An employee with Ipsun Solar installs solar panels on the roof of the Peace Lutheran Church in Alexandria, Virginia on May 17, 2021.
Andrew Caballero-Reynolds | AFP | Getty Images
Ramping up investment in policies and technologies to tackle climate change could play a significant role in the global economy’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic.
In a recent note, Charles Dumas, chief economist at U.K.-based investment research firm TS Lombard, said that action on climate change is often criticized as moving too slowly. However, with governments increasing spending to aid their post-Covid economies, they may start catching up.
A key tenet of this is the ever-decreasing cost of electricity per megawatt hour, according to figures from TS Lombard, with costs of solar, offshore and onshore wind dropping over the last 10 years, while gas and coal have remained largely the same.
“Effectively by 2030 the cost of renewable electricity is going to be half that of coal and gas sourced electricity,” Dumas told CNBC.
These trends will bring many of the various pledges to reach net zero more closely in sight.
The fatal floods in Germany in recent weeks have put the impacts of climate change firmly in the spotlight again but they are only the latest in a series of devastating extreme weather events of late, including the sprawling wildfires in Oregon.
COP26 priorities
Amid this backdrop, the United Nations Climate Change Conference, better known as COP26, will meet in Glasgow in November. It will mark one of the most significant multilateral meetings on climate since the Paris agreement.
Dumas said that as COP26 approaches, governments need to understand their key priorities, and among them should be infrastructure investments as numerous technological and engineering challenges continue to obstruct renewable energy.
“I think the intermittency problem is pretty serious and it’s not just that the sun goes down at night,” Dumas said.
In the case of solar power, output can be mixed depending on the location of infrastructure like solar farms.
“There’s huge variation with sunny days in winter and sunny days in the middle of summer so the intermittency takes on a very big seasonal aspect,” Dumas said.
“You can have vicious weather for a long time in the middle of December or January and lo and behold you wouldn’t want to be depending on solar power.”
Energy transmission could be another bottleneck, he said. While the developing world, including several African nations, has great potential in developing sites for generating solar power, that power needs to move easily.
“The issue of transmission technology is really major. If you want Chad to be the new Saudi Arabia, because of the Sahara Desert there’s a lot of sun there, but you want the electricity to be used in Europe then you’re talking about some expensive processes and processes needing a lot of research and a lot of further investment.”
Storage and carbon capture are all areas that require hefty investment, Dumas added, if governments are to reach their net-zero targets.
“What we need is a very clear public policy lead in order to get anywhere near these net zero promises and I suspect that actually what it’s going to be about is a carbon tax, which the Americans may resist but will be necessary,” he said.
Job creation
Paul Steele, chief economist at an independent policy research institute called the International Institute for Environment and Development, said that climate action and renewable energy investments will serve the dual purpose of tackling the climate crisis while creating jobs for the post-Covid economy.
“One of the priorities coming out of Covid is to create labor intensive employment. Both in developed and developing countries, you can provide labor intensive employment through renewable energy,” Steele said.
One example, he said, was the retrofitting of boilers in homes in the U.K., which would help push the country toward its climate targets and create new jobs while being relatively inexpensive in the grand scheme of things.
Steele said that investments to drive a climate-friendly economy cannot be short term or have quick goals.
He pointed to the various government support schemes for the airline industry, which has been battered by the pandemic. Just this week, the European courts gave the nod to a $2.9 billion bailout for Air France-KLM’s Dutch business.
Bailout funds like these should be tied to sustainability commitments by the airline industry, he said, but that can be a dicey proposition to get over the line.
“Governments aren’t making the connections enough and traditionally treasuries and particularly the ministries of transport are still dominated by road building lobbies and people who like to build highways and increase transport rather than people who want to invest in sustainable alternatives.”
The global wind industry installed 117 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity in 2023, making it the best year ever for new wind energy – here’s what happened and where.
The Global Wind Report 2024, newly released by the Global Wind Energy Council representing the entire wind energy sector, found that the 117 GW of installations in 2023 represent a 50% year-over-year increase from 2022. Annual wind installations increased in all regions except Europe and North America.
Further, the year saw 54 countries representing all continents build new wind power. The top 5 markets for new wind installations are China, US, Brazil, Germany, and India.
China set a new record with 75 GW of new installations commissioned, which makes up nearly 65% of the global total. That underpinned a record year for the Asia-Pacific region, which saw year-over-year growth of 106%.
Brazil installed 4.8 GW of wind in 2023, putting the country in third place globally. As a result, Latin America also saw record year-over-year growth of 21%.
Wind installations in Africa & Middle East increased in 2023 by 182% compared with 2022.
Global cumulative wind power capacity passed the first 1 terawatt (TW) milestone in 2023, and now totals 1,021 GW, following year-over-year growth of 13%.
Onshore wind had the best year on record in 2023, surpassing 100 GW in a single year with 106 GW, or a year-over-year growth of 54%. Offshore wind had its second-best year on record with 10.8 GW total installed.
The Global Wind Energy Council announced that it’s revised its 2024-2030 growth forecast (1210 GW) upwards by 10%, in response to the wind industry “entering a new era of accelerated growth driven by increased political ambition.”
Ben Backwell, CEO of GWEC, said:
It’s great to see wind industry growth picking up, and we are proud of reaching a new annual record. However, much more needs to be done to unlock growth by policymakers, industry, and other stakeholders to get on to the 3X pathway needed to reach net zero.
