05/08/2019
News
Ilaria Valtimora
WILL GERMAN WIND GRIND TO A SHUDDERING HALT?by Ilaria ValtimoraGermany’s wind sector could come to a halt soon if the government doesn’t act fast. And no, we aren’t being melodramatic.
WindEurope last month released data about installations across Europe for the first six months of the year. This showed that Germany installed only 287MW of onshore wind capacity in that period, which makes it th ...
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02/08/2019
News
Ilaria Valtimora
AEP SEEKS TO AVOID WIND CATCHER REPEAT IN NEW OKLAHOMA PLANby Richard HeapI’d be a terrible ‘Love Island’ contestant. And no, it’s not just because I look awful in swimming trunks and am completely lacking in tribal-effect tattoos. I just wouldn’t be able to deal with the constant social media hatred. I’m not built well to take hatred.
I know this because of how I obsessed over a few mildly cri ...
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31/07/2019
News
Ilaria Valtimora
POLAND PLANS 2.5GW AUCTION – BUT WILL IT TEMPT INVESTORS?by Richard Heap
Five years ago, Poland was one of the most promising new markets in Europe for onshore wind investors. Then it wasn’t, as political changes led to policy shifts that pushed the market off a cliff. And now the government is wooing investors again.
We wrote about this last October after energy minister Krzysztof Tchorzew ...
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29/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
UPHEAVAL IN INDIA PUTS $3BN INVESTMENT AT RISKby Ilaria Valtimora
The new government of Indian state Andhra Pradesh has decided that it wants to cut the tariffs that its predecessors agreed for wind and solar projects.
As Bloomberg reported on 19th July, the state has written to firms including ReNew Power, Greenko Group and Mytrah Energy, as well as state-owned grid operators including NTP ...
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26/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
GERMAN SLUMP SHOWS WHY THE EUROPEAN WIND INDUSTRY NEEDS LEADERSby Richard Heap
The wind industry in Germany is begging for mercy, and for Merkel.
Competitive auctions and a lack of certainty over future wind targets have left companies uncertain about where growth is to come from. Firms in Germany completed only 252MW of onshore wind in the first six months of 2019, the worst half-yearly fi ...
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24/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
THE CLOCK IS TICKING FOR VINEYARD WINDby Richard Heap
New York last week picked Ørsted and Eversource's 880MW project Sunrise Wind and Equinor's 812MW Empire Wind as the winners in its first offshore wind procurement. This again shows the excitement about US offshore wind.
However, for one of its key projects, the clock is ticking.
This month, we’ve seen a string of worrying stories comi ...
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22/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
ELECTRIC CARS AND WIND FARMS: ARE WE AT THE START OF A CONSUMER-LED REVOLUTION?by Ilaria Valtimora
Last month, the UK committed to cut its greenhouse gas emissions to net zero by 2050, up from a previous target of an 80% reduction over the same period.
This means all emissions from homes, transport and industry will have to be cut or offset within the next 30 years. This has made the UK the ...
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19/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
DOES NEW VESTAS DEAL SHOW THAT IT'S WIND'S TIME TO SHINE IN SAUDI ARABIA?by Richard Heap“History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.”
We’ve all heard this quote from Karl Marx. We’ve all read it as the clichéd opening to a hundred comment pieces.
And it’s fine as far as it goes. But Karl, what does history repeat itself as after those two? Satire? Restoration comedy? Musical the ...
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17/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
NEGATIVE BID TALK RECEDES AS VATTENFALL CONCLUDES DUTCH DOUBLEby Richard Heap
We know hindsight is 20/20. That’s why I’ll treat sceptically any commentary about why the result of the latest Dutch offshore tender was so predictable.
Here’s that result in case you missed it.
Last Wednesday, the Dutch government picked the Swedish utility Vattenfall to develop the 760MW Hollandse Kust Zuid ...
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15/07/2019
News
Richard Heap
WHAT IS A PROXY GENERATION PPA?by Ilaria Valtimora
Power purchase agreements are a key driver for the construction of large-scale wind projects, in particular in the US. That has become clearer in the last year.
The number of buyers of wind and solar energy in the States jumped from 31 in 2017 to 75 last year, and contracted volumes rose from 2.8GW to 6.5GW.
This incredible appetite has ...
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