Proposals to put a price on carbon emissions – in the form of a CO2 tax – will not be realise in the current legislative period, Germany’s energy state secretary Andreas Feicht said. The Conservative-led Government had earlier dismissed the initiative, saying it was not in the governing coalition’s agreed agenda.
Reacting to blackouts during Australia’s latest heatwave, the federal government is proposing to underwrite and partially fund new fossil power generation capacity. On the cards are large-scale fossil generators as well as decentralized hybrid plants, consisting of wind and solar plus energy storage.
Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), the city’s municipal utility, has abandoned plans to retrofit three gas-fired power plants from water- to air-cooling. Instead, the utility will phase out the Scattergood, Haynes and Harbor gas-fired power units by 2029, and invest renewables to lower its carbon footprint.
With variable renewables accounting for more than half of global capacity additions to 2040, utilities and power grid operators increasingly turn to energy storage to cover their flexibility requirements. The International Energy Agency (IEA) expects the cost for four-hour battery systems will fall to $220 per kWh by 2040, spurring a utility-scale deployment of energy storage of close to 220 GW.
Though EU member states decided to tighten unbundling rules on gas interconnectors, parliamentarians agreed to a French-German compromise for the €9.5 billion Nord Stream-2 pipeline. The deal places the controversial project “under European control”, but with Germany as the lead negotiator with Russia's Gazprom.
The German ‘coal commission’ has reached a historic decision over the weekend to shut down all of the country’s lignite- and hard coal-fired power plants in less than 20 years. By 2038, at the latest, no more electricity will be generated from coal and Germany’s coal-dependent federal states will get €40 billion in compensation.
Exiting coal – in addition to nuclear – is likely to propel up Germany’s energy costs by up to €54 billion, industry leaders warn. About 10 GW of coal-fired capacity could be taken off the grid by 2022, in a political move that would make the cost of gas-fired power generation a critical factor for the Germany’s economic competitiveness.
Smart electrically-driven heating is a “valuable field in which to invest”, Delta-ee research finds, pointing at the substantial installed base of electrically-driven heating – 30 million units across Europe. In the UK, new business models are emerging providing heat-as-a-service, with the customer avoiding the need for buying fuel and appliances by simply buying the heat, and comfort that comes with it.
Flexibility and system integration of renewable energy sources will be in focus of a Ministerial Summit co-hosted by the German government and the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Berlin in September. Tackling the intermittency challenge will be critical for 33 countries are likely to have up to 20% variable renewables in their power systems by 2023.
The Chinese government is watering down its pledges to reign in climate change and focuses on stepping up energy imports instead. Over the past year, China’s has demand surged 15% and a big part of these additional needs will soon be met through the Russian ‘Power of Siberia’ pipeline project as well as more LNG.
