In the last five years, Turkey launched 215 hydropower plants, 90 wind power plants and 46 geothermal power plants, according to Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez.
These plants, he said on Sunday, meet 30% of Turkey's aggregate electricity demand annually.
Donmez added that the construction of 216 hydropower plants was also planned in the coming period. He further noted that 180 wind power plants and 27 geothermal power plants are scheduled for construction in the coming period.
Adding some 1,085 megawatts (MW) to its energy mix last year, Turkey has maintained its lead in Europe and moved up to fourth place globally in hydroelectric power capacity installation.
The minister pointed out that Turkey's electricity consumption stood at 303.3 billion kilowatt hours (KWh) in 2018, while in July 2019, hydropower plants had a production capacity of 28,424 MW, followed by wind power plants with 7,228 MW and geothermal plants with 1,336 MW.
Last year, 19.8% of Turkey's electricity generation was provided by hydropower plants, 6.6% by wind power and 2.5% by geothermal power. "In 2018, the amount and cost of the energy purchased from these generation facilities are determined freely between the buyers and the sellers, or the energy generated in these facilities is traded on the market through EPİAS, the Energy Stock Exchange Istanbul.
Thanks to public and private efforts, $4.8 billion worthy of investment was made in solar power, $4.3 billion in wind farms, $6 billion in hydroelectric plants, $1 billion in geothermal and $430 million in biomass in the last five years.
The Energy Ministry will announce details within a few weeks on small-scale renewable energy resources zone (YEKA) tenders that will be held in the first quarter of 2020.
Moreover, Turkey's National Energy Efficiency Action Plan, launched by the Energy and Natural Resources Ministry in early 2018, outlines a road map on saving $30.2 billion by 2030 by investing $10.9 billion in several different sectors, especially in the industrial and construction sectors.
Source: Daily Sabah
Turkey aims to reach 20,000 megawatts (MW) of installed capacity in wind energy by 2023, Hakan Yildirim, President of the Turkish Wind Energy Association (TWEA), told Anadolu Agency's Energy Desk in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
The country's favorable geographic location provides it to have around 48,000 MW of feasible wind energy potential in capacity, according to Turkish Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources figures.
"Turkey's installed capacity in wind energy has surpassed 7,600 MW with 3,500 turbines today," Yildirim said, adding "We need to use domestic resources to carry Turkey's renewable energy potential to high levels."
He noted that Turkey's installed capacity in wind energy averaged 1,300-1,400 MW in 2016, adding "However, that level decreased to 495 MW in 2018, and 450 MW in 2019. Those figures are not acceptable. We have to take off those numbers to around 1,000 MW every year. We have to recreate the same excitement that was felt in wind energy a decade ago."
- Most of wind turbine components manufactured in Turkey
Yildirim said investors in the wind sector, both domestic and foreign, have two main expectations in the industry.
"First, they want to foresee the potential in Turkey. They want to reach their projected cash flow. The second thing investors want is to see their projects to be supported financially, as banks pay close attention to," he said.
"The biggest expectation for domestic and foreign investors in the wind sector is that they want to be able to foresee the next 10 years," the TWEA President underlined.
Companies that manufacture components for wind turbines are also considered as investors, according to Yildirim, who said manufacturers also want to foresee the next decade in the wind industry.
He underlined that banks do not have any concerns today to invest in renewable energy in Turkey, which wind energy has a major part in. "Today, banks and investment firms love renewable energy, because it's a field that affects global economy and will shape the next 15 years."
Stressing that capability to design, construct and manufacture versus selling wind turbines are different aspects; Yildirim noted that design to mass production costs total around €200 million.
"We have started to manufacture most of the components of wind turbines in Turkey," he said, adding only a small portion of wind turbine components used in Turkey are imported from abroad and that enables the capital to stay in Turkish economy.
The head of TWEA said there are still innovations in wind power technology to lower costs, noting that cost of production for one megawatt-hour of electricity fell to $55 for wind, $45 for solar, and $75 for natural gas.
- Wind conference next month
Since TWEA was established in 1992, the non-profit association focuses on being inclusive, Yildirim said, and added "You need different ideas to form a shared wisdom, and turn them into reality."
"As an association, we give upmost importance to coordination and integration. We consult with our partners, develop common ideas and put them into motion together," he said.
Yildirim said the upcoming Turkish Wind Energy Conference (TWEC) next month will be attended by more than 100 participants in the wind energy sector.
He concluded that the 8th TWEC, which will be held on Nov. 5-6 in Turkish capital Ankara, will be attended by Energy and Natural Resources Minister Fatih Donmez and Minister of Industry and Technology Mustafa Varank.
