2Sustain

We’ve known for years that smart grid management is important.

A new report shows just how significant updating the grid can be.

As remarkable as it sounds, the report, ‘Battle of the Grids,’ produced by engineering consultancy Energynautics on behalf of Greenpeace, concludes that Europe can convert to almost entirely renewable energy-supplied electricity by 2050 using smart grid management.

More specifically, the report uses extensive computer modeling to show that:

1. Large-scale integration of renewable electricity in the European grid (68 percent by 2030 and a whopping 99.5 percent by 2050) is both technically and economically feasible with a high level of security of supply, even under the most extreme climatic conditions with low wind and low solar radiation.

2. Of course, this type of integration would require significant changes in the energy mix. For instance, in the model presented in the report, by 2030, gas plants provide most of the non-renewable electricity and serve as a flexible backup for wind and solar power. Then, between 2030 and 2050, natural gas as a fuel is phased out, as are 90 percent of the existing coal and nuclear plants.
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Last week, US Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced a detailed draft environmental analysis that identifies public lands best-suited for solar development in six western states.

The study, called the Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), was compiled over the past two years as part of the Obama Administration’s efforts to create a framework for developing renewable energy on America’s public lands. More specifically, the Draft Solar PEIS assessed the environmental, social, and economic impacts associated with solar energy development on Bureau of Land Management (BLM) administered areas in Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah.

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Since 2003, the Ernst & Young Energy and Environmental Infrastructure Advisory team has been releasing quarterly data that ranks national renewable energy markets, and their suitability for individual technologies.

The latest edition of the Carbon Capture and Storage Country Attractiveness Index was released last month, and it shows that: (more…)

Last week, California regulators approved a new standard that would require one-third of the electricity sold in the state in 2020 come from clean, green sources of energy.

Adopted unanimously by the California Air Resources Board (ARB), this groundbreaking Renewable Electricity Standard is now the most ambitious standard in the US. According to the ARB, it will help to:

• promote green jobs to construct and run renewable facilities in California,

• reduce hundreds of tons of harmful air pollution,

• reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about the equivalent of 12 to 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide per year in 2020,

• insulate California’s economy from the shock of volatile natural gas prices,

• and help establish the state as a global leader in the research, development and manufacturing of clean, renewable energy sources.

The new standard: (more…)

Officials from 24 governments met in Washington, D.C. last week for the first-ever Clean Energy Ministerial, and they launched 11 initiatives to accelerate the global transition to clean energy.

In broad terms, these initiatives will: (more…)