clean technology Archives

Abu Dhabi’s Torresol $5 Billion Solar Plans Include US

Torresol - a joint venture between Spain's SENER and Abu Dhabi's Masdar, plans to invest up to $5 billion building 6 GW of concentrated solar-thermal power (CSP) projects over the next three years in the deserts of the MENA region, Spain, and the US. Although the sites are not yet named, at least one of the plants will be in Abu Dhabi. The company ('torre' is Spanish for tower, and 'sol' for sun) says it is optimistic in getting the funding for its ambitious solar project pipeline. “Despite the ongoing economic troubles facing much of the world", says Torresol President Enrique Sendagorta, "we believe we can achieve our goals as foreign banks are becoming more interested in financing solar power projects because it is a winning investment”. The first of the Desertec solar projects all use CSP, in Morocco, and in Algeria, and just today - in Tunisia.

Tunisia Announces 4th Desertec Deal and 2 GW of Solar!

Wow, the Desertec vision is barreling into realization! A clean energy future where the world's deserts supply huge amounts of solar energy to the whole of humankind is truly becoming reality. Now the fourth Desertec project, by far the largest-ever solar plant in the world - for 2,000 MW of solar power - is to be built in Tunisia. (Previous stories: Desertec Begins: 500 MW Moroccan Solar in 2012, then MedGrid joined up, providing the transmission needed, with the plan to export up to 5GW of renewable power by cable under the Mediterranean between North Africa and Europe as early as 2020, and then most recently, the 3rd Desertec Deal Signed – Algerian Solar.) How huge will this solar project be? 2, 000 MW is six times the size of the largest solar CSP project ever built

Abu Dhabi’s $32 billion TAQA Adds Clean Energy Division

Abu Dhabi’s 75% government-owned National Energy Company TAQA has just created its first-ever division to specialize in investing in renewable energy. The new unit, Energy Solutions, will invest in wind, solar, thermal and hydro power, according to a report at The National. TAQA first evidenced an interest in clean energy in 2008, and it has committed to a $1.1 billion […]

Cleaner Cookstoves for a Cooler Planet

Nearly 3 billion people lack safe and efficient cooking gear. It’s time to make the problem in the kitchen sexier. Half the world’s households prepare their meals over open fires or with jerry-rigged cookers fueled by scrap wood, coal, combustible waste and dung. Fatal burns are common and foraged fuel dangerously degrades indoor air quality. […]

Desertec Nation Algeria to Host Huge Solar Trade Fair from Germany

Algiers will be the place to be for utility-scale solar developers next May. The German trade fair specialists Messe and their Algerian daughter company in Algiers will hold a solar trade fair at the Palais des Expositions d'Alger from 7 to 10 May, 2012. As one of three North African desert nations now at the forefront of responsible climate legislation, through its ambitious solar plans and its participation in the visionary Desertec project, Algeria is ideally situated to host the event.

Now Morocco is Looking for Bids for 850 MW of Wind

Morocco already has the world's most ambitious solar target. Now it is starting on wind. Morocco's ascendance in renewable development is continuing apace. Morocco's state-run power utility has just invited companies to bid on five wind farm projects with a total power generation capacity of 850 megawatts, as part of its plan to build 2,000 MW of wind power by 2020.

Scotland Lands First Renewable Deal Between Masdar and a Nation

Scotland’s first Minister Alex Salmond will travel to Abu Dhabi this week to address an audience of world leaders at the World Future Energy Summit as a guest of Masdar. (Related: Global Clean Energy Brokers Meet at Abu Dhabi Emergy Summit) But additionally, in a first-ever contract with a country, the clean tech giant Masdar is about […]

Global Clean Energy Brokers Meet at Abu Dhabi Emergy Summit This Month

Post-Durban World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi is now a huge opportunity for clean energy developers in the Middle East region. Ever since the European Union adopted the Kyoto Accord and with it the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) which funds renewable development in the developing world to offset carbon emissions in Europe, the developing […]

GE Energy Shows MENA Region How to Reduce Gas Flaring

GE Energy demonstrates its Jenbacher gas engine at the Gas Arabia Summit 2011 in Oman today. The extent of the global problem of gas flaring can be seen in this satellite photo of North America, that is quite bewildering at first sight. On the right we see the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul Minnesota, […]

Durban May Agree on Green Climate Fund, Overriding US Republicans

A way to bypass a minority of ignorant US voters on international climate policy? The climate talks at Durban look like they may finally yield some positive movement on a Green Climate Fund, that would work the same way as the Clean Development Mechanism that has been so successful in growing renewable energy in the […]

World’s Worst Coal-Funding Bank Just Saved the Biggest US Rooftop Solar Project Ever

At a time when banks could hardly be more unpopular, one of America’s most despised has just saved the biggest solar rooftop project in US history. It is not just the Occupy Wall St protesters who are angry at the behavior of banks. At the Durban Climate Talks this week, NGOs attending the Durban Climate […]

BrightSource Offers World’s Biggest Solar Storage Deal

Another world’s first for the Israeli-born solar power giant that pioneered solar thermal. BrightSource Energy announced this week that they could chop down the size of their giant 750 MW project in California by 200 MW and yet still make the same 4,000 gigawatt-hours a year of power they are contractually required to produce for California, by […]

Possible End of Kyoto at Durban Threatens MENA Renewable Energy

CDM funding for renewable energy in emerging nations is endangered in Durban, South Africa With the increasingly likely non-renewal of the Kyoto Accord after 2012 at this week’s international climate talks at the seventeenth Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Convention on Climate Change in Durban, South Africa, renewable energy project funding throughout […]

Huge MedGrid Joins Giant Solar Desertec Plan

In a marriage made in renewable energy heaven, the two most ambitious energy plans in the world have joined forces. Today, Desertec and Medgrid signed an agreement to strengthen co-operation on building renewable energy from the deserts and the huge grid to move the power. Desertec, which a mere few years ago was just an impractical […]

Israel Corporation Subsidiary to Build 510 MW Hydro Project in Peru

Israel Corporation subsidiary Inkia Energy has signed an engineering procurement contract for the construction of a huge 510 MW hydro-electric project in Peru. Its Cerro del Águila Hydroelectric Power Plant will be located in the province of Tayacaja. Peru is a country that already gets 48% of its electricity from hydropower, which depends on water at elevation for its operation. Peru's Energy and Mines Ministry, Pedro Sanchez said in a press release that the project is one of three hydroelectric plants it was seeking tenders for building and operating, that will require a combined investment of $1.7 billion.