“To date the EU has never published a full jobs audit of its budget, despite spending nearly €1 trillion between 2007 and 2014. Our report  will help policy makers consider the optimal solutions in job creation through the budget.” Pretty shocking, eh?

You can download PDFs here:

•  Investing for the future: More Jobs out of a green EU budget (PDF 1.16 MB)
•  Evaluating the Potential for Green Jobs in the next Multi-annual Financial Framework (full report) (PDF 557 KB)

*The new report was commissioned by WWF, BirdLife Europe, CEE Bankwatch Network, European Environmental Bureau, Friends of the Earth Europe, and Transport and the Environment.

No related posts.

by Melanie Hart

The U.S. Department of Commerce next month is expected to issue a critical ruling on one of the biggest trade cases to hit the U.S.-China energy relationship in recent years. Seven U.S.solar companies claim that the Chinese government unfairly subsidizes Chinese solar panel manufacturers to enable those companies to sell their products at below-market prices and drive U.S. competitors out of the market. The seven companies support subsidy and dumping petitions filed by SolarWorld Industries America Inc. against Chinese solar imports in October that ask the Commerce Department to levy triple-digit tariffs on solar cells and modules imported from China.

This case highlights a major challenge facing U.S.-China clean energy relationships more broadly: how to handle the Chinese government’s deployment of massive resources toward developing renewable energy technologies, many of which are designed for export. Indeed, this is an issue that bedevils U.S.-China trade relations not just in clean energy, but also in other industrial and services sectors, which means that how this complaint by U.S. solar manufacturers plays out may well have much broader implications.

One of the biggest challenges facing renewable energy in the United States is that traditional fossil fuels are cheaper here than they are in almost any other developed country. This is primarily due to the large supply of fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas in our nation, as well as a long history of federal government subsidies for developing those energy sources. The United States has also failed to put a carbon price on fossil fuels, so U.S. fossil-fuel prices do not include the environmental and public-health damage from greenhouse-gas pollution. Relatively low fossil-fuel prices make it particularly hard for renewable energy to compete against conventional energy in the U.S. market.

Nonetheless, over the past decade U.S. companies have gotten much better at manufacturing, deploying, and operating renewable energy technologies, and as a result prices are coming down rapidly. As prices decrease renewable energy gains market share and speeds our transition toward a more sustainable energy economy.

The problem is China is particularly good at making things cheaply. At the lower end of the value chain, that is primarily due to the country’s low labor costs and massive supply chains. Also advantageous are China’s lax labor, safety, health, and environmental standards. At the higher end, that is often because the Chinese government provides generous subsidies and other forms of support for high-technology research, development, and commercialization. Low-cost Chinese manufacturing plays a large role in driving prices down for a wide range of products, including renewable energy technologies. Chinese manufacturing also plays a large role in pricing some U.S. manufacturers out of business, with many of those manufacturersclaiming that the “China price” is driven by Chinese government intervention rather than natural market forces. If the Chinese government is intervening in a way that breaks trade rules then that type of rule breaking should be remedied in some way.

Determining whether China is playing by the rules requires taking a close look at their renewable energy policies—not only at the national level but also at the provincial and local levels.

Those policies are often difficult to parse because China’s economic system is not like that of the United States. It is a nonmarket economy with a top-down, command-and-control energy planning process that is often nontransparent with even more opaque interactions between the central government in Beijing and the provincial and local governments when these policies are implemented. All this makes it very difficult to figure out whether the country is abiding by international trade rules.

The United States has much to gain from cooperating with China on clean energy. As the world’s fastest- and largest-growing energy market, China is an ideal testing ground for scaling up and commercializing clean energy technologies. Combining our two energy markets increases economies of scale to bring down costs for consumers in both countries.

But the China we are dealing with today is not the same China we were dealing with 10 years ago. We are accustomed to China focusing on low-end manufacturing and using their cost advantages to make U.S.-designed consumer electronics and other low-end products cheaper and faster. Now China is moving up the value chain to higher-end technology. They are aiming to compete with us in highly engineered, capital-intensive industries such as solar photovoltaic, or PV, systems, where the United States has long enjoyed a comparative advantage.

In short, instead of serving as the low-cost workshop for U.S. companies, China is aiming to capture the parts of the product and services value chain that we are used to dominating.

The United States should not shrink from that challenge. Our firms are generating the best high-end technologies in the world, and we have a skilled workforce that is hard to beat. A rising China is not a reason for us to close off our clean energy markets and forfeit the benefits we can get from bilateral trade and other forms of collaboration. This relationship is only a win-win, however, if we compete with the Chinese on a level play- ing field, which is proving to be the biggest challenge.

Ensuring that the Chinese play by the rules will require more policy coordination on these types of bilateral trade disputes here in the United States. The Obama administration’s new trade enforcement initiative is a critical step in that direction. But it is only a first step. This issue brief will give an overview of the current solar PV trade dispute to highlight the larger challenges we face.

China’s energy economy is a massive command-and-control juggernaut, and our energy companies are often forced to choose between letting a variety of trade problems slide versus squaring off against that system on their own. Ensuring the U.S. government recognizes and addresses that imbalance at the federal level vis-à-vis China will be critical for keeping the U.S.-China clean energy partnership moving in a positive direction.

