According to Bloomberg’s renewable energy research team, Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), 70 percent of the power generation the world will add between now and 2030 will most likely be renewable.

That would mean $630 billion in new renewable capacity investments in 2030 alone — over three times what was built in 2012, and 35 percent higher than what BNEF predicted for 2030 a year ago. So not only does renewable energy’s future look formidable, it’s looking more formidable every year we project it.

After accumulating the latest data on economic prosperity, market trends, demand growth, technology development, and likely future policies, BNEF’s modeling program spit out three projection scenarios: the optimistic “Barrier Busting” scenario, the pessimistic “Traditional Territory” scenario, and the middle-of-the-road “New Normal” scenario.

The New Normal scenario is considered the most likely. It shows the investment requirement for new clean energy assets in the year 2030 at $630bn (in nominal terms), more than three times the investment in the renewable energy capacity that was built in 2012. This 2030 investment figure is 35 percent higher than that produced in Bloomberg New Energy Finance’s last global forecast a year ago, and the projection for total installed renewable energy capacity by that date is 25 percent higher than in that previous forecast, at 3,500GW.

In the power sector, the research company’s latest forecasts project that 70 percent of new power generation capacity added between 2012 and 2030 will be from renewable technologies (including large hydro). Only 25 percent will be in the form of coal, gas or oil, the remaining being nuclear.

Newly installed capacity in gigawatts. (Source: BNEF/Grist)

Significantly, even under the Traditional Territory projections, renewable investments would be $470 billion in 2030 — over twice what they are now.

As Grist points out, things don’t look nearly as bright once you add back in already installed power. Totaling it all up, half the global power supply will still be non-renewable in 2030. And there’s still plenty of uncertainty built into BNEF’s projections — with a possible boom in natural gas for a China among the biggest question marks.

But the larger point is that the rise of renewables is driven by concrete changes int he structure of the energy market. “The news right now is dominated by stories of pain caused by overcapacity on the supply side of clean energy, and the lure of cheap shale gas,” said Michael Liebreich, BNEF’s chief executive. “But this is playing out against the falling costs of renewable energy and of all the technologies required to integrate it into our energy system, and falling costs win.”

Of course, they’d be winning even faster if we corrected the massively-distorting failure of both the United States’ domestic market and the global market to properly price in the future costs of carbon emissions.

North Carolina’s renewable energy industry is safe from legislative threats, for now. Republicans and Democrats in the sponsor’s own committee voted down his bill that would have repealed the state’s clean energy standard. This bill mimicked “model legislation” from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

WRAL NC Capitol reports:

[Bill sponsor] Rep. Mike Hager, R-Rutherford, had pulled House Bill 298 from the House Committee on Environment, where it faced questionable support, to put it in front of the House Committee on Public Utilities and Energy, which he chairs, in hopes of keeping the legislation moving forward.

Instead, an 18-13 vote killed the bill, with powerful Republican Reps. Tim Moore, Ruth Samuelson, Nelson Dollar and others joining Democrats in opposing the measure.

Rep. Hager used to work for Duke Energy, and is a member of ALEC, a right-wing state legislation factory that has received funding from the Koch brothers and the Heartland Institute. The Kochs also donated to the John Locke Foundation, founded by Art Pope. Pope, not a fan of renewable energy, was very active in the 2010 state elections, spending $2.2 million to elect a Tea Party-fueled GOP takeover of the state legislature.

Passed in 2007 with bipartisan support, the state’s renewable energy standard required utilities to use increasing amounts of renewable energy. The clean energy industry has since created thousands of North Carolina jobs and pumped billions into the economy. North Carolina was the first state in the Southeast to achieve a renewable energy standard. It is not just solar panel and wind turbines that support the bill. Prestige Farms is a turkey and pork processor, and opposed Hager’s bill because it would jeopardize the construction of a waste-to-energy plant in eastern North Carolina.

Hager’s own committee did reject his bill 18-13, yet the bill is technically still alive. Hager could try to make changes to the bill to revive it, though those changes would have to be significant.

