New Energy World Network: Connecting Investors, Innovators & Deal-Makers worldwide
New Energy World Network: Connecting Investors, Innovators & Deal-Makers worldwide
17 June 2013
25 April 2013
26 March 2013
1 March 2013
18 February 2013
13 February 2013
11 January 2013
20 December 2012
17 December 2012
4 December 2012
21 November 2012
16 November 2012
6 November 2012
29 October 2012
23 October 2012
17 October 2012
11 October 2012
28 September 2012
26 September 2012
14 September 2012
Legals & Terms of Use • Privacy & Cookies Policy
NewNet is a trading name of Investor Networks Limited, registered in England (No. 06695690).
Registered Office: Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton St, London EC2A 4HJ
Content is © New Energy World Network (NewNet) 2008-2013
Earlier this month, a remote monitoring system in Hawaii recorded the first time in human history that the daily average for carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere hit over 400 parts per million (ppm). Crossing the 400ppm line is not inherently meaningful, other than reminding us that we are on a path to a place we don’t want to go, writes Daniel Vermeer, executive director of the Center for Energy, Development and the Global Environment at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business. 
World smart grid sales climbed to $36.5bn in 2012 a growth of 30 per cent on 2011 and M&A activity reached $19.5bn almost doubling the value of deals in the previous year, according to memoori’s latest report. This confirms that solid progress has been made in the last three years but other findings show that all is not well. 
There are many reasons why we should be seeing more and more electric vehicles on UK roads. Drivers are facing rising petrol and diesel costs and these are only going to increase as world oil prices are predicted to increase by 4.85 per cent per annum. David Rees, head of PA Consulting Group’s local government services, asks, therefore, why is take-up not higher? 
World smart grid sales at installed prices climbed to $36.5bn in 2012 a growth of 30 per cent on 2011 and M&A activity reached $19.5bn almost doubling the value of deals in the previous year, according to the latest report from sector specialist Memoori. 
Researchers at the US Department of Energy's (DOE) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have long understood that using energy more efficiently can be just as beneficial as finding new ways to produce energy more efficiently. 
As the year of the water snake slithers into 2013, it seems quite fitting that investors are once again shifting their focus toward water-related themes, writes Junwei Hafner-Cai, analyst with RobecoSAM’s Sustainable Water Strategy. 
2012 was a seminal year for three industries that share some fast moving technologies and vertical markets, Electronic Security, Energy Management and the emerging Smart Grid, writes Allan McHale, author of smart grid blog Memoori. 
The traditionally conservative mining sector is beginning to invest heavily into renewables and efficiency processes, driven by rising costs, stakeholder pressures and tightening regulations. 
Development needs data: water security, oceans governance and food security need data, information, knowledge, networks and imagination to shift power in the public interest, according to James Cameron, chairman of Climate Change Capital, who shares his perspective on climate change. 
One year ago Germany decided to quit producing nuclear energy by 2022. Since nuclear power plants are a central pillar the German energy mix, contributing some 22.5 per cent to the entire electricity output in 2010, this means that until 2022 the equivalent of 140.6 TWh has to be replaced by other sources, writes Manfred Jacobi, CEO of consultancy firm VMIS Energy. 
While high-profile bankruptcies in cleantech companies such as Solyndra are denting investor confidence in green markets, Tesla Motors tells NewNet how since its initial public offering (IPO) it has gone from strength to strength and is now able to pay back its $465m US loan early as it moves towards profitability. 
The UK Energy Bill has been a big feature of 2012, from its publication in May to the delivery of startlingly frank scrutiny from the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Select Committee in July. The committee wrote that ‘the draft Bill and its associated documents are fundamentally flawed by the lack of consideration given to demand-side measures, which are potentially the cheapest methods of de-carbonising our electricity system’. What did they mean, and how could such a gulf have arisen between the government’s proposals and the select committee’s assessment? Megan Bingham-Walker, principal at Wheb Partners, gives her view. 
Investing in agriculture is about funding the innovation required to meet soaring demand for food, says Jürgen Siemer, senior analyst at SAM Group. 
In its last smart grid article Memoori reported that Ofgem, the UK regulator of electricity and gas markets, was warning that electrical generation will plunge to four per cent spare capacity from its present level of 14 per cent. Some 12GW of coal fired plants; equivalent to a sixth of the total generation capacity can now only operate for a limited number of hours before they are closed in order to comply with the European Union air pollution regulations. Now, similar news has been broadcast in the US. 
The 2011 Fukushima disaster cast a spotlight on Japan’s energy sector like never before. With countries around the world making snap decisions to shut reactors, green growth in the country looked all but certain. Now, as realism dawns, international businesses are beginning to question just how committed the government is. 
In the run up for the COP in Durban last year and reflective of the importance of agriculture for Africa and its sensitivity for climate change, the term ‘climate-smart agriculture’ came to some prominence, writes Michael Schlup, regional manager Africa, Bunge Environmental Markets. While this at first sight implies to be a no-brainer – of course agriculture should be smart about the changing climate – at second thought one wonders: What does it mean? 
The UK is facing the rising risk of an energy shortfall within three years, Ofgem has warned as electrical generation will plunge to four per cent spare capacity from its present level of 14 per cent. Allan McHale, author of smart grid blog Memoori, says this should be the wake-up call government needs to push forward both distributed power and the smart grid. 
‘Greed’, said Gordon Gekko, the villainous investment banker played by Michael Douglas in the 1987 film Wall Street, ‘is good’. He went on: ‘it clarifies, cuts through and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.’ With companies that actively work to reduce their environmental impact making more money, it seems sustainability and greed go hand-in-hand, writes Andrew Ure, managing director of OgilvyEarth. 
America’s shale gas revolution has led some to think that similar transformations could unfold in Europe and China – where significant shale gas reserves exist – or that the US becoming a net exporter could result in a global gas glut and low gas prices for the foreseeable future, writes Ben Caldecott, head of policy at Climate Change Capital. 
Sometime in 2018 or shortly thereafter the UK will experience a crisis. Electricity supply will not be enough to meet electricity demand. When this happens people will look back to the week of the Diamond Jubilee in 2012 and find that the celebrations masked a coming together of policy decisions whose combined effect is simply disastrous for the UK, writes Barry Gardiner MP Special Envoy on Climate Change and the Environment to the Leader of the Opposition and member of the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee. 
