»Power« and »France« in a single sentence usually add up to »nuclear«, but not always: there is even some renewable energy around. Besides water, sun and biogas, wind power take a sizeable share. A large part of that had been installed by the Spanish Iberdrola group. They however are troubled by the Spanish economical crisis, and have now sold 32 wind farms in France to a consortium.
One of the major problems of using renewable energy is the storage issue. A Stuttgart-based company may have found a key to solving this by using the natural gas networks.
While it seemed for quite some time that Europe's solar energy business went through a time of crisis, it was rather the beginning of a first consolidation period. The changing power requirements, especially driven by Germany's "Energy turnaround", still give plenty of opportunities.
While renewable energy obviously is a good idea, sources like wind and sunshine have the downside of not flowing constantly 24/7. Furthermore, the time of day where, for example, the sun is shining, might not be the period with the highest demand - at least not in Europe, where aircondition isn't a matter of course as it is in other parts of the world. So, one of the major obstacles for the energy changeover is the problem of storage.
Some call it trade conflict, others even war: Commentaries on the latest U.S. Department of Commerce ruling against Chinese solar panel manufacturers tend to focus on the extremes. However, nobody seems to have read the official fact sheet.
Dear Reader, You might have wondered why the »Renewable Energy Blog« has been so quiet over the past weeks. To tell you the truth, I’m baffled by the current developments in the European Renewable sector,
The trend toward renewable energy causes companies to invest heavily. Due to the nature of those power sources, they require special electronic components - even electronic specialists need additional know-how.
While the Durban international climate conference is bound to reach something approaching nothing, one of the world’s biggest polluters, China, goes its own way toward clean energy. With an oversupply of land, wind and, not least, people, the Asian giant invests heavily in renewable energy. European companies are allowed to have their share in it.
In recent years, makers of PV products have invested heavily in new manufacturing equipment and additional capacity in an effort to increase their market share and establish themselves as a credible volume-supplier. Whilst this has fuelled the recent boom in the PV equipment market, it has also caused the significant over-capacity for device manufacture that now exists. As a consequence, market researchers predict that the market for PV manufacturing equipment will more than halve in 2012.
A rare occasion these days: A trade show which is fully booked, with a waiting list for lat-minute changes. Typical for a 'hype' topic like photovoltaics? Maybe, but still not bad.
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