Below the fold is an infographic on the renewable energy industry in North Carolina, which explains why the RES is so important:

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The global effort to produce less carbon-intensive completely stalled over the last two decades, according to a new report by the International Energy Agency. The paper put together a measure of carbon intensity — how much carbon is released per unit of energy created — and found its essentially been flat in the United States since 1990, while dropping slightly for Europe and rising for China

The combined result was that the carbon intensity of the world’s energy production dropped 6 percent from 1971 to 1990, but then flat-lined afterwards.

But because world energy consumption doubled between 1971 and now, that meant a massive increase in carbon emissions. If things continue as they have, the planet will be well on its way to warming six degrees Celsius by 2100. That would mean life-threatening sea level rise, extreme heat waves, extreme storms, extreme droughts, massive collapses in land and marine-based food supplies, the list goes on. If we’re going to get below two degrees of warming — the level scientists have cohered around as the bare minimum for avoiding catastrophe — world carbon intensity will have to be cut by 5.7 percent from its 2010 levels by 2020, and by over 60 percent by 2050.

This will not be easy, to put it mildly. The IEA report concluded that renewable power generation, taken on its own terms, was on track for the two degree goal — solar capacity grew 42 percent in 2012, and wind grew 19 percent, for example. Electric vehicle and hybrid vehicle sales doubled in 2012, and if they keep to that growth rate they’ll be on track for the two degree goal by 2020 as well. But for every other facet of the climate solution mix, the world is falling badly behind.

The opportunities for smart grid technology, more energy efficient buildings, more energy efficient industrial processes, better fuel economy standards, and for shifts to nuclear and natural gas power are all being badly underutilized, according to the IEA’s metrics. The biggest problem is the continued growth in coal use: half the coal-fired power plants constructed around the world in 2011 used inefficient technologies, and coal-based power generation overall increased six percent from 2010 to 2012. The coal sector is so large that this increase alone left its power production 28 percent higher in 2010 than all power production from non-fossil fuel sources combined.

The emerging and developing world is the big driver here: China and India alone accounted for 95 percent of the growth in global demand for coal between 2000 and 2011. In fact, while the carbon intensity of the United States’ energy sector remained virtually unchanged since 1990 — and Europe’s declined — it steadily rose for both China and India over the same time period.

This gets to one of the fundamental obstacles to reducing carbon emissions. Economic development is producing an astonishing reduction in global poverty, lifting hundreds of millions of human beings out of misery. But as a matter of technological necessity, this accomplishment has so far required a massive increase in carbon-intensive energy production. China and India — along with parts of Africa — are ground zero for this paradox.

That, in turn, gets to why America’s failure to put together ambitious climate change legislation is not just a political or policy failure, but a massive moral failure. Certainly, we need to reduce our carbon intensity for its own sake. But more importantly, as the world’s most advanced economy, with living standards that are already incredibly high in a global context, we can afford any disruptions from a wholesale shift off of fossil fuels and onto renewables. Indeed, we ought to show the rest of the world how to do it. And we have a moral obligation to do so as the biggest cumulative carbon polluter in the world.

Instead, thanks to our refusal to put a price on carbon, America remains the single largest subsidizer of fossil fuels in the world. Instead of doing the heavy lifting on renewables ourselves, we’re leaving the less fortunate of the world to carry the burden.

Alto Lindoso (Image credit: Energias de Portugal)

Portugal’s electricity network operator announced that renewable energy supplied 70 percent of total consumption in the first quarter of this year. This increase was largely due to favorable weather conditions resulting in increased wind and water flow, as well as lower demand. Portuguese citizens are using less energy and using sources that never run out for the vast majority of what they do use.