The United States will also have to do a better job coordinating trade enforcement at the international level because multilateral pressure is increasingly needed to make the Chinese government adhere to global norms and rules. Since China’s trade policies are also harming clean energy exporters in many other countries—particularly in Europe— the United States should have plenty of partners to work with.

The global solar PV market and China’s manufacturing rise

The current trade case focuses on crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules, which convert sunlight into electrical energy. The demand for these PV solar cells and modules is driven by the demand for solar panel installations. Solar technology has expanded rapidly in recent years due to the increasing interest in low-emissions technology and the declining costs of solar cells. Since it is a newer technology, however, it is still generally more expensive to deploy than natural gas or coal, at least in the short term. Most countries already have extensive infrastructure to support coal, but solar infrastructure is still underdeveloped so solar prices have to include infrastructure development and capital costs. Due to those additional costs, the price differential for solar panels over the past decade has been driven primarily by government subsidies to boost deployment of solar energy.

In Europe many of those subsidies are in the form of a “feed-in tariff,” which requires utilities to purchase solar energy at prices that are higher than what the utility is paying for conventional fossil energy. Germany launched the first major nationwide solar feed-in tariff in 2004, and other European countries followed suit. In contrast the United States has tended to pass renewable electricity standards, which set an overall goal for utilities in a certain state or city to produce a certain amount of electricity using renewable sources. Twenty-nine U.S. states now have these policies.

Before 2004 global solar panel demand was relatively low, and there were no strong incentives to produce solar equipment for export. Starting in 2004, however, global demand increasedexponentially, particularly in Europe, which caught the attention of equipment manufacturers worldwide. Chinese firms in particular saw a new export opportunity and started manufacturing solar panels for Europe and other overseas markets.

Chinese manufacturers entered the global market in 2004. By 2007 China had become the world’s largest solar cell production country. By 2008 they were the largest solar panel producer in the world. By 2010 they controlled almost half of the global market, up from just 15 percent in 2006. (see Figure 1)

As they have in many other sectors, Chinese enterprises took over the global solar manufacturing market by competing on price.

U.S. trade allegations and China’s response

The “China price” is the focus of the current trade case. The solar PV petition claims that the Chinese government unfairly subsidizes Chinese solar panel manufacturers by providing land, electricity, material inputs, and financing at below-market rates, as well as direct financial support and other preferential policies. The petition says those subsidies are designed to artificially suppress Chinese manufacturing costs and drive foreign competitors out of the market.

China certainly has a host of policies designed to spur indigenous innovation across a wide range of clean energy technologies including solar.[1] At the national level Chinese leaders define clean energy as their “historic opportunity” to finally gain a dominant market position in a critical technology sector. Green energy is one of seven strategic industries that Beijing strongly supports with state financial resources and other preferential policies such as tax breaks.

Since Beijing prioritizes clean energy development, provincial and local governments have a strong incentive to develop their own support policies. Some local officials simply implement national directives such as the Ministry of Finance directives calling on local financial bureaus to raise and distribute green energy development funds. Other local governments see clean energy as a prime growth opportunity and go well beyond national policy requirements in an attempt to turn their provinces into clean energy manufacturing hubs.

Case in point: Jiangsu Province has particularly aggressive solar development policies. Jiangsu’s 2009 three-year solar PV development plan set ambitious targets for solar-module production and called on local officials to cultivate name-brand products and internationally competitive enterprises by providing state assistance for product development and supply-chain verticalization.[2] The result is a province responsible for two-thirds of China’s total solar PV equipment production in 2010—more than 90 percent of those products were exported to overseas markets.[3]

Subsidy programs are not necessarily anti-competitive. Green energy is an emerging technology sector, and policy assistance is often required to help new technologies compete with existing market alternatives—especially when the existing alternatives such as coalalready receive explicit and implicit public subsidies. We have similar green energy programs here in the United States.

What the U.S. trade petition claims, however, is that China’s subsidies are designed not just to support infant industries but also to undercut competitors so that China’s domes- tic enterprises can take over a larger share of the global market. The solar PV trade petition claims that the subsidies provided to Chinese manufacturers are “countervailable,” which means they artificially suppress Chinese manufacturing costs to enable Chinese companies to sell their products at non-market prices that U.S. companies cannot match. If the Chinese government is indeed using subsidies for that purpose then it is a market- distorting tactic that violates a host of trade rules—not only World Trade Organization subsidy rules but also domestic trade legislation here in the United States.

The solar petitions also include allegations that China is “dumping” in the U.S. market. “Dumping” is the practice of selling goods in the United States at less than home market price or cost of production. Dumping is also prohibited by the WTO agreements and by U.S. law, if it results in material injury to a competing U.S. industry.

The Chinese dispute those allegations. When interviewed for this issue brief in Beijing recently, Chinese analysts all claimed China’s low solar PV prices are due to a combination of China’s comparative advantages in manufacturing and, particularly over the past few years, excess capacity and market-induced inventory clearing. According to the Chinese manufacturers, soaring demand growth between 2008 and 2010 (see Figure 2 below) made solar manufacturing look like a golden opportunity, and as a result hundreds of private Chinese enterprises dove into the sector throughout 2010 and early 2011.

