| Â |
| Renewable Power Trumps Fossil Fuels for First Time |
| Bloomberg/Los Angeles Times |
| Renewable energy is surpassing fossil fuels for the first time in new power-plant investments, shaking off setbacks from the financial crisis and an impasse at the United Nations global warming talks. Electricity from the wind, sun, waves and biomass drew $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal, according to calculations by Bloomberg New Energy Finance using the latest data. Accelerating installations of solar- and wind-power plants led to lower equipment prices, making clean energy more competitive with coal. "The progress of renewables has been nothing short of remarkable," United Nations Environment Program Executive Secretary Achim Steiner said in an interview. "You have record investment in the midst of an economic and financial crisis." The findings indicate the world is shifting toward consuming more renewable energy even without a global agreement on limiting greenhouse gases. Delegates from more than 190 nations ... |
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Comments: 6
Google is giving up on wind power.
I do however think we could have gotten to this point a lot quicker with much lower renewable energy cost to the public, if we allow private citizens to install their own renewable energy systems be it Solar, wind or micro hydro, and require the utility companies to reimburse them (reasonably) for the excess energy they produce, we would have an explosion of private mini renewable producers leading to thousands of jobs for local installers across the country as well as more people working for the companies building the required electronics inverters and such.
So far, utilities in this country have resisted efforts to enact feed-in tariff laws.
I recently contacted Southern California Edison (SCE) about this. I was thinking about installing solar panels on my roof, and I wanted to know what their policy was on excess energy returned to the grid.
Their reply was: They would keep an "account" of excess energy and use it to reduce my monthly bills, but once a year they would "zero" the account.
In other words, they would NEVER pay me for any surplus!
Until we change the laws to force utilities to pay for excess generation, the incentives to install renewable energy will be minimal.
Which, I think, is exactly what SCE prefers.