Italy's biggest renewable energy company, Enel Green Power EGP, said it had received authorization to build a 90-megawatt wind farm on the island of Sardinia.
EGP plans to build the farm, which will consist of 39 Siemens wind turbines each with 2.3 MW capacity, this year, the company controlled by Italy's biggest utility Enel said in a statement.
The plant, expected to become EGP's largest wind farm in Italy, will generate 185 million kW/h of power a year, enough to meet the demand of 70,000 households, and will help avoid emission of more than 130,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide CO2.
The new wind farm will raise EGP's total installed wind capacity to more than 250 MW in Sardinia, where it currently operates three wind farms with an annual production of more than 240 million kW/h and a total installed capacity of 161 MW.
Capacity growth was a key driver of a 5.6 percent rise in EGP's core earnings in the first nine months of 2010, but the stock, listed in Milan and Madrid on November 4, has been hit by dwindling interest from professional investors for green energy.
At the end of 2010, EGP had a total installed capacity of about 5,900 MW around the world. Italy accounted for more than 2,600 MW, including more than 450 MW of wind power.
EGP shares have mostly traded below the price of 1.6 euros per share set in what was Europe's biggest initial public offering since 2008 and were down 0.19 percent at 1.596 euros in Milan by 1115 GMT.
Taiwan Power Blackout disrupts Taipei and commercial hubs after a Taoyuan natural gas plant error, triggering nationwide outage, grid failure, elevator rescues, power rationing, and the economic minister's resignation, as CPC Corporation restores supply.
Key Points
A nationwide Taiwan outage from human error at a Taoyuan gas plant, triggering rationing and a minister's resignation.
✅ Human error disrupted natural gas supply at Taoyuan plant
✅ 6.68 million users affected; grid failure across cities
✅ Minister Lee resigned; President Tsai ordered a review
Taiwan's economic minister resigned after power was knocked out in many parts of Taiwan, with regional parallels such as China power cuts highlighting grid vulnerabilities, including capital Taipei's business and high-end shopping district, due to an apparent "human error" at a key power plant.
Economic Affairs minister Lee Chih-kung tendered his resignation verbally to Premier Lin Chuan, United Daily News reported, citing a Cabinet spokesman. Lin accepted the resignation, the spokesman said according to the daily.
As many as 6.68 million households and commercial units saw their power supply cut or disrupted on Tuesday after "human error" disrupted natural gas supply at a power plant in northern Taiwan's Taoyuan, the semi-official Central News Agency reported, citing the government-controlled oil company CPC Corporation as saying.
The company added that power at the plant, Taiwan's biggest natural gas power plant, resumed two minutes later.
In New Taipei City, there were at least 27,000 reported cases of people being stuck in lifts. Photos in social media also showed huge crowds stranded in lift lobby in Taipei's iconic 101-storey Taipei 101 building.
Power rationing was implemented beginning 6pm, and, as seen in the National Grid short supply warning in other markets, such steps aim to stabilize supply, Central News Agency said. Power supply was gradually being restored beginning at about 9:40pm. news reports said.
President Tsai Ing-wen apologised for the blackout, noting parallels with Japan's near-blackouts that underscored grid resilience, and said that she has ordered all relevant departments to produce clear report in the shortest time possible.
"Electricity is not just a problem about people's livelihoods but also a national security issue. A comprehensive review must be carried out to find out how the electric power system can be so easily paralysed by human error," said Ms Tsai in a Facebook post.
Taiwan has been at risk of a power shortage after a recent typhoon knocked down a power transmission tower in Hualien county along the eastern coast of Taiwan, rather than a demand-driven slowdown like the China power demand drop during pandemic factory shutdowns. This reduced the electricity supply by 1.3million kilowatts, or about 4 per cent of the operating reserve.
That was followed by the breakdown of a power generator at Taiwan's largest power plant, which further reduced the operating reserve by 1.5 per cent.
The situation is worsened by the ongoing heatwave that has hit Taiwan, with temperatures soaring to 38 degrees Celsius over the past week.
As a result, the government had imposed the rationing of electricity, and, highlighting how regional strains such as China's power woes can ripple into global markets, switched off all air-conditioning in many of its Taipei offices, a move that drew some public backlash.