Even Chinese leather companies dove into the market by opening up solar manufacturing subsidiaries.[4] Chinese energy analysts call these manufacturers “bantu chujia,” which roughly translates to “halfway monk,” or someone who takes up something new with- out committing to it completely and without acquiring the necessary expertise.[5]

Then the pace of global market growth slowed significantly—from almost 140 percent growth in 2010 to around 17 percent in 2011. Chinese firms claim the multitude of new entrants flooded the market with excess capacity, and Chinese manufacturers were forced to price solar modules below market value to clear inventories, thus triggering a steep price drop that damaged profits not only in the United States but also in China.

Unfortunately, parsing out how much of the China price is due to market forces versus anti-competitive government subsidies is extremely difficult. The reason: China’s subsidy programs are often nontransparent, particularly at the provincial and local levels. It is very common, for example, for local officials to provide land, electricity, and other resources at below-market rates to attract economic development (and the associated tax revenue) even when the central government does not support those tactics.

Loan subsidization is also common. China’s tier-one manufacturers claim they are paying market interest rates for their massive and controversial China Development Bank loan guarantees, but some local governments reportedly reimburse those companies for most of their interest payments, thus reducing the effective interest rate to nearly zero (or, depending on inflation, possibly even below zero). In many cases local governments provide these supportive measures on a case-by-case basis instead of via clear development policies that apply to all firms across the board. These measures can make China’s local level clean energy support programs very difficult to measure.

China’s national leaders often struggle among themselves to get an accurate picture of what their local level officials are doing. Indeed, national level officials complain that local level economic growth statistics are often fabricated. When even Beijing has a hard time tracking local activity, it is almost impossible for foreign observers to do so in a systematic fashion, and that can create confusion here in the United States.

The bigger question

How to deal with China’s ambitious green technology development policies

The Department of Commerce is investigating this solar PV case and will soon announce whether they have found sufficient evidence to levy trade remedies. Commerce investigators are tracing the financial and policy support the Chinese government provides to Chinese solar manufacturers, and the U.S. International Trade Commission will try to determine to what degree that support decreases Chinese manufacturing prices and damages U.S. manufacturers.

The Department of Commerce is expected to issue a preliminary subsidy determination in early March and a preliminary anti-dumping determination several weeks later. If the ongoing investigations find Chinese trade violations, then that preliminary announcement will likely include a plan to levy tariffs against Chinese imports. It is possible that once the Chinese government realizes tariffs are imminent they will try to negotiate a settlement—they may offer to halt the contested subsidies or take other action to get SolarWorld to drop the case.

That is how China responded to the September 2010 WTO complaint by the United Steelworkers about Chinese government subsidies to wind equipment manufacturers. Some U.S. solar companies—particularly the companies that already have purchasing agreements with Chinese solar manufacturers—are hoping that this case will end in a negotiated settlement instead of import tariffs.

No matter how this particular dispute ends, however, there is a much bigger underlying issue here that we must not overlook. Over the past three decades, China’s role in the global economy has primarily been as a low-value-added manufacturer. Now the Chinese want tomove up the value chain to increase profit margins and play a more dominant role in higher-end global technology markets. Specifically, they want to supply the United States with higher-value-added technologies, particularly clean energy technologies. And the Chinese government is dedicating a huge amount of state resources to help their enterprises achieve that goal.

China’s technology ambitions can be a good thing for the United States, particularly in renewable energy. Our two countries are the world’s biggest energy consumers, and open competition between our massive energy markets can fuel innovation, bring clean energy prices down, and speed both of our country’s transitions toward a more sustainable energy economy.

But here’s the rub. China is a non-market economy with a less-than-transparent energy planning process. This makes it very hard to identify when the Chinese cross the line from market competition (which we want to encourage) to anti-competitive behavior (which we should fight back against).

We already know that the Chinese government sometimes tries to skirt trade rules. When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, the government pledged to submit required reports on specific national and regional subsidy programs every two years, but it has not abided by that pledge. Over the past 10 years it has only issued two reports. The first, in April 2006, covered some subsidies from 2001 to 2004, and that report was incomplete because it only included national subsidies not sub-national programs. The Chinese government submitted a second notification in October 2011, but again did not include sub-national programs—even though China has clear obligations to do so.

Because China has not submitted these reports as promised, it makes it more difficult for U.S. companies to examine Chinese policy programs and determine whether they are rule-abiding or anti-competitive. Furthermore, since government transparency is a major problem in China across the board, even when U.S. companies are willing to spend their own resources to collect that data, it is extremely hard to do. This gives China a lot of maneuvering room to enact programs that erode U.S. competitiveness.

Clearly the Chinese government needs to do more to comply with these trade rules, and the U.S. government—and the global community as a whole—needs to do more to enforce that compliance.

We have two dispute-resolution systems specifically designed to handle company complaints about apparently anti-competitive trade practices—the anti-dumping and countervailing dutymechanisms here in the United States and the WTO process at the international level. But filing a formal complaint is costly in both cases. Some U.S. manufacturers may not be willing to invest in expensive legal fees, particularly if—due to the transparency issue—they themselves are not certain whether the China price is market-based or government-induced.