• Hydropower supplied most: Hydroelectric power supplied 37 percent of total electricity — a 312 percent increase compared to last year.
• Wind turbines broke a record: Wind energy represented 27 percent of the total share, which is 60 percent higher than last year. This is 37 percent above average and good for the highest amount generated by wind in Portugal, ever.
• 2.3 percent less energy used: Energy consumption has fallen every year since 2010 and is now at 2006 levels. Some of the drop this quarter was due to fewer working days and a warmer winter, but even controlling for those factors, there was still a drop of .4 percent.
• Not so much solar: Solar energy supplies only .7 percent of total energy demand, according to 2012 figures (Q1 2013 figures were not available for solar). This constitutes 225.5 MW in total photovoltaic capacity.
• Dropping the fossil fuel habit: Portugal’s electricity had 29 percent less coal and 44 percent less gas in it from 2012 figures. The country must import the fossil fuels it burns.
• For sale: Portugal exported what would have been 6 percent of total electricity consumption to other countries. It will also be able to sell a chunk of its allotted carbon credits offered by the EU’s carbon trading system.

Actually 70 percent isn’t unheard of for Portugal. For a few hours in 2011, Portugal was entirely run on renewable power. Yet this was the first time so much was sustained for a quarter.

Portugal’s investment in modernizing its electricity grid in 2000 has come in handy. Like in many countries, power companies owned their own transmission lines. What the government did in 2000 was to buy all the lines, creating a publicly owned and traded company to operate them. This was used to create a smart grid that renewable energy producers could connect to (encouraged by government-organized auctions to build new wind and hydro plants). In 2010, the New York Times reported on Portugal’s renewable energy push that started in earnest in 2005:

Five years ago, the leaders of this sun-scorched, wind-swept nation made a bet: To reduce Portugal’s dependence on imported fossil fuels, they embarked on an array of ambitious renewable energy projects — primarily harnessing the country’s wind and hydropower, but also its sunlight and ocean waves…. Nearly 45 percent of the electricity in Portugal’s grid will come from renewable sources this year, up from 17 percent just five years ago.

There was a massive amount of skepticism over the plan at the time. The Prime Minister at the time, José Sócrates, noted that the nation’s network of electric car charging stations elicited ridicule — including former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Burlusconi who jokingly offered to build him an electric Ferrari. While a totally electric version isn’t available, the fastest Ferrari ever was unveiled last month, and it’s a hybrid.

Some locals complained about higher utility bills or the green economy bypassing them, while others were thrilled. The Mayor of Moura explained that the reason his town got the nation’s largest solar plant was because it “gets the most sun of anywhere in Europe and has lots of useless space.”

So now that it demonstrated the ability to generate 70 percent renewable energy for 3 months, where does Portugal go from here? Oddly enough, it does not have much in the way of offshore wind capacity — only 2 MW. The recent economic situation and austerity programs have endangered not only jobs and commerce, but continued investment in renewable energy and electric vehicles. Yet saving on the cost of having to import fossil fuels will be helpful for decades to come, and as its economy improves, it will have a strong renewable electricity grid to rely upon.

Other countries have been making steps of their own on renewable power production. The U.S. had a record-breaking year for wind energy in 2012, growing by 28 percent. Sweden is looking to have no dependence on oil by 2020. Australia could be looking at 100 percent renewable energy by 2030. Global solar power world will soon be a net-positive energy source.

A new study published in Energy Policy, and flagged by Wired, suggests that a bold-but-not-extreme carbon price could make providing all of Australia’s electricity needs cost-effective by 2030. This would meet all of the country’s electricity demand as of 2010 (that demand will remain at that level is an optimistic, but not unrealistic, assumption according to the study) and would maintain the established reliability standards of the grid.

The current Australian government established a carbon tax in July of last year. Any firm has to acquire a permit to emit more than 25,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide per year. The price of those permits — effectively, the price of carbon dioxide — currently stands at $23 per metric ton in Australian dollars, and the Australian Treasury expects it to gradually rise over the next four decades. The study ran a number of simulations — drawing on regional hourly demand, technology data, and weather data as of 2010 — to figure out when a national electrical supply provided entirely by renewables would become cheaper than one provided by fossil fuels.

The discount rate — the economic term for how much we worry about future costs — also had an effect. A lower discount rate means greater concern over the future costs of carbon emissions, and a higher rate means lower concern. The study ran its models at a rate of both 5 and 10 percent.

The study concluded that at a 5 percent discount rate, 100 percent renewables become cost-effective between 2030 and 2034, with a CO2 price of $50 to $60 in Australian dollars (U.S. dollars are roughly equivalent). At a 10 percent rate, its between 2035 and 2045 with a CO2 price of $70 to $100.