U.S. Energy Transition Delays stem from grid bottlenecks, permitting red tape, solar tariff uncertainty, supply-chain shocks, and scarce affordable EVs, risking deeper fossil fuel lock-in despite climate targets for renewables, transmission expansion, and decarbonization.
Key Points
Delays driven by grid limits, permitting, and supply shocks that slow renewables, transmission, EVs, and decarbonization.
✅ Grid interconnection and transmission backlogs stall renewables
✅ Tariff probes and supply chains disrupt utility-scale solar
✅ Permitting, policy gaps, and EV costs sustain fossil fuel use
Big solar projects are facing major delays. Plans to adapt the grid to clean energy are confronting mountains of red tape. Affordable electric vehicles are in short supply.
The United States is struggling to squeeze opportunity out of an energy crisis that should have been a catalyst for cleaner, domestically produced power. After decades of putting the climate on the back burner, the country is finding itself unprepared to seize the moment and at risk of emerging from the crisis even more reliant on fossil fuels.
10 steps you can take to lower your carbon footprint The problem is not entirely unique to the United States. Across the globe, climate leaders are warning that energy shortages including coal and nuclear disruptions prompted by Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine and high gas prices driven by inflation threaten to make the energy transition an afterthought — potentially thwarting efforts to keep global temperature rise under 1.5 degrees Celsius.
“The energy crisis exacerbated by the war in Ukraine has seen a perilous doubling down on fossil fuels by the major economies,” U.N. Secretary General António Guterres said at a conference in Vienna on Tuesday, according to prepared remarks. He warned governments and investors that a failure to immediately and more aggressively embrace clean energy could be disastrous for the planet.
U.S. climate envoy John F. Kerry suggested that nations are falling prey to a flawed logic that fossil fuels will help them weather this period of instability, undermining U.S. national security and climate goals, which has seen gas prices climb to a record-high national average of $5 per gallon. “You have this new revisionism suggesting that we have to be pumping oil like crazy, and we have to be moving into long-term [fossil fuel] infrastructure building,” he said at the Time100 Summit in New York this month. “We have to push back.”
Climate envoy John F. Kerry attends the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles on June 8. Kerry has criticized the tendency to turn toward fossil fuels in times of uncertainty. (Apu Gomes/AFP/Getty Images) In the United States — the world’s second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases after China — the hurdles go beyond the supply-chain crisis and sanctions linked to the war in Ukraine. The country’s lofty goals for all carbon pollution to be gone from the electricity sector by 2035 and for half the cars sold to be electric by 2030 are jeopardized by years of neglect of the electrical grid, regulatory hurdles that have set projects back years, and failures by Congress and policymakers to plan ahead. The challenges are further compounded by plans to build costly new infrastructure for drilling and exporting natural gas that will make it even harder to transition away from the fossil fuel.
“We are running into structural challenges preventing consumers and businesses from going cleaner, even at this time of high oil and gas prices,” said Paul Bledsoe, a climate adviser in the Clinton administration who now works on strategy at the Progressive Policy Institute, a center-left think tank. “It is a little alarming that even now, Congress is barely talking about clean energy.”
Consumers are eager for more wind and solar. Companies looking to go carbon-neutral are facing growing waitlists for access to green energy, and a Pew Research Center poll in late January found that two-thirds of Americans want the United States to prioritize alternative energy over fossil fuel production.
But lawmakers have balked for more than a decade at making most of the fundamental economic and policy changes such as a clean electricity standard that experts widely agree are crucial to an orderly and accelerated energy transition. The United States does not have a tax on carbon, nor a national cap-and-trade program that would reorient markets toward lowering emissions. The unraveling in Congress of President Biden’s $1.75 trillion Build Back Better plan has added to the head winds that green-energy developers face, even as climate law results remain mixed.
Vice President Harris tours electric school buses at Meridian High School in Falls Church, Va., on May 20. (Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images) “There is literally nothing pushing this forward in the U.S. beyond the tax code and some state laws,” said Heather Zichal, a former White House climate adviser who is now the chief executive of the American Clean Power Association.
The effects of the U.S. government’s halting approach are being felt by solar-panel installers, who saw the number of projects in the most recent quarter fall to the lowest level since the pandemic began. There was 24 percent less solar installed in the first quarter of 2022 than in the same quarter of 2021.