For those companies who are actually doing business directly with China, retaliation is another concern. Officials at U.S. Office of the Trade Representative, or USTR, frequently complain that although U.S. companies share information about Chinese rule breaking privately, most are unwilling to file formal complaints because they suspect the Chinese will retaliate with punitive market access reductions. In the current dispute SolarWorld Industries America Inc., the domestic unit of the German company SolarWorld AG, was the only one of the seven solar companies willing to state its support for the case publicly. The other six companies remained anonymous due to fears that China would retaliate.

Retaliation can also spread beyond the actual petitioners to harm the U.S. economy more broadly. In the current case, for example, trade remedies that spark Chinese retaliation could also harm U.S. companies selling clean technology inputs to China. Chinese manufacturers have already targeted upstream solar suppliers by calling on their own Commerce Ministry to initiate an investigation into U.S. subsidies and dumping for polysilicon exports to China.

China could retaliate by blocking market access as well. In private conversations many U.S.-based polysilicon and solar manufacturing equipment suppliers say that in the current trade case, retaliatory market access limitations are a major concern. Many U.S. solar industry suppliers fear that if the Commerce Department levies tariffs against Chinese manufacturers, then those manufacturers will immediately start buy- ing upstream products from other countries instead of from the United States. Some Chinese companies are apparently already inserting escape clauses into their purchasing contracts to pave the way for that switch.

If U.S. companies do face retaliatory measures from the Chinese, that would be a trade violation, and they can certainly file another round of formal complaints. But retaliation can be difficult to prove because it can be difficult to prove why a Chinese customer switched from a U.S. supplier to a European one. What’s more, successive rounds of trade disputes over switching customers would be a massive economic drain on U.S. companies.

The flip side of retaliation is coercion—in the form of required technology transfer to enter the Chinese marketplace and access the country’s cheap labor, its booming domestic market, and the many government subsidy programs that are available to companies. Technology transfer is frequently part of global trade deals, but the Chinese government often carries it too far by blatantly pressuring foreign companies to share proprietary engineering information for the types of high-end technology products Chinese firms are struggling to develop themselves. This can lead to intellectual property theft, which again harms U.S. companies and erodes U.S. competitiveness.

To move forward the U.S. government will have to do a better job at dealing with these threats to U.S. companies operating in China or exporting there. We need to understand and then act upon the reality that the Chinese economy does not operate like ours. The U.S. economy is a decentralized, market-based system without top-down economic planning. Chinese leaders, in contrast, run their economy with top-down development plans that put a lot of government support behind critical industries such as clean energy. Those top-down directives then metastasize at the provincial and local levels into myriad programs and policies that are all but impossible to discern.

That difference can sometimes mean that when problems arise, individual U.S. companies and industries are forced to choose between letting apparent rule breaking slide versus squaring off against China’s massive administrative state at the national, provincial, and local level. Both options erode U.S. company profits, but in an era where China is a global economic powerhouse, many U.S. companies decide that the first strategy—tacit accommodation—is likely to result in the least damage.

Over time tacit accommodation can erode U.S. competitiveness. To avoid that we need to find ways to lower the costs of monitoring this bilateral relationship to make sure Chinese enterprises and officials play by the rules and compete with U.S. companies on an even playing field. Doing so will require a shift from the current strategy that places our primary enforcement efforts on the backs of individual U.S. companies, some of which—like many renewable energy companies—are in emerging industries that lack the political leverage to do battle with the Chinese.

The best way to address this problem is to improve trade policy coordination at home. Beijing is very adept at “divide-and-conquer” tactics. In the foreign policy realm, Chinese leaders are well aware that if they can maneuver other countries to deal with them bilaterally, China will have more negotiating leverage than it would against a united multilateral group. China wants to use the same tactics against U.S. companies— maneuvering them to square off one by one against the massive Chinese state.

The U.S. government needs to do a better job making sure that this approach is not effective. In 2010 the USTR took a critical step in that direction with a year-long program to monitor Chinese government support for Chinese companies competing against the United States in clean energy. USTR also surveyed China’s subsidy programs across the board, uncovering around 200 different programs that violated WTO rules.

USTR notified the Chinese government of these alleged violations and also submitted a list of Chinese subsidies to the WTO. That step does not automatically trigger a WTO investigation, but it does require China to provide more information about the USTR- contested subsidy programs. It also makes the USTR findings available to other countries, which can help increase multilateral pressure against this type of rule breaking. If the Chinese government fails to respond to USTR notification by providing detailed information on their subsidy programs, then USTR may escalate by submitting a complaint to the WTO Subsidies Committee.

These information-gathering and notification procedures call international and domesticpolitical attention to Chinese rule breaking. They also lay the groundwork for the United States to file additional trade complaints and levy additional tariffs against Chinese imports, which should give the Chinese government stronger incentives to comply with the rules.

It is important to note that the USTR subsidy survey did not require specific U.S. companies to file formal petitions and act as intermediaries, a role that can often turn them into sacrificial lambs. Instead the Obama administration kicked off this investigation proactively when it launched the National Export Initiative in early 2010. That initiative ordered USTR and the Commerce Department to pay closer attention to foreign government subsidies that erode U.S. competitiveness, particularly vis-a-vis Chinese manufacturers.

