Mixed Greens: C02 expands into Asia carbon credits

Australian listed CO2 Group (COZ.AX) said it has formed a joint venture with Singapore-based carbon and renewable energy specialist Asia Energy Development Partners to give it greater access to the international carbon credit market. The joint venture company (60 per cent owned by CO2), already has a number of major contracts that will generate approximately 15 million Certified Emission Reduction Units (CERs) over a 21-year period. It says these CERs are currently valued at more than $A50 million.

“This is a very important step in the continued growth of our company,” said Andrew Grant, chief executive officer of CO2 Group, who will also be the chairman of CO2 Asia. “The creation of this joint venture provides us with international diversification, strong revenue growth and access to new and emerging markets in Europe and South East Asia. Most importantly, it will help us support our current clients to meet their compliance needs in Australia and New Zealand.” He said the company has a large pipeline of projects under the UN’s Clean Development Mechanism in Vietnam and India. These credits can be traded in the European, Australian and New Zealand carbon trading schemes. Co2 as appointed David Tow, former head of carbon credit firm Perenia, to lead the joint venture.

In other news…

The Victorian government has called a halt to all hydraulic fracturing – a technique used in coal-seam gas mining – and new CSG exploration licenses, introducing a moratorium on Friday that state energy and resources minister Michael O’Brien says will remain until a national framework for regulating CSG and hydraulic fracturing is established by federal government.

Desalination equipment orders are forecast to triple over five years to become a $17 billion business, driven by breakthroughs in energy savings and demand by cities and industry, reports Bloomberg. Industry consultant Global Water Intelligence predicts that investment in installations that make drinking water from the sea will jump to a record in 2016 from $5 billion last year and $8.9 billion in 2012.

Germany’s biggest solar panel maker, Solarworld, says it has connected five solar power plants to the grid in the second quarter totaling 33MW. The projects developed by Solarworld unit Solarparc include an 18.8MW project in Saxony-Anhalt and a 10.2 megawatts facility in Mecklenburg Western-Pomerania, reports Bloomberg.

The world’s first community-owned tidal turbine is due to be deployed off Scotland’s Shetland Islands early next year, according to Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond. BusinessGreen reports that Leith-based company Nova Innovations will supply the grid-connected 30kW device, which will be used by a community in North Yell to power a local ice plant and industrial estate.

The first meeting of the UN’s Green Climate Fund (GCF) kicked off on Friday in Geneva with the appointment of representatives from Australia and South Africa as co-chairs of the fund’s board. BusinessGreen reports that Zaheer Fakir, head of international relations and governance at South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs, and Ewen McDonald, deputy director general of AusAID, were elected, delivering a significant development from the group’s first meeting, which was delayed for several months amid rows over which countries would have representatives on the board.