Carbon price (red line) -- shaded areas show threshold beyond which 100% renewable electricity is cost-effective.

The path of the carbon price itself is what the Australian Treasury thinks would be necessary to keep the country’s emissions in line with goal of stabilizing global carbon emissions into the atmosphere at 550 parts per million. It should be said the International Energy Agency has estimated a much higher carbon price ($120 in 2035 compared to the $74 estimated in this study) to hit the lower goal of 450 parts per million. Australia’s carbon price was also recently linked to that of the European Union, and the latter hasn’t exactly behaved reliably as of late. So whether these projections for the path of Australia’s carbon price hold is open to debate.

The standard assumption is that CO2 emissions should be priced around $25 per ton at the moment, though various studies have pegged the number as high as $85, or even $266 per ton.

Wind power is the most technologically mature form of renewable power currently in operation, and when that’s combined with Australia’s climate and geography, the study found it would provide around half of the electricity generation. Much of the rest would be provided by both residential and commercial solar power, with limited use of hydroelectricity and biofuels filling in the remaining gaps. And it turns out wind power is already cheaper in Australia than coal or natural gas, even before considering the carbon price.

All told, this is good news for Australians and an added incentive for the country to keep pushing forward with renewable energy, given that climate change hasn’t been kind to them recently.

People move. All the time. Wouldn’t it be great to harness that movement and help power our cities with the movement of people living in them?

The Paris Marathon will happen on Sunday, and the organizers are going to lay down some special tiles across the course. While runners are concerned with charging their internal batteries with carbs and sustaining them with goo, their footsteps will charge other batteries:

The flexible tiles made from recycled truck tires will span a portion of the Champs Elysees for about 25 meters (82 feet) of the 42.2-kilometer course, according to Pavegen Systems Ltd., the U.K. maker of the tiles. Each footstep generates as much as 8 watts of kinetic energy, which is fed back to batteries that can charge display screens and electronic signs along the route, the company said.

While each footstep only generates 8 watts of energy through the kinetic motion of the runner stepping on the tile, there will be 40,000 runners passing over those tiles. Pavegen CEO Laurance Kemball-Cook invented the technology, and hopes to provide an easy way to generate electricity, regardless of weather. There is a contest to see who can guess how much energy the marathon will generate.

The largest demonstration of this type of kinetic energy occurred during the London Olympics. The cost of the panels remains high, though Pavegen is aiming to bring it down to the cost of similar tile flooring. It is also turning to Kickstarter to install panels at schools in the UK.

A Kenyan inventor patented technology that converts the bending of a sneaker into piezoelectric energy to charge a cell phone directly, or a battery to charge other things once the shoes come off. DARPA is funding research into other piezoelectric generators that convert kinetic energy directly into chemical storage without the need for a separate battery.

Existing commercial products use the power of someone pedaling a regular bicycle to charge their smartphone and a light. A new kind of soccer ball allows you to kick it and then charge a battery that will power an LED light. The ball is only one ounce heavier than a normal one.

Because each of these examples are so low-wattage on their own, this type of technology will truly become useful once it scales and lots of people wear shoes that charge their phones while walking on pavement that charges batteries to power lights. However, if most of our power continues to be generated by burning the fossil fuels that cause global warming, sporting events could be in danger. The New York City Marathon was cancelled in the wake of Superstorm Sandy, and the Winter Olympics have started to consider stockpiling snow to avoid having to cancel events.

Yesterday, the North Carolina House Commerce Committee narrowly passed a bill that would repeal the state’s successful renewable energy standard. Currently, 29 states and the District of Columbia have adopted Renewable Energy Standard’s (RES) to encourage electric utilities to expand the power they generate from renewable sources such as solar and wind.

In 2007, North Carolina became the first state in the Southeast to adopt such a standard — Senate Bill 3 passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support and requires state utilities to supply 12.5 percent of renewable energy by 2021. Since then, clean energy companies have generated billions in revenue and have created thousands of in-state jobs — all while reducing pollution and saving ratepayers money.