Then there is the new Trade Enforcement Unit announced by President Barack Obama in his recent State of the Union speech. The president said the new unit will bring together key U.S. trade officials from the departments of the Treasury, Commerce, Energy, and USTR (under Michael Froman, deputy national security adviser for International Economic Affairs) to better coordinate U.S. trade actions against China. That unit will reportedly also consider asking the Commerce Department to initiate countervailing duty and anti-dumping cases itself on behalf of U.S. industries rather than waiting for companies to file individual petitions.

In theory this approach should go a long way toward balancing the interests of U.S. companies against Chinese government involvement in these disputes, thereby eliminating the burden on U.S. companies for initiating these actions and reducing the possibility of retaliation by the Chinese against individual U.S. companies. If this unit also directs more federal government time and resources toward monitoring Chinese government behavior—flagging apparent trade violations and raising formal complaints with the WTO—then this approach may also enable the United States to better enforce Chinese compliance with basic WTO rules.

We also need to make sure we are investing in the foundations of innovation here in the United States to give our companies the policy environment they need to remain competitive against a rising China. It is inevitable that there will be some global economic reshuffling as China moves up the economic ladder, but we can gain a lot of benefits from that process if handled well. China’s growing domestic market, for example, can be a major new source of consumers for U.S. products, but we have to make sure that we do not cede critical American jobs to the Chinese—in solar manufacturing as in other U.S. industries—just because we were lax on the policy side.

Conclusion

China’s focus on renewable energy and high technology is here to stay. That can be a great thing for the United States. Chinese competition can give U.S. companies stronger incentives for innovation and can help bring down renewable energy prices to better compete with traditional fossil fuels. Combining our two markets can also increase demand for U.S. clean energy products and provide exactly the types of higher-paying jobs that we need to restore our economy to sustainable, broad-based economic growth.

This relationship is only a win-win, however, if our companies have a level playing field, and more work is needed to achieve that goal. The Obama administration’s new trade enforcement initiative is a great start in the right direction. Other steps may be identified once the new Trade Enforcement Unit is up and running—steps both bilateral and international in scope that can help the United States and China better manage this critical bilateral trade relationship for the benefit of the global economy.

Melanie Hart is a Policy Analyst on China Energy and Climate Policy at the Center for American Progress. This piece was originally published at the Center for American Progress website.

Endnotes

[1]. “Guo jia zhong chang qi ke xue he ji shu fa zhan gui hua gang yao (2006-2020)” (Guidelines for the National Medium- and Long- Term Science and Technology Development Program, 2006-2020), PRC State Council, February 2006, available at http://www.gov. cn/jrzg/2006-02/09/content_183787.htm.

[2]. “Jiangsu sheng guang fu fa dian tui jin yi jian” (Jiangsu Province Opinions for Advancing Solar PV Generation), Jiangsu Sheng Fagaiwei (Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission), June 30, 2009, available at http://www.carcu.org/html/ zhengcefagui/20090702/2974.html.

[3]. “Guang fu chan ye zai wai shou zhi yu ren qi neng rang han dong leng le yang guang?” (Solar PV Industry Suffering Restraints Abroad: How to Shine Light on the Cold Winter?), Zhongguo Huanjing Bao (China Environment Report), December 31, 2011, avail- able at http://ditan360.com/NengYuan/Info-98515.html.

[4]. Xu Meng, “Guo nei guang fu chan ye cheng xian jing pen ren ren zheng gan tai yang neng sheng yan” (“Domestic Solar PV Industry Becomes a Gold Rush: Everyone Rushing to Join Solar Energy Feast”), Jiefang Ribao (Liberation Daily), February 23, 2011, available at http://www.chinanews.com/ny/2011/02-23/2861583.shtml.

[5]. Ibid.

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1. China-US Solar Trade War Has Complex Arguments
2. China, Beneficiary of EU’s Cap & Trade, Now Shirks its Responsibilities
3. Obama: Looking into China’s Solar Trade Practices (Video)

Here’s more from the UK’s ecotricity (fun Facebook page here) on what this video is all about:

It’s time to move on. Our country, and all of us, need to move from a fossil fuel past to a renewable energy future.

The mood in Britain has turned very much against the Big Six energy companies. And it’s not hard to see why. People are fed up with the unethical pricing, complex tariffs, awful customer service and the dire lack of investment in new sources of green energy.

It’s become quite unbearable, self evidently. Even the government are calling on people to leave the Big Six.

People:Power can bring change to the energy sector — when people join Ecotricity they vote with their energy bills — and the more that do so the better. Together we can harness the energy bills of Britain and direct them to a proper outcome — the creation of a Green, energy independent Britain — a Green Britain.

That’s via the YouTube page for the video above. If I were in Britain, I think I’d be looking to switch.

Aside from a link to the pages above, there’s a link to Zerocarbonista on that YouTube page — looks like its the blog of the man behind ecotricity.