The holdup largely stems from a Commerce Department investigation into alleged tariff-dodging by Chinese manufacturers. Faced with the potential for steep retroactive penalties, hundreds of industrial-scale solar projects were frozen in early April. Weak federal policies to encourage investment in solar manufacturing left American companies ill-equipped to fill the void.
“We shut down multiple projects and had to lay off dozens of people,” said George Hershman, chief executive of SOLV Energy, which specializes in large solar installations. SOLV, like dozens of other solar companies, is now scrambling to reassemble those projects after the administration announced a pause of the tariffs.
Meanwhile, adding clean electricity to the aging power grid has become an increasingly complicated undertaking, given the failure to plan for adequate transmission lines and long delays connecting viable wind and solar projects to the electricity network.
BC Hydro LNG Load Forecast signals rising electricity demand from LNG Canada, Woodfibre, and Tilbury, aligning Site C dam capacity with BCUC review, hydroelectric supply, and a potential fourth project in feasibility study British Columbia.
Key Points
BC Hydro's projection of LNG-driven power demand, guiding Site C capacity, BCUC review, and grid planning.
✅ Includes LNG Canada, Woodfibre, and Tilbury load requests
✅ Aligns Site C hydroelectric output with industrial electrification
✅ Notes feasibility study for a fourth LNG project
Despite recent project cancellations, such as the Siwash Creek independent power project now in limbo, BC Hydro still expects three LNG projects — and possibly a fourth, which is undergoing a feasibility study — will need power from its controversial and expensive Site C hydroelectric dam.
In a letter sent to the British Columbia Utilities Commission (BCUC) on Oct. 3, BC Hydro’s chief regulatory officer Fred James said the provincially owned utility’s load forecast includes power demand for three proposed liquefied natural gas projects because they continue to ask the company for power.
The letter and attached report provide some detail on which of the LNG projects proposed in B.C. are more likely to be built, given recent project cancellations.
The documents are also an attempt to explain why BC Hydro continues to forecast a surge in electricity demand in the province, as seen in its first call for power in 15 years driven by electrification, even though massive LNG projects proposed by Malaysia’s state owned oil company Petronas and China’s CNOOC Nexen have been cancelled.
An explanation is needed because B.C.’s new NDP government had promised the BCUC would review the need for the $9-billion Site C dam, which was commissioned to provide power for the province’s nascent LNG industry, amid debates over alternatives like going nuclear among residents. The commission had specifically asked for an explanation of BC Hydro’s electric load forecast as it relates to LNG projects by Wednesday.
The three projects that continue to ask BC Hydro for electricity are Shell Canada Ltd.’s LNG Canada project, the Woodfibre LNG project and a future expansion of FortisBC’s Tilbury LNG storage facility.
None of those projects have officially been sanctioned but “service requests from industrial sector customers, including LNG, are generally included in our industrial load forecast,” the report noted, even as Manitoba Hydro warned about energy-intensive customers in a separate notice.
In a redacted section of the report, BC Hydro also raises the possibility of a fourth LNG project, which is exploring the need for power in B.C.
“BC Hydro is currently undertaking feasibility studies for another large LNG project, which is not currently included in its Current Load Forecast,” one section of the report notes, though the remainder of the section is redacted.
The Site C dam, which has become a source of controversy in B.C. and was an important election issue, is currently under construction and, following two new generating stations recently commissioned, is expected to be in service by 2024, a timeline which had been considered to provide LNG projects with power by the time they are operational.
BC Hydro’s letter to the BCUC refers to media and financial industry reports that indicate global LNG markets will require more supply by 2023.
“While there remains significant uncertainty, global LNG demand will continue to grow and there is opportunity for B.C. LNG,” the report notes.
EU Renewable Energy Shift is cutting gas dependence as wind and solar expand, reshaping Europe's power mix, curbing emissions, and pressuring coal use amid a supply crisis and rising natural gas prices.
Key Points
An EU trend where wind and solar growth reduce gas reliance, curb coal, and lower power-sector emissions.
✅ Wind and solar displace gas in EU power mix
✅ Coal use rises as gas prices surge
✅ Emissions fall, but not fast enough for 1.5 C target
The European Union’s renewable energy sources are helping reduce its dependence on natural gas, under the current European electricity pricing framework, that’s still costing the region dearly.
