Turkey's clean energy generation received around 5.2 billion Turkish liras in incentive payments in May through the Renewable Energy Support Scheme (YEKDEM), according to Turkey's Energy Exchange Istanbul (EXIST) data on Wednesday.
In May, a total of 817 facilities, with an installed capacity of 21,049 megawatts, received financial backing under the YEKDEM scheme and produced about 8.6 million megawatt-hours of electricity.
Turkey, which wants to fully utilize local and renewable energy sources efficiently to support its development, offers feed-in tariffs for renewable energy plants including wind, hydropower, geothermal, biomass and solar through this scheme.
Renewable energy plants under the scheme are granted incentives, the value of which is dependent on the type of renewable energy used.
The scheme, which started in 2011, supports wind and hydropower plants at $0.073 per kilowatt-hour (kWh), geothermal facilities at $0.105 kWh, and solar and biomass plants at $0.133 kWh. These figures can also vary slightly depending on the use of locally-produced equipment in the plants.
Turkey plans to end this renewable incentive scheme by 2020 and is working on a more updated and efficient replacement.
US$1 equals 6.84 Turkish liras at 0742 GMT on Wednesday.
Source: AA
Among Turkey's largest construction and energy companies, ENKA and Calik Holding built large-scale power plants in Libya which are now in the production stage and waiting to provide electricity to the region, with the country’s stability and security to be ensured under the U.N.-recognized Government of National Accord (GNA).
Turkey last year signed two separate agreements for the provision of security and military cooperation and the delimitation of maritime jurisdictions with the GNA. Following the two agreements between Turkey and Libya’s legitimate government, cooperation also accelerated in oil and hydrocarbon exploration.
It is now expected and more than urgent that the power plants previously built in the country be commissioned to meet the energy needs of the country, which faces intense power outages.
The 550-megawatt (MW) al-Khums Simple Cycle Power Plant, one of the largest facilities in Libya, is being built by Çalik Energy, while ENKA has established a 640-MW capacity Ubari Gas Turbine Power Plant.
According to the information obtained via Anadolu Agency (AA) from Calik Energy, the initial works began in 2014 at the al-Khums Simple Cycle Power Plant, located 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of the capital Tripoli.
The power plant became the first major energy production facility of the Libya Ministry of Electricity following the Libyan revolution, while the temporary acceptance tests of the facility were made on April 9, 2017.
Al-Khums Power Plant, which constitutes 6% of Libya's current installed power, was handed over to the Libyan Ministry of Electricity in 2018.
While the first field works at the plant started in 2010, they were suspended due to the start of the civil war in Libya in 2011. The works, which started again at the plant in 2012, had to stop for a second time in 2014 over safety reasons. The gas plant where Siemens turbines were used has been empty since 2014. Construction work at the power plant resumed in May 2017 with strict security measures.
To date, most of the work at the Ubari Gas Plant has been completed while its test connection to the Libyan power grid was completed in October 2017. Despite this, the plant area was evacuated for the third time due to the security problems that started to increase in the region.
According to World Bank data, 97% of Libyans had access to electricity in 2002, while this rate declined steadily and fell to 67% in 2018.
In the civil war-torn country, which has an estimated installed power of 8,000 MW, access to electricity and water is becoming increasingly problematic.
The internationally recognized Libyan government has been under attack by putschist Gen. Khalifa Haftar's illegitimate forces since April 2019, with more than 1,000 people killed in the violence.
Source: Daily Sabah
A new report from the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts that electric vehicle (EV) sales are expected to broadly match the 2.1 million sold in 2019, accounting for a record 3% of total global car sales, despite COVID-19 closures.
The COVID-19 pandemic caused numerous automotive OEMs to suspend operations in the early months of the outbreak due to supply chain issues as well as to adhere to government social distancing mandates. As a result, EV sales were forecast to fall 18% in 2020 globally according to a recent report from BNEF.
Estimates from the IEA report suggest that these numbers are compared to the total global passenger car sales, which are expected to decline by 15% this year based on data from January to April 2020.