Growth is highly concentrated in a few big countries like China, the US, Brazil, and Germany, and we need many more countries to remove barriers and improve market frameworks to scale up wind installations.
If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –ad*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.
Tesla confirmed that it spent $200,000 to advertise on Elon Musk’s X, formerly Twitter, so far.
For years, Musk has famously said that he despises advertising. He said that Tesla doesn’t pay or provide discounts for celebrities to drive its cars and that the automaker doesn’t pay to advertise – though we have seen exceptions before.
Tesla fans and investors have often suggested that the company at least try it, but the CEO consistently pushed back against the idea – going as far as saying that he “hates” advertising.
But interestingly, things started to change after Musk bought Twitter, which is reliant on advertising.
A few months after Musk acquired Twitter, Tesla held its annual shareholders meeting and the CEO was asked about Tesla starting to advertise.
Musk even pointed out the irony of the situation:
“It’s indeed ironic. Twitter is highly dependent on advertising. Hear I am, never really used advertising before and now I have a company that is highly dependent on advertising. I guess I should say that advertising is awesome and everyone should do it.”
The CEO then announced that Tesla would indeed start to advertise.
We had doubts that Tesla would start advertising on X because of the conflict of interest nad on top of it, Musk himself ad mitted that it would be “preaching to the choir.”
However, we were wrong.
X users reported starting to see Tesla ads on X starting in February 2024.
Today, with the release of its proxy statement for its 2024 shareholders meeting, Tesla confirmed that it spent $200,000 on advertising on Elon Musk’s X:
X is party to certain commercial, consulting and support agreements with Tesla. Under these agreements, X incurred expenses of approximately $1 million in 2023 and approximately $0.02 million through February 2024, and Tesla incurred expenses of approximately $0.05 million in 2023 and approximately $0.03 million through February 2024. As part of a multi-platform advertising campaign, Tesla also directly or indirectly purchased advertising on X, which totaled approximately $0.2 million through February 2024.
Tesla has to disclose transactions with “related parties” of its board members and executives.
The other transactions mentioned with X, including the $1 million of “incurred expenses”, is believed to have to do with Musk using Tesla engineers at X:
The information included in the proxy makes it unclear if Musk asked Tesla’s board to use the engineers or even if X ended up paying for the services as it is only listed as “incurred expenses”.
Electrek’s Take
This is such a strange situation that you just generally not see at major companies like Tesla.
It’s clear that Elon didn’t want Tesla to advertise on Instagram and Facebook, but it did anyway at the same time as it started advertising on X – seemingly to make it easier to swallow.
But these transactions between Tesla and X are for sure going to be investigated since even though Tesla obviously tries to keep things as vague as possible in the statement, statements and testimonies around his compensation lawsuits point to Elon not asking Tesla’s board to use Tesla engineers and after the fact, they made this “$1 million deal” to make things OK.
It’s dangerous legal tight rope to use resources of a public company you manage for a private company you own.
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.
The US Department of Energy has just released its first-ever roadmap to speed up the connection of more clean energy to the grid.
The goal is to finally clear the huge backlog of solar, wind, and battery projects waiting to be built. According to a report recently released by DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, nearly 2,600 gigawatts of clean energy generation and battery storage capacity are actively seeking grid interconnection.
The Transmission Interconnection Roadmap, developed by DOE’s Interconnection Innovation e-Xchange (i2X), is for all stakeholders, from transmission providers to interconnection customers to state agencies and more.
The roadmap also sets aggressive targets for interconnection improvement by 2030 and outlines tools to quickly and efficiently connect more clean energy projects to the grid.
Ultimately, the roadmap is designed to ensure the Biden administration’s goal of 100% clean electricity by 2035 is achieved.
US Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said:
Clearing the backlog of nearly 12,000 solar, wind, and storage projects waiting to connect to the grid is essential to deploying clean electricity to more Americans.
Through the i2X program, the Biden-Harris Administration is accelerating the interconnection process by ensuring all stakeholders have better access to data and improved standards and procedures as we seek to develop and maintain a more efficient, reliable and clean grid.
Increase data access, transparency, and security for interconnection. This offers solutions to improve the scope, accessibility, quality, and standardization of data on projects already in interconnection queues. It also aims to enhance the scope, timeliness, accuracy, and consistency of interconnection study models and modeling assumptions that transmission providers make available to interconnection customers.
Improve interconnection process and timeline. This contains solutions to improve queue management practices, affected system studies, inclusive and fair processes, and workforce development.
Promote economic efficiency in interconnection. This offers solutions to improve cost allocation, reduce costs to electricity consumers, enhance the coordination between transmission planning and the interconnection process, and optimize the rightsizing of transmission investment through improvements in interconnection studies.
Maintain a reliable, resilient, and secure grid. Includes updating technical requirements within interconnection studies, models, and tools while also improving industry interconnection standards.
If you live in an area that has frequent natural disaster events, and are interested in making your home more resilient to power outages, consider going solar and adding a battery storage system. To make sure you find a trusted, reliable solar installer near you that offers competitive pricing, check out EnergySage, a free service that makes it easy for you to go solar. They have hundreds of pre-vetted solar installers competing for your business, ensuring you get high quality solutions and save 20-30% compared to going it alone. Plus, it’s free to use and you won’t get sales calls until you select an installer and share your phone number with them.
Your personalized solar quotes are easy to compare online and you’ll get access to unbiased Energy Advisers to help you every step of the way. Get started here. –ad*
FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links.More.