But now, North Carolina has joined the growing list of states in which organizations like the Heartland Institute and the American Legislative Council, or ALEC, and Koch-backed Grover Norquist have been lobbying against renewable energy policy, and pushing “model legislation” to undo these standards. House Bill 298, called the “Affordable and Reliable Energy Act,” was introduced by known ALEC member Representative Mike Hager, and aims to fully repeal the energy standard.

The nearly two-hourly long committee hearing concluded with an 11-10 vote on the RES repeal, barely escaping committee with two key Republicans voting against it. The Raleigh News and Observer reported that Representative Ruth Samuelson, a Republican from Charlotte who is the Republican conference leader, said the bill went too far. Samuelson said the law has helped develop an alternative energy industry that has benefited rural communities — and she is absolutely right.

North Carolina now has over 1,100 clean energy companies that have contributed $3.7 billion in annual gross revenue. This clean energy development has led to a net gain in employment of 21,162 jobs in just five years. Moreover, the renewable energy standard has lowered residential bills and these savings will more than double within a decade, with expected savings of up to $173 million to ratepayers. The RES standard also catapulted North Carolina to fifth in the nation in solar energy development and the state is expected to move to fourth place this year. “It’s an extraordinary success story that there’s an industry that hardly existed several years ago,” said Michael Shore, CEO of FLS Energy in Asheville.

Despite its success, this law has been the target of conservatives since it was adopted.

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The military has begun a transition to efficient and renewable energy. The Army is proceeding with its “Net Zero Energy” initiative, which means that they will aim to produce as much energy (and water, and waste) as they use. Cost and reliability are the primary reasons, but cutting carbon pollution is one of the outcomes.

Last month, the head of U.S. forces in the Pacific said that climate change was the most likely issue to concern the military. Two recent discussions shed some light on the efforts currently underway to allow the military to use less carbon-based fuels, and the explicit and implicit reasons behind those efforts.

Fueling the combat theater

Yesterday afternoon, Mike Breen, Executive Director of the Truman Project, hosted a conversation with Sharon E. Burke, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Operational Energy Plans and Programs at the Department of Defense. Entitled “Clean and Mean: DoD’s Tactical and Operational Energy Innovations,” it covered some of the tactics the military uses to more efficiently carry out its mission on the front lines.

Sharon Burke being briefed on solar power platforms used by tactical military units. (Photo: Summer Barkley)

Breen, a former U.S. Army infantry officer who served in Iraq, recalled the status quo at forward operating bases dependent on fossil fuel. Loud, inefficient generators burning gasoline. Unsealed tents that allowed air conditioning systems to cool the desert (racking up a $20 billion a year utility bill). Transmission and supply lines that began to feel more like a ball and chain weighing down mission-ready units.

The U.S. military is the largest single consumer of energy and oil on the planet. Assistant Secretary Burke explained how the DoD is dealing with a different frame of war with distributed operations all over the globe, from disaster relief to deterrence, fighting terrorism to peacekeeping. The military has to move fuel through long supply lines and sometimes contested areas. “It’s a challenge for us,” she said.

Burke has noted that “a $1 rise in the price of a barrel of oil translates to approximately $130 million over the course of a year.” It’s not just money at stake — fuel resupply endangers the lives of our men and women in uniform. Delivering fuel via truck over dangerous roads has led to heavy-lift helicopters often being used to deliver fuel to bases in Afghanistan.

To cut inefficient use of, and therefore dependence on, fossil fuels in the combat theater, the military has been doing things like adding solar panels to tents and backpacks and sealing tents with an insulating coating so cooled air does not leak. Mortar pits can be powered by the sun instead of an idling Humvee. Radio towers are getting electricity from solar panels instead of a generator that drinks gasoline, requiring resupply. The DoD now dispatches energy teams to these forward operating bases with deep policy knowledge of how renewable energy systems can be used, and they can work with soldiers on the ground to ascertain the best practical implementation. This leaves an experienced Chief Warrant Officer behind who can support the unit with these systems. As Ms. Burke said, it “doesn’t sound very exotic, but it adds up.”