Source: AA
Renewable enery sources provided more electricity to UK homes and businesses than fossil fuels for the first time over the last quarter, according to new research.
The renewables record was set in the third quarter of this year after its share of the electricity mix rose to 40%.
It is the first time that electricity from British windfarms, solar panels and renewable biomass plants has surpassed fossil fuels since the UK’s first power plant fired up in 1882.
The new milestone confirms predictions made by National Grid that 2019 will be the first year since the Industrial Revolution that zero-carbon electricity – renewables and nuclear – overtakes gas and coal-fired power.
A string of new offshore windfarms built this year helped nudge renewables past fossil fuels, which made up 39% of UK electricity, in a crucial tipping point in Britain’s energy transition.
Fossil fuels made up four-fifths of the country’s electricity fewer than 10 years ago, split between gas and coal, but the latest analysis by Carbon Brief shows that coal-fired power was less than 1% of all electricity generated.
British coal plants are shutting down ahead of a 2025 ban. By next spring just four coal plants will remain in the UK: the West Burton A and Ratcliffe-on-Soar plants in Nottinghamshire, Kilroot in Northern Ireland and two generation units at the Drax site in North Yorkshire, which are earmarked for conversion to burn gas.
Gas-fired power makes up the bulk of the dwindling share of fossil fuels in the energy system at 38%. Nuclear power provided slightly less than a fifth of the UK’s electricity in the last quarter, the report said.
Wind power is the UK’s strongest source of renewable energy and made up 20% of the UK’s electricity following a series of major windfarm openings in recent years. Electricity from renewable biomass plants made up 12% of the energy system, while solar panels contributed 6%.
The world’s largest offshore windfarm, the Hornsea One project, began generating electricity off the Yorkshire coast in February, reaching a peak capacity of 1,200 MW in October. It followed the opening of the Beatrice windfarm off the north-east coast of Scotland over the summer.
Together these schemes almost doubled the 2,100 MW worth of offshore capacity which began powering homes in 2018.
Kwasi Kwarteng, the minister for energy and clean growth, said the renewables record is “yet another milestone on our path towards ending our contribution to climate change altogether by 2050”.
He said: “Already, we’ve cut emissions by 40% while growing the economy by two thirds since 1990. Now, with more offshore wind projects on the way at record low prices we plan to go even further and faster in the years to come.”
Luke Clark, of Renewable UK, said the industry hopes to treble the size of its offshore wind sector by 2030 to generate more than a third of the UK’s electricity.
Under the Labour party’s plans for Green Industrial Revolution the offshore wind industry would grow five-fold in a devcade with the addition of an extra 37 giant offshore windfarms and 70,000 new jobs.
According to Renewable UK, the growth of the renewables industry is good news for energy bills, as well as the environment, due to the steep fall in the cost of wind and solar power technologies over recent years.
Source: Guardian
The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) in it's International Energy Outlook 2019 (IEA2019) projects that world energy consumption will grow by nearly 50% between 2018 and 2050 particularly in Asia, where the consumption of energy is driven by strong economic growth.
“Energy consumption was greater in Asia than in any other region in 2018, and we project that consumption will almost double between 2018 and 2050, making Asia both the largest and fastest-growing region in the world for energy consumption,” according to EIA Administrator Linda Capuano.
“This long-term trend of Asian energy consumption to support growing economies strongly influences the extraction, refining, and transport of oil, natural gas, and other fuels.”
The report contains energy consumption projections for 16 regions of the world, in what it says would best serve as a baseline for estimating the effects of policy or technology changes.
The study found that manufacturing centres are shifting toward Africa and South Asia, especially India, resulting in energy consumption growth in those regions. This is evident in natural gas and petroleum product consumption, rising in Asia faster than supply is growing and potentially shifting global trade patterns and infrastructure investments.
End-use consumption is increasingly shifting toward electricity amongst falling generation costs, which along with energy consumption growth and policy work together to shift the electricity generation mix.
According to EIA’s IEO2019 projection, the industrial sector, which includes mining, manufacturing, agriculture, and construction, accounts for more than 50% of global end-use energy consumption between 2018 and 2050.
Economic activity for energy-intensive manufacturing, which includes the production of iron and steel, food, paper, refined oil products, non-metallic minerals, aluminium, and basic chemicals, is increasingly concentrated in fast-growing economies of Asia.
The paper suggests that India and China will account for more than half of global output from energy-intensive manufacturing between 2018 and 2050, which accounts for nearly all of the EIA’s projected growth in petroleum product consumption over the period.
India, in particular, is projected to experience rapid industrial growth and increased demand for transportation.
