Mixed Greens: Wind pips nuclear as China’s No.3 energy resource

According to new data from the China Wind Energy Association, China’s wind-generated electricity amounted to 100.4 billion kWh in 2012, accounting for 2 per cent of the country’s total electricity output and surpassing nuclear power to become China’s third largest energy resource – coming in behind thermal power and hydropower. Energy industry analysts have put the shift down to the government’s efforts to increase China’s renewable energy output and its efforts to cut carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. But according to experts quoted in People’s Daily Online, the country’s development of wind power has slowed, with 14GW of newly installed capacity from wind energy in 2012, down from 20.66GW in 2011.

China had 60.83 gigawatts of installed wind turbine capacity connected to the grid in 2012, according to the CWEA, and the country aims to increase it to 100 gigawatts by the end of 2015. CWEA chairman, He Dexin, says that the industry faces bottlenecks like turbine overcapacity, increasing trade protectionism, grid connection barriers and wastage in wind power. Curtailment – when wind-generated electricity that is connected to the grid is held back by grid operators – is also a problem, reports People’s Daily. China’s wind sector lost about 20 billion kWh to curtailment last year, according to the CWEA.

CFC signs new UK social housing deal

ASX-listed Ceramic Fuel Cells has signed a distribution agreement with UK energy services company iPower Energy. In a statement on Tuesday, the developer of gas to power/heat fuel cell technology said it had granted limited exclusivity to iPower of its BlueGen units on the basis of a minimum 200 deliveries this year and a further 200 in 2014. The units will be used in social housing in the UK, as part of iPower’s effort to make clean energy affordable to all and return maximum benefits to property owners and tenants by cutting power bills and carbon emissions. iPower will do this by offering guaranteed discounts on electricity tariffs to social housing tenants where BlueGen is installed. The majority of its profits will be used to help combat fuel poverty and climate change.

Scotland sets new 2030 emissions target

The Scottish government has set a new 2030 goal to reduce emissions from electricity output by more than four-fifths to 50 grams of carbon dioxide a kilowatt-hour. Bloomberg reports that the new target was revealed at a conference yesterday by First Minister Alex Salmond, who used the occasion to criticize the the UK government’s decision to withhold a decarbonisation goal from energy legislation until 2016. “UK coalition ministers’ mixed messages on energy policy and continuing uncertainty around electricity market reform, including the lack of a decarbonization target until at least 2016, is undermining confidence,” Salmond said. He urged Britain to follow his lead to boost security for investors. In Scotland, power producers generated about 347 grams of CO2 a kilowatt-hour in 2010.