Renewables growth has helped reduce the EU’s dependence on gas, as wind and solar outpaced gas across the bloc last year, which has soared in price since the middle of last year as the region grapples with a supply crisis that’s dealt blows to industries as well as ordinary consumers’ pockets. More than half of new renewable generation since 2019 has replaced gas power, according to a study by London-based climate think tank Ember, with the rest replacing mainly nuclear and coal sources.
“These are moments and paradigm shifts when governments and businesses start taking this much more seriously,” said Charles Moore, the lead author on the study, amid Covid-19 responses accelerating the transition across Europe. “The alternatives are available, they are cheaper, and they are likely to get even cheaper and more competitive. Renewables are now an opportunity, not a cost.”
The high price of gas relative to coal has meant utilities are leaning more on coal as a back-up for renewable generation, as stunted hydro and nuclear output has constrained low-carbon alternatives in parts of Europe, which risks the trajectory of Europe’s phase-out of the dirtiest fossil fuel. Last year, the EU’s coal use jumped disproportionately high relative to the rise in power generation as high gas prices boosted the relative profitability of burning coal instead.
Europe Coal Use Jumps as Costly Gas Turns Firms to Dirty Fuel EU power generation from renewables reached a record high in 2021 of 547 terawatt-hours last year, accounting for an 11% increase compared to two years before, according to Ember’s Europe Electricity Review. It’s more than doubled in a decade, representing a 157% increase since 2011.
Gas use declined last year for the second year in a row, as Europe explores storing electricity in gas pipelines to leverage existing infrastructure, reaching a level 8.1% lower than 2019. By contrast, coal use fell just 3.3% in the same period. Put simply, wind and solar did a great job of replacing coal during 2011-2019 but since then renewables have mostly been nudging out gas-fired power stations.
Ember’s Moore warned that the slowing phase-out of coal might require legislation to accelerate. The International Energy Agency recommends OECD countries cease using coal by the end of the decade to ensure alignment with the Paris Agreement target of keeping the world’s temperature increase below 1.5 Celsius, with renewables poised to eclipse coal globally by the mid-2020s lending momentum.
“Europe can accelerate the phasing out of coal by building more renewable energy and faster,” said Felicia Aminoff, an energy-transition analyst at BloombergNEF. “Wind and solar have no fuel costs, so as soon as you have made the initial investments to build wind and solar capacity it will start replacing generation that uses any kind of fuel, whether it is coal or gas.”
Overall, EU power sector emissions fell at less than half the rate required to hit that target, Ember’s report said. Spain produced the largest emissions reduction in the last two years, with renewables adding about 25 TWh and gas falling 15 TWh, and in Germany renewables topped coal and nuclear for the first time to support the shift. In contrast, heavy use of coal dragged down the bloc’s climate progress in Poland, where coal use rose about 8 TWh and renewables gained only 4 TWh.
Nighttime Thermoelectric Generator converts radiative cooling into renewable energy, leveraging outer space cold; a Stanford-UCLA prototype complements solar, serving off-grid loads with low-power output during peak evening demand, using simple materials on a rooftop.
Key Points
A device converting nighttime radiative cooling into electricity, complementing solar for low-power evening needs.
✅ Uses thermocouples to convert temperature gradients to voltage.
✅ Exploits radiative cooling to outer space for night power.
✅ Complements solar; low-cost parts suit off-grid applications.
Two years ago, one freezing December night on a California rooftop, a tiny light shone weakly with a little help from the freezing night air. It wasn't a very bright glow. But it was enough to demonstrate the possibility of generating renewable power after the Sun goes down.
Working with Stanford University engineers Wei Li and Shanhui Fan, University of California Los Angeles materials scientist Aaswath Raman put together a device that produces a voltage by channelling the day's residual warmth into cooling air, effectively generating electricity from thin air with passive heat exchange.
"Our work highlights the many remaining opportunities for energy by taking advantage of the cold of outer space as a renewable energy resource," says Raman.
"We think this forms the basis of a complementary technology to solar. While the power output will always be substantially lower, it can operate at hours when solar cells cannot."
For all the merits of solar energy, it's just not a 24-7 source of power, although research into nighttime solar cells suggests new possibilities for after-dark generation. Sure, we can store it in a giant battery or use it to pump water up into a reservoir for later, but until we have more economical solutions, nighttime is going to be a quiet time for renewable solar power.
Most of us return home from work as the Sun is setting, and that's when energy demands spike to meet our needs for heating, cooking, entertaining, and lighting.
