Tag: solar

China's solar firms warned of a trade war today (26 July) and urged the Chinese government to respond with all means to an anti-dumping complaint filed by European competitors.

In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, the question is not how to distance oneself from the nuclear sector but how to make it a safe industry, with joint safety standards, writes Claude Fischer, president of Confrontations Europe.

A perfect storm of environmental deterioration, economic opportunism and geopolitical jockeying for position is fuelling a rapid Chinese move into renewable technologies such as wind, solar and wave power, according to Miranda Schreurs, director of the Environmental Policy Research Institute at the Freie Universität Berlin.  

Despite the economic crisis and the struggle to save the euro, the European dream is not dead yet: what Europe needs is an "economic vision and game plan that would create a seamless, distributive energy grid" to build a third industrial revolution, said Jeremy Rifkin, author of 'The European Dream', in an interview with EurActiv.

David Eaglesham, chief technology officer at First Solar, says all photovoltaic companies are scrambling to make efficiency and cost improvements. But if Europe is to retain its leadership, decisions on a regulatory framework are crucial, he told EurActiv in an interview.

Europe's photovoltaic industry wants to focus more on generating and supplying electricity in the coming years, according to its new president, marking a shift from its current emphasis on technological development.  

The global solar photovoltaic industry experienced strong growth in 2009, adding a record 6.4 gigawatts of new capacity despite the global downturn, the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) said on Monday (30 March).

Germany said yesterday (20 January) that it would cut its subsidies for solar power in line with the rapid take-up of the photovoltaic market. The news follows a similar announcement by France last week.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's majority for a new centre-right government means she can rewrite a national nuclear phaseout deal by allowing reactors to run longer than laid down by her predecessors.

Yesterday's (23 July) announcement by French electricity giant EDF that it will build the country's largest solar manufacturing plant signalled France's bid to become one of the world's leading solar markets.

"The EU and its North African partner countries should […] establish the regulatory basis necessary for the development of solar energy in view of offering a reliable and long-term framework for potential investors from both sides of the Mediterranean," writes Eberhard Rhein, a lecturer at the Mediterranean Academy for Diplomatic Studies in Malta, in a June post on Blogactiv.

Half of the world's photovoltaic electricity is currently produced in the EU, but the European solar industry must continue its "impressive growth" to maintain its market position in the years to come, argues a study released by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) last week.

Massive solar power installations in the Sahara desert could feed the EU's growing energy demand via a new supergrid. The idea is backed by France and the UK, which is simultaneously trying to limit priority access for renewables to domestic grids.

As fuel prices for coal, natural gas and nuclear continue to rise, the cost of solar power is due to break even with fossil fuels in the US by 2015, according to a study published in June 2008.

Administrative and technical barriers as well as excessive costs and delays present larger barriers to local electricity producers than the ownership structure of EU energy markets, according to experts who debated the issue in Brussels yesterday (13 September 2007).

The solar industry is positioning itself as a key contributor to the 20% target for renewables in the EU's energy mix by 2020. But, despite impressive growth, solar's contribution is likely to be limited compared with wind, hydro and biomass.

An interactive map allowing exact calculation of the solar electricity potential of any given location in Europe and its neighbouring regions will help determine each member state's share of solar power in the EU's overall 20% EU renewables target.

New measures aim at increasing the blending of biofuels in cars to 10% per volume by 2015, French PM Dominique de Villepin announced. The measure is part of a wide-ranging energy policy review.