Electricity generation is projected to increase by 79% between 2018 and 2050 as demand in all end-use sectors continues to grow.
Although petroleum and other liquid fuels will remain the predominant transportation fuel, electricity use will increase in the transportation sector as more plug-in electric vehicles enter the fleet and as electricity use for rail expands. Emerging economies with developing industrial sectors have a greater ability to increase electrification as they implement newer technologies.
Source: Smart Energy International
The German utility has finalized its investment plan for the massive PV array, which will be built in the state of Brandenburg from the start of 2020. It first announced the project — the largest subsidy-free PV plant under development in Germany thus far — back in the spring.
EnBW is now moving forward with the construction of its first subsidy-free PV project in Germany, as the group said today that its board has approved plans to build a 175 MW plant in Wessow-Willmersdorf, Brandenburg.
The company will begin laying cable at the start of 2020. It will install 465,000 solar modules across a 164-hectare site, with the aim of making the project fully operational within the same calendar year.
EnBW acquired the rights to the predeveloped project from Procon Solar GmbH in mid-2018. Upon completion, it expects the installation to generate about 180 million KWh of electricity per year. It said it will sell the power directly to the market and its customers.
The utility said it will continue to pursue the development of projects offered through state tenders, in addition to building unsubsidized PV arrays. It currently owns more than 100 MW of PV and has 25 MW under construction, but its total PV project pipeline stands at more than 800 MW.
Source: PV Magazine
It started with a dream in 1993 and ended due to economic uncertainty in 2019. This is how Dyson’s attempt to compete with Tesla foundered
When the news finally came, there were tears. For some, it was a surprise. For others, an inevitability. At 4pm on October 10, hundreds of employees at Dyson's vast development facility on a former RAF airfield in Hullavington, Wiltshire, trudged out pondering their future. Yet eponymous company founder Sir James Dyson was nowhere to be seen. The cancellation of the firm’s electric vehicle project, delivered via an all-staff email, was fitting. Dyson's electric car dream, whose very existence had to be coaxed out of its inscrutable chief executive, came to an end in a similar fashion to how it was revealed. With a whimper rather than a bang.
Yet Dyson had come agonisingly close to unveiling its creation. The company that upended the world of vacuum cleaners and hand dryers had finally produced a driveable prototype of its revolutionary electric vehicle, meant to go up against Tesla and BMW – an incredible development, given just months previously much of the car’s design hadn’t gone much further than sketches on computer aided design software, and battery and motor testing was ongoing.
The factory to build the cars was planned; the global supply chain was set up; dealership liaison was planned out. There was a fully-developed car in terms of concept, with rolling prototypes built and gliding around the test track. While the owner’s manual wasn’t written, it wasn’t far off, says one staff member.
In the space of 12 months great leaps had been made in the development of the vehicle – necessary ones, given the car was meant to be on roads by 2021 – but every step forward was met with a setback. And setbacks cost money. Ultimately, Dyson couldn’t make the sums add up.
The company’s board, which was juggling development of an electric vehicle alongside maintaining its core business of household appliances, built up over decades of hard work, had a tough decision to make. Go for broke, signing deals to start kitting out a vast Singapore manufacturing facility in which it planned to make the electric vehicle, or throw in the towel?
The company’s founder, James Dyson, was in a bind. Traditional automotive companies needed to embrace the electric vehicle production in order to survive: they had no choice but to gamble. Startups such as Tesla looking to enter the industry were venture-backed and steeped in the high-risk, high-reward culture of Silicon Valley. Dyson already had a successful company, and couldn’t bet the income from vacuum cleaner sales on the potential of electric vehicles. He had a legacy to protect.
And yet he wanted to forge ahead with the project, economics be damned. In many ways, this was a personal quest for validation, and an attempt to prove the car industry wrong.
To understand why the Dyson electric car project happened – and where it all went wrong – you have to go back to a time when James Dyson knocked on doors and was ignored. A time before a Dyson vacuum cleaner sat in every cupboard and a Dyson hand dryer in every public bathroom.
This story of the downfall of Dyson’s electric car is based on conversations with former staff members, none of whom can be named, citing non-disparagement and non-disclosure agreements – or fears for their futures.
Source: Wired
Putting CO2 to Use
New opportunities to use carbon dioxide (CO2) in the development of products and services are capturing the attention of governments, industry and the investment community. Climate change mitigation is the primary driver for this increased interest, but other factors include technology leadership and supporting a circular economy. This analysis considers the near-term market potential for five key categories of CO2-derived products and services: fuels, chemicals, building materials from minerals, building materials from waste, and CO2 use to enhance the yields of biological processes.
Please click here to read the full report.
