Embracing Renewable Energy in Kuwait

The Middle East has huge potential when it comes to renewable energy. Due to the all-year-long sunshine, and flat planes, it is a suitable area for solar and wind farms. This potential must be used! Because of that fact, many companies who are in the clean energy business choose to move to Kuwait. Opportunities are endless, and everyone should start embracing renewable energy in Kuwait. Let’s research this topic a bit more, to discover the true potential and possibilities! Types of renewable energy sources In order to better understand the nature of renewable energy sources in Kuwait, it is crucial …

Read the full article

What are the Benefits of Renewable Energy Use?

Renewable energy, or clean energy, comes for natural processes that are regularly replenished. For example – sunlight and wind. The sun keeps shining and the wind keeps blowing. Many people think of renewable energy as a new technology, but in fact, we have been using it for a long time for lighting, heating, and transportation. It is true that people have been using cheaper but dirty energy like coal or gas for the last five hundred years. However, now that scientists have found less expensive methods of capturing wind and solar energy, tables are turning. Renewable energy is booming and …

Read the full article

What’s wrong with big solar in cities? Nothing, if it’s done right

Many of us are familiar with developments of big solar farms in rural and regional areas. These are often welcomed as a positive sign of our transition towards a low-carbon economy. But do large-scale solar installations have a place in our cities? The City of Fremantle in Western Australia is considering a proposal to use a former landfill site for a large-scale solar farm. The reportedly 4.9 megawatt solar power station on an eight-hectare site would be, it’s said, Australia’s largest urban solar farm. The initiative is part of Fremantle’s ambition to be powered by 100% clean energy within a decade. The proposal is facing some community …

Read the full article

How Do Food Scraps Turn Into Renewable Energy?

During a trip in India, Yair Teller, then a curious student and today the co-founder and CSO of Homebiogas, saw a family cooking on gas in a village of people who predominantly cooked over firewood. This was quite shocking. The family used the biogas their biodigester produced from food waste to cook their food, and the fertilizer it produced to nourish flowers, which they then sold  in the market to create extra source of revenue. They got all of those benefits simply from recycling their cow’s manure in a biodigester. Fast forward a few years and Yair was joined by …

Read the full article

Grattan Institute urges compensation for higher power bills caused by energy grid ‘gold plating’

Consumers must be compensated for higher bills caused by the excessive “gold-plating” of electricity networks and the value of energy assets should be written down, according to a report out today. The Grattan Institute blames “poor decisions” by governments in New South Wales, Queensland and Tasmania for driving unnecessary investment in power networks, which has ultimately left consumers footing the bill. In the Down to The Wire report, the Grattan Institute estimates consumers in those three states are being slugged between $100 and $400 more a year as investment outstripped population growth and demand. “Consumers connected to the National Electricity Market are …

Read the full article

Steven Marshall welcomes Elon Musk and wants to cut energy costs

Incoming South Australian Premier Steven Marshall says cutting energy costs to business and households is a major priority for his new government, with a $200 million inter-connector fund a centrepiece of his plans to deliver cheaper power. Mr Marshall is also getting on the front foot with a proposal for a $100 million household storage battery fund, which would provide means-tested grants of around $2500 to households with solar panels that want to install home storage batteries. It would cover about 40,000 households. Getting the fund up and running is among the projects earmarked for the first 100 days of …

Read the full article

New Tech Could Turn Windows Into Solar Panels

See-through solar cells have been created which could turn windows into small-scale power plants. Researchers at Michigan State University have developed thin, transparent, plastic-like material that can act as an energy-generating coating on windows, and provide additional power when coupled with a rooftop solar installation. While the technology has existed in its early stages since 2015, it is only now developed enough for projects of scale. The technology works by utilising organic molecules within the transparent film that absorb ultraviolet and infrared lightwaves – which are invisible to the human eye – and converts them into electricity by directing these lightwaves to small photovoltaic cells at the edge …

Read the full article

Community Energy Opportunities in Regional Australia

In 2016 the ACT government committed to a target of 100% renewable energy by 2020, moving the target forward and reflecting a growing commitment by sub-national and local governments, and city administrations to changing their energy dependencies and the energy mix, and decentralising the energy production