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Energy resource diversity in the electricity sector is important to any region’s energy portfolio. Having a range of energy options increases grid stability, reduces consumers’ exposure to price spikes in any energy source, and makes policy changes (including a price on carbon) easier to handle. While resource diversity is intuitively valuable, it’s often used as a catchphrase to defend the status quo or argue against renewable portfolio standards at the state level.

In a recent House subcommittee hearing on electricity diversity, Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY) spoke out in favor of a diverse energy mix, but added that “the best way to strike the right balance is through market forces – not government mandates or other market distorting policies.” In this post we’re attempting to add some rigor to the conversation by measuring the electricity generation diversity in each state over the past 20 years.

To measure generation diversity, we used the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), which is commonly used to determine market concentration in an industry as well as economic diversity. The HHI measures the extent to which an industry is dominated by a few firms. We chose to use this index because it measures the level of concentration in an industry (or, in this case, the level of concentration in the electricity sector).

The HHI is simply the sum of the square of each market participant’s market share. The resulting value, the HHI, is a fraction between 0 and 1, which represents the competitiveness of an industry. A market with only one participant — who would have 100% market share – has an HHI of 1. As more firms enter the market and each participant’s market share decreases, the HHI goes down, with extremely diverse markets having an HHI near zero. In our case, the HHI represents energy diversity within the electricity sector. We took the percentage of the generation mix from each energy resource (coal, natural gas, wind, solar, hydropower, nuclear, and others) in each state, according to Energy Information Administration data. We then squared each percentage, and added them together, repeating this calculation for every year from 1990 to 2011. If the HHI moves closer to 0 over the years measured, then the energy mix has become less concentrated and more diverse. If the HHI value increases over time and moves closer to 1, then the energy mix has become more concentrated and less diverse.

The table below shows how each state’s generation portfolio diversity has changed from 1990 to 2011 and provides two separate rankings — one based on 2011 energy diversity and one based on the change in energy diversity (found by subtracting the 2011 HHI value from the 1990 HHI value for every state).

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(Credit: Institute for the Future)

by Julius Fischer

Germany is moving forward to replace fossil fuels with renewables faster than most countries. But there is always pushback, most recently in the form of much media discourse about rising electricity prices spearheaded by the Federal Minister of Environment Peter Altmaier. Like many politicians, he is already preparing for national elections in September, so let’s take an honest look at this discourse surrounding electricity prices and how they affect Germany’s move toward renewables.

Ever since the Fukushima catastrophe two years ago, Germans have redoubled their efforts to phase out of nuclear energy and fossil fuels in favor of renewable energy — called the “Energiewende” (energy transition) that began in 2000. Minister Altmaier, CDU (Christian Democratic Party — center-right) believes that the recent rise in electricity prices for households poses the biggest threat to the success of the Energiewende, because rising household electricity bills endanger public support for renewables. He thus proposed a plan to prevent an “explosion of electricity prices.”

First of all: why care about what happens in Germany? For one thing, German policy-makers played a dominant role in the evolution of feed-in tariffs (FITs) for renewables (the term is actually an Anglicization of the German “Stromeinspeisungsgesetz”). FITs are the most elegant and effective policy instrument to incentivize renewable energy deployment in a cost-effective manner. Germany remains on the forefront of optimizing FITs to account for the differences in renewable technologies and decreasing market prices over time. Germany also has an impressive record of success in deploying renewable energy (especially solar), and set uniquely high targets of efficiency improvement and renewables deployment. Once we realize that the Energiewende is not a big government program by naïve tree-huggers, we can use the German example to help show that renewable energy can and does create jobs and lower costs.

The discourse surrounding the Energiewende has ranged from whether the grid expansion can keep up with renewable energy deployment, to whether the grid liability can be maintained (yes it can), and whether shutting down nuclear power in Germany will just result in imports of nuclear power from France or the Czech Republic (it hasn’t). The current discourse raises the questions of whether household electricity consumers should pay less, whether industry should pay more, and whether the Energiewende can be done cheaper.

Should households pay less?

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