As such, the IEA suggests that the number of EVs on the road will reach almost 10 million this year.
While second waves of the pandemic and slower-than-expected economic recovery could lead to different outcomes, government response to the pandemic and overall consumer attitudes will determine the overall market for EV sales in 2020 and beyond.
Over the past decade, except for 2019, global EV sales grew by at least 30%. In 2019, the market was impacted by 6% due to regulatory changes in China, the largest market for automotive sales in the world.
Still, EVs had a banner year in 2019, growing to 2.6% of the global car market.
China remained by far the largest EV market in the world, accounting for half of those sold in 2019.
More than one million EVs were sold in China in 2019, a 2% decrease from the previous year. The European market sold 561,000 cars in 2019 with the U.S. following with 327,000 cars sold.
In IEA’s sustainable development scenario, the global EV stock will grow annually at 36%, reaching 245 million vehicles in 2030 — more than 30 times above today’s sales.
By this time, EVs would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by almost half compared to equivalent internal combustion engine vehicles.
Source: Electronics360
A post-Coronavirus “lockdown” should be extended to fossil fuel consumption across all sectors of all economies if the world is to have any hope of achieving the sort of emission reductions required to stop catastrophic global warming, a new report says.
The latest annual Renewables Global Status Report from REN21, an independent policy organization, has marked another record-breaking year for renewable energy in 2019 – not least for Australia, which now ranks fifth-highest in the world for non-hydro renewables per capita.
Installed power capacity grew more than 200 gigawatts (GW) – its highest increase ever, and the private sector signed power purchase agreements (PPAs) for a record amount of renewables capacity, driven in large part by ongoing cost reductions in some technologies.
Wind and solar energy have become mainstream electricity sources, the report says, and nearly everywhere in the world producing electricity from new renewables is more cost-effective than producing it from new coal-fired power plants.
But this is not enough.
Rather, the report says, the journey towards climate disaster continues, unless there is an immediate switch to renewable resources and zero-emissions technologies in all sectors.
“Year after year, we report success after success in the renewable power sector,” said REN21’s executive director Rana Adib.
“Many national and global organizations already cry victory. But our report sends a clear warning: The progress in the power sector is only a small part of the picture… If we do not change the entire energy system, we are deluding ourselves.”
REN21, like numerous other research and policy groups in Australia and internationally, sees the global slowdown wrought by the Covid-19 pandemic as the ideal opportunity for a major re-think of how we fuel our future economies.
“Covid- 19 based stimulus should be invested in assisting the transition in industries other than power, such as manufacturing and transport and policies and power infrastructure needs upgrading,” the report says.
“But we are continuing to lock in fossil fuels despite record growth in renewables – the world is largely coasting on decisions made decades ago so a new push is needed.”
This is certainly the case in Australia, where another raft of federal stimulus spending was announced on Monday with only the slightest of greenish tinges – the promise to fast-track the development of a new power transmission link between Tasmania and the mainland.
Spending on incentives to drive the construction industry completely missed the opportunity to push for a higher standard of energy and thermal efficiency in Australian housing. And spending on transport fuel signals a deep-seated policy denial of the shift to electric vehicles.
All of this stands in stark contrast to Australia’s progress on renewable energy generation, which puts it in the global top 10 despite scanty federal policy support and the 2019 decline in investment.
In the non-hydro renewable stakes, Australia ranks among of top five countries in the world, for capacity per inhabitant – and second in the world for solar PV, alone.
Source: Reneweconomy
Global electricity consumption continues to increase faster than world population, leading to an increase in the average amount of electricity consumed per person (per capita electricity consumption), according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) International Energy Statistics.
Electricity is used most commonly in buildings for lighting and appliances, in industrial processes for producing goods, and in transportation for powering rail and light-duty vehicles. Nearly all of the increase is attributable to growing electricity consumption in developing countries outside the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Increases in per capita electricity consumption reflect possible changes in the composition of the economy, such as shifts to more energy-intensive industries, and changes in service demand, such as growing demand for air conditioning and appliances.