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The AORA Tulip was launched Feb 7, 2012 in Almeria, Spain

I had the privilege of being at the unveiling of the first hybrid modular concentrated solar power (CSP) system to operate in Europe. AORA had developed and launched this incredible  “Tulip System” – located at the expansive Platforma Solar de Almeria (PSA) outside the southern Spanish city of Almeria. This appealing renewable energy infrastructure using modular and affordable CSP systems, can be deployed either off-grid or on the grid.

Four things are particularly impressive regarding the launch of this particular CSP platform:

• The electricity generated from this system is regarded as “utility-grade” energy
• The system will distribute clean electricity 24/7
• In the absence of sunshine, electricity is still generated
• The entire plant is a compact modular design

As Pinchas Doron, AORA’s chief technology officer, said, “It’s not a power plant, it’s an energy solution.” This technology is unprecedented and may be the solution to numerous energy requirements worldwide.

Tulip’s solar thermal technology has been configured in compact, modular units of 100kWe each. The net result is a scalable model, which can be configured for many different applications, and budgets.

As Donon pointed out, developers will be able to build renewable energy solutions in phases, without having to go through extraordinary financial stages required for building most renewable energy systems, especially ones that can deliver utility grade electricity.

AORA puts it this way:

“The modularity of the system enables a constant supply of electricity, even while individual units are undergoing repairs or routine maintenance.”

The Tulip can operate 24/7 by using alternative fuels to continue powering the micro turbine housed on the inside of the tulip. As such, quick response heat augmentation provides a constant in heat input to the turbine that produces electricity.

The Tulip is fed by 52 tracking mirrors – commonly referred to as heliostats – which are located on 2,000 square meters, or about half an acre. The tower has a height of 35 meters (about 120 feet).

The Tulip may be a first for Europe but a predecessor to the Almeria platform already operates in Israel and feeds power to the grid, says Doron.

More will be written in coming issues about the impressive Tulip system, including detailed looks at how this solar technology operates, how much it costs, and where it might next be seen.

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Restoring Depleted Soil with a Biofuel Crop

The biofuel company we featured last week, TerViva, got back to us with a note that they’ll be establishing their special strain of Pongamia in “abused” former pineapple plantations, where the trees will help replenish nutrients in the soil with their nitrogen-fixing ability. That underscores the potential for biofuel crops to play a role in soil restoration projects on lands that are no longer fit to grow food, rather than competing for land with food crops.

Biofuels, Bovines and Honeybees

TerViva also noted that cattle will happily eat the nitrogen-rich grass around pongam trees but they are not interested in the leaves, so there is a potential for farmers to extract a bit of extra value from a pongam grove by doubling it up as a grazing area for livestock, without fear of having their crop devoured. According to researchers at the University of Queensland, honeybees like the pollen from pongam blossoms, enabling farmers with an apiary to squeeze out a little extra value, too.

Saving Land…Or Blowing it Up

Pongam trees can provide shade and stabilization for weakened lands while providing oil-rich seeds for decades, to say nothing of the aforementioned feast for cattle, bees, and other co-existent wildlife (pongam trees are pest-resistant, by the way). This benign and productive harvest is quite a contrast with fossil fuels, which aside from the risk posed by spills, accidents or leaking pipelines can, in the case of tar sands oil and mountaintop removal coal mining, involve harvesting methods that by nature destroy everything in their path.

A Pongam Tree in Every Pot

For now, TerViva is focusing on introducing pongam trees into Citrus Belt states such as southern Texas, Florida, and Hawaii. Pongam trees are not naturally cold tolerant, but

TerViva is working on developing a strain that could adapt to a wider range of climates. In the meantime, pongam could emerge as an important economic tool in semi-arid tropical regions such as parts of India, enabling developing communities to raise a cash crop without impinging on the land they need to grow food.

Image: Pongam tree blossom. License Some rights reserved by SSKao.

Follow Tina Casey on Twitter: @TinaMCasey.

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2. Biofuel Crops Could Help Fight Climate Change…But It’s Not What You Think
3. Money Doesn't Grow on Trees, but Biofuel Does

Yes, we’ve mentioned these interesting electric vehicles (EVs) before. They probably aren’t for everyone, but what is? T3 Motion has traditionally provided these EVs to security companies and police forces around the world (as well as the Pentagon, CIA, and FBI), but it has determined that it’s worth bringing them to the international consumer market now, as well.

T3 Motion is unveiling its international consumer product line this week at the Big Boys Toys show in Dubai.

“We have made great headway with law enforcement in the UAE and the Middle East, opening the door for a successful launch into the consumer market as a luxury brand,” stated Ki Nam, T3 Motion CEO.

And luxury is one of the key words there. Last time I posted on these, a commenter noted that they seemed to be selling for about $12,500 each in contracts with US police departments in 2009. I haven’t seen prices on the consumer model yet, but there’s this note from T3 Motion on a page for the product: “With an operating cost of less than a penny per mile, T3 products can achieve the equivalent of over 400 miles per gallon of gasoline, allowing users to have fun without high fuel costs and emissions.”

Here’s some more info on the vehicle from the company:

“The T3 Power Sport product is 100% electric, powered by lithium-polymer batteries that have the capability to drive up to 40 miles on a single charge. The vehicle touts a highly customizable look, incorporating customizable colors, graphics, and even offers optional camera/GPS and iPhone/iPad docking stations. Additionally, the T3 Power sport product has a top speed of 12 mph, an elevated 9-inch platform and high intensity LED lighting.”

