountains of solid waste into a sustainable source of renewable energy under an agreement signed on Friday in Beijing.
Japan is considering at least 21 new geothermal power projects as it searches for alternative energy sources to replace at least some of its idled nuclear power plants.
Japan's generous feed-in tariff (FiT) scheme for renewable energy, together with the lifting of a moratorium on geothermal prospecting in national parks, has sparked a revival in interest in the sector which hasn't seen any new capacity added since 1999. The government is guaranteeing smaller geothermal plants a rate of JPN40 (40 US cents) per kWh after tax (the same level as the FiT for solar energy) while plants of over 15-MW capacity get JPY27.3 (27.4 US cents).
China’s state-owned enterprises are behind some 81 percent of the country’s booming wind power industry, according to data released by the National Energy Administration (NEA).
India is to strengthen the renewable energy transmission system in several states thanks to a EUR1 billion (USD1.3 billion) soft loan from Germany. According to a top official the loan will be used to develop a "renewable energy corridor".
China generated 100.8 billion KWh of wind power in 2012, marking a 41 percent rise from 2011, the National Energy Administration said in a statement on its website yesterday.
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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