Unfortunately, we often turn to fossil fuels to make up the shortfall. For those living off the grid, it could require limiting options and going without a few luxuries.
Shanhui Fan understands the need for a night time renewable power source well. He's worked on a number of similar devices, including carbon nanotube generators that scavenge ambient energy, and a recent piece of technology that flipped photovoltaics on its head by squeezing electricity from the glow of heat radiating out of the planet's Sun-warmed surface.
While that clever item relied on the optical qualities of a warm object, this alternative device makes use of the good old thermoelectric effect, similar to thin-film waste-heat harvesting approaches now explored.
Using a material called a thermocouple, engineers can convert a change in temperature into a difference in voltage, effectively turning thermal energy into electricity with a measurable voltage. This demands something relatively toasty on one side and a place for that heat energy to escape to on the other.
The theory is the easy part – the real challenge is in arranging the right thermoelectric materials in such a way that they'll generate a voltage from our cooling surrounds that makes it worthwhile.
To keep costs down, the team used simple, off-the-shelf items that pretty much any of us could easily get our hands on.
They put together a cheap thermoelectric generator and linked it with a black aluminium disk to shed heat in the night air as it faced the sky. The generator was placed inside a polystyrene enclosure sealed with a window transparent to infrared light, and linked to a single tiny LED.
For six hours one evening, the box was left to cool on a roof-top in Stanford as the temperature fell just below freezing. As the heat flowed from the ground into the sky, the small generator produced just enough current to make the light flicker to life.
At its best, the device generated around 0.8 milliwatts of power, corresponding to 25 milliwatts of power per square metre.
That might just be enough to keep a hearing aid working. String several together and you might just be able to keep your cat amused with a simple laser pointer. So we're not talking massive amounts of power.
But as far as prototypes go, it's a fantastic starting point. The team suggests that with the right tweaks and the right conditions, 500 milliwatts per square metre isn't out of the question.
"Beyond lighting, we believe this could be a broadly enabling approach to power generation suitable for remote locations, and anywhere where power generation at night is needed," says Raman.
While we search for big, bright ideas to drive the revolution for renewables, it's important to make sure we don't let the smaller, simpler solutions like these slip away quietly into the night.
Ontario Utility Scam Alert: protect against phishing, spoofed calls, texts, and emails, disconnection threats, and demands for prepaid cards or bitcoin. Tips from Alectra, Elexicon, Hydro One, Hydro Ottawa, and Toronto Hydro.
Key Points
A joint warning by Ontario utilities on tactics and steps to prevent customer fraud, phishing, and spoofed contacts.
✅ Verify bills; call your utility using the official number.
✅ Ignore links; do not accept unexpected e-transfers.
✅ Never pay with gift cards, prepaid cards, or bitcoin.
Five of Ontario's largest utilities have joined forces to raise awareness about ongoing sophisticated utility scams targeting utility customers.
Some common tactics fraudsters use to target Ontarians include impersonation of the local utility or its employees; sending threatening phone calls, texts and emails; or showing up in-person at a customer's home or business and requesting personal information or payment. The requests can include pressure for immediate payment, threats to disconnect service the same day, and demands to purchase prepaid debit cards, gift cards or bitcoin.
The utilities are encouraging all customers to protect themselves and are providing them with the following tips to stay safe, noting that customers want more choice and flexibility in how they manage accounts:
Never make a payment for a charge that isn't listed on your most recent bill
Ignore text messages or emails with suspicious links promising refunds
Don't call the number provided to you — instead, call your utility directly to check the status of your account
Only provide personal information or details about your account when you have initiated the contact with the utility representative
Utility companies will never threaten immediate disconnection for non-payment, and many offer relief programs during hardship
If you feel threatened in any way, contact your local police
Steps you can take to protect yourself against fraud:
Take five minutes to ask additional questions and listen to your instincts — if something doesn't seem right, ask someone about it, and look for news of official utility support efforts that confirm legitimate outreach
Immediately hang up on suspicious phone calls
Don't click any links in emails/text messages asking you to accept electronic transfers
Avoid sharing personal information
Always compare bills to previous ones, including the dollar amount and account number, and stay informed about any official rate changes from your utility
Reporting suspicious behaviour, including suspected electricity theft, helps authorities
If you believe you may be a victim of fraud, please contact the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre at 1-888-495-8501 and your local utility.
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