Related posts:

1. T3 Electric Vehicle Launched (for Consumers)
2. Lowe’s to Provide GE’s Electric Vehicle Charger, the GE WattStation Wall Mount
3. Combining Solar Power and Your Electric Vehicle — Too Practical to Pass Up (Reader Comment)

Capital intensive and with an installed capacity now totaling more than 238 gigawatts (GW), the wind energy market and industry is easily large enough to compete in a market where large, well-established businesses predominate. It remains competitive enough to be driven by innovation, however, and it’s built on a supply and value chain made up of a diversity of smaller product and service suppliers, which spells opportunity for promising new market entrants and business development investors.

Installed global wind energy capacity increased a robust 21% in 2011, as Josh reported yesterday, despite economic and political headwinds. More than 41,000 MW of new wind energy capacity were installed last year, bringing cumulative total installed capacity to more than 238,000 MW, based on latest figures from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC). Some 75 countries are now taking advantage of clean, renewable energy provided by wind power, and 22 of them having already passed the 1 GW mark.

“Despite the state of the global economy, wind power continues to be the renewable generation technology of choice. 2011 was a tough year, as will be 2012, but the long term fundamentals of the industry remain very sound,” stated Steve Sawyer, Secretary General of the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC).

2011 Wind Energy VC, Company and Project Funding

Mercom Capital reports that venture capital (VC) funding for wind energy continued to increase in 2011, growing to $369 million as compared to $277 million in 2010 and $198 million in 2009. Fourteen deals were completed last year, as compared to 11 in 2010 and 20 in 2009.

Most VC wind energy company and project funding took place in the US—$294 million in 9 deals and $2.9 billion in 19 deals, respectively. Germany came in a close second with $2.8 billion in large-scale project funding, followed by Canada, with $1.1 billion, according to Mercom’s “Wind Funding and M&A 2011 Fourth Quarter and Annual Report.” Wind energy start-up Renew Wind Power raised $202 million in VC funding, the largest of the year. Boulder Wind Power and Wind Energy Direct ranked second and third, respectively, having raised $35 million and $29 million, respectively.

Wind energy project funding also continued to rise, reaching nearly $11 billion in 2011, $1.6 billion more than 2010′s total. Offshore wind energy project funding increased and accounted for $3.4 billion spread across five deals, while $7.5 billion was raised to finance 46 onshore wind energy projects. Some $1.5 billion was raised to fund Germany’s 400-MW Global Tech I offshore wind project, the largest project finance transaction in the wind energy industry in 2011.

New Wind Energy Installations 2011

In terms of new wind energy installations across countries, reiterating some and expanding on what Josh reported yesterday, China continued to solidify its position as the world’s largest wind energy market, having installed some 18,000 MW of wind power capacity in 2011, 44% of total wind energy installations worldwide. The USA ranked second, with 6,810 MW of new wind energy installations, while India moved up the table to third, having installed 3,019 MW of new wind energy capacity last year.

Wind energy activity in emerging markets outside the OECD—in Latin America, Africa and Asia—drove growth in 2011. India was one particularly bright spot for wind energy in 2011, while activity in Latin America—led by Brazil—also ran strong.

“India reached another milestone with adding over 3000 MW of wind power installed in 2011. This is likely to go up to 5000 MW per year by 2015. Ongoing initiatives of the Indian government to create new policies will attract large quantities of private investments to the sector”, commented D.V. Giri, chairman of the Indian Wind Turbine Manufacturers Association.

Brazilian wind energy installations rose 50% with the addition of 587 MW of new wind energy installations. Brazil’s installed wind energy capacity totaled just over 1,500 MW as of year-end 2011, and more than 7,000 MW of projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2016.

For a complete rundown on wind energy industry and market statistics, check out GWEA’s “Global Wind Statistics, 2011″ report.

Wind Energy M&A 2011

Looking at wind energy mergers and acquisitions (M&A), Mercom found that 17 company transactions totaling $1.7 billion were completed in 2011, the largest being ZF Friedrichshafen AG’s $724 million acquisition of wind gear maker and Suzlon subsidiary Hansen Transmissions. CPFL Energia’s $596 million acquisition of Brazilian wind power operator Jantus ranked second. Wind component company M&A transactions accounted for $1 billion and downstream wind energy company M&A $700 million of the 2011 total.

Activity was also high in wind project M&A, where $4 billion of transactions spanning 61 deals were completed. The $1.1-billion, 50% acquisition of Dong Energy’s Anhold offshore wind farm was the largest transaction, while the $850 million acquisition of 11 wind farms by Bridgepoint from Auxiliar de Construccion y Servicios ranked second.

Related posts:

1. Double-Digit Growth in 3Q Clean Tech Investment Despite Economic, Political Headwinds
2. India Crushed World in 2011 Cleantech Investment Growth
3. EU Offshore Wind Energy Pipeline Projects Will Boost Capacity 62%; 866 MW of New Capacity in 2011

Reaching about 28 gigawatts (GW), solar power capacity increased about 54% in 2011, according to a report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF). Germany and Italy led the way.