The increase in consumption from these factors is partially offset by efficiency measures, such as more efficient lighting. Regionally, per capita electricity consumption in a number of countries has been affected by outsourcing energy-intensive industries to other countries. In the United States, total electricity consumption has risen slightly since the early 2000s, but electricity consumption per person decreased by nearly 7% between 2000 and 2017 because of improvements in energy efficiency and changes in the economy that have resulted in less electricity use per unit of economic output (as measured by gross domestic product, or GDP).
Growth in global electricity consumption is related to economic growth, but the relationship differs, depending on the country. Per person economic growth can occur independently of growth in per person electricity usage in countries with large, developed economies; largely satisfied residential electricity demand; and relatively smaller portions of economic growth coming from industrial production. Producing a service with greater economic value does not necessarily require any more electricity than a lower-value service.
In countries with rapidly growing residential electricity consumption and growing energy-intensive activities, electricity use tends to more closely correspond to growth in economic activity. Per capita electricity growth in the economies of less developed non-OECD countries has more than doubled between 2000 and 2017, compared with a nearly flat trend in the economies of more developed OECD countries.
At the national level, average per capita electricity consumption values can mask the large variation within a country. For example, the United States population averaged nearly 12,000 kilowatthours (kWh) of electricity consumption per person in 2017, but on a state basis, annual per capita electricity consumption ranged from more than 25,000 kWh in states such as Wyoming and North Dakota to less than 7,000 kWh in states such as Hawaii and California.
Source: EIA
The European Commission aims to promote so-called “green” hydrogen produced from renewable electricity over the “grey” sort obtained from natural gas steam reforming, according to a leaked policy document obtained by EURACTIV.
The Commission has made hydrogen “a central element” of plans to decarbonise industry, announcing it will launch a “Clean Hydrogen Alliance” after the summer break in a bid to build a full supply chain in Europe.
Germany, which takes over the EU’s rotating presidency in July, has taken the lead on the issue, a outlining a €7 billion plan earlier this month to promote “green” hydrogen at gigawatt scale.
“Hydrogen is one of the enablers in the context of the Green Deal for decarbonising sectors like chemical industry, steel industry and transport,” the Commission document states, listing the industrial sectors where future demand for hydrogen is expected to be highest.
Now, the EU executive intends to spell out what is meant by “clean hydrogen” and put together a “strategic outlook” for the development of “a hydrogen economy in Europe,” according to the title of the draft strategy. The European Commission declined to comment on the leaked document, saying it was still subject to change. And the version obtained by EURACTIV appears to be at a relatively early stage, with numerous bullet points and incomplete sentences.
Still, the document is outspoken about the key objectives of the strategy, which aren’t expected to change radically in the final version, expected on 8 July.
From the outset, it says the EU’s “clear priority” is to develop green hydrogen “as soon as possible” in order to advance the bloc’s long-term decarbonisation agenda. And while the EU executive seems ready to accept that “blue” hydrogen – obtained from natural gas with carbon capture and storage – “will play a role in the transition” to a fully renewables-based hydrogen economy, it is categorical in rejecting the “grey” sort produced from fossil gas.
The hydrogen strategy will be presented on 8 July in the European Parliament, alongside a related initiative to integrate the various components of the energy system where hydrogen is also expected to play a key role, a Commission spokesperson told EURACTIV.
Source: Euractiv
Working from home can save energy and reduce emissions. But how much?
As the Covid-19 crisis spread around the world, large numbers of people started working from home, with immediate and varied impacts on energy use. Oil demand shrank but residential electricity use surged. Companies such as Google and Facebook announced they would allow staff members to work remotely until at least the beginning of next year, while Twitter said its employees could continue working from home indefinitely. This raises the question of what the implications would be for energy use and greenhouse gas emissions if a significant amount of people continued regularly working from home in the years to come.
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