“Photovoltaic installations rose to between 26.5 and 29.4 gigawatts last year, compared with 18.2 gigawatts during 2010,” Marc Roca of Bloomberg wrote.

“The year was on the high side of even bullish estimates,” Jenny Chase of London-based BNEF wrote. “We think 2012 will be about flat, as European markets have overshot targets and spending caps and plan to rein back severely.”

Of course, a tremendous drop in solar panel prices combined with strong solar power policies in a handful of European countries led the surge.

“New spending on solar energy jumped 36 percent to $136.6 billion in 2011, outpacing the $74.9 billion put into wind power, and represented almost half of all renewable energy investment worldwide” in 2011.

No one expects 2012 to be such a good year, but who knows what’s actually in store? India is in the midst of a strong cleantech (especially solar) surge, as are several other Asian countries. And, despite policy uncertainty in the U.S., innovative companies are propelling the technology onto more roofs while utility-scale projects are also on the way.

Source: Bloomberg
Solar panels via shutterstock

Related posts:

1. China to Double Solar Power Capacity by End of 2011 (+ Top Solar Power Stories)
2. Installed Wind Power Capacity Up 21% Globally in 2011
3. Wind Power Growth Rebounds 15% in H1 2011, Capacity Rises ~23%

Wind power levelized cost of electricity at all-time low.

Its LCOE is now between $33 and $65 per MWh and clearly beats that of fossil fuels. This is actually not brand new news, as it was previously reported at the end of December, but I’m sure not many eyes have run across this yet, and it’s worth broadcasting loud and clear.

In a detailed analysis of “four endogenous factors (labor costs, warranty provisions, profitability, turbine design/scaling) and three exogenous factors (raw materials prices, energy prices, foreign exchange rates),” LBNL researchers Mark Bollinger and Ryan Wiser found that the single largest contributor to the LCOE reductions was bigger wind turbines that have a higher capacity factor.

“The standard for turbines has moved up from 1.0 megawatts to between 1.6 and 3.5 megawatts, and taller towers and longer blades allow them to produce electricity from slower winds,” Herman Trabish writes.

“Due to the capacity factor/capital cost interdependency, and to falling turbine costs, falling operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, an increased turbine supply, and lower cost financing, Wiser said, ‘the delivered levelized cost of wind energy has declined substantially in recent years [... and] is now at an all-time low across all wind speeds.’”

“Assumed improvements in O&M costs, financing rates, and availability lead to substantial additional estimated LCOE reductions,” Wiser found, “of 24 percent to 39 percent.”

However, two challenges do remain that could actually increase wind’s LCOE again. Those would be increasing development of “lower wind speed sites as a result of severe transmission/siting limitations,” Wiser notes, or the “loss of federal PTC/ITC/Treasury Grant” incentives (it’s a constant struggle to ensure stable incentives for wind energy like the fossil fuel industry has received for over a century—somebody doesn’t want the new kid on the block to have equal access to the competition).

Source: Greentech Media

Related posts:

1. Wind Power is Making Electricity Cheaper (Exxon: Wind to be Cheapest Source of Electricity)
2. Cost of Wind Power — Kicks Coal’s Butt, Better than Natural Gas (& Could Power Your EV for $0.70/gallon)
3. Big Wind Farms Cost More Than Small Ones

Well, as I just wrote, it seems pretty clear that solar photovoltaics are bringing down the cost of electricity in Germany. Additionally, electricity imports to France have been increasing!

“Because France has so much nuclear power, the country has an inordinate number of electric heating systems. And because France has not added on enough additional capacity over the past decade, the country’s current nuclear plants are starting to have trouble meeting demand, especially when it gets very cold in the winter,” Craig Morris of Renewables International writes.

And, with relatively sunny skies above, guess who’s coming to the rescue—good old solar power from Germany.

“As a result, power exports from Germany to France reached 4 to 5 gigawatts – the equivalent of around four nuclear power plants – last Friday morning according to German journalist Bernward Janzing. It was not exactly a time of low consumption in Germany either at 70 gigawatts around noon on Friday, but Janzing nonetheless reports that the grid operators said everything was under control, and the country’s emergency reserves were not being tapped. On the contrary, he reports that a spokesperson for transit grid operator Amprion told him that ‘photovoltaics in southern Germany is currently helping us a lot.’”

Solar power production peaking at about 10 GW, 40% of capacity, lately. (Source: EEX, via Renewables International)

Hmm, a bit of cognitive dissonance for solar power haters with breakfast this morning.

Power prices in Germany also seem fine, indicating no lack of power. However, due to its challenges, electricity prices in France have been up about 50% and the country has had to ask its citizens to reduce their electricity consumption.

Also, as you can see in the chart above, Germany’s electricity from solar has been peaking at about 10 gigawatts lately, or about 40% of its 25 gigawatts of capacity. I have a feeling citizens opposed to Germany’s nuclear shut down and clean energy revolution are keeping quiet at the moment.

Related posts:

1. France Launches €1.35 Billion Clean Energy Program
2. How Risky is it For Germany to Shutter its Nuclear?
3. Germany: Nuclear Power 100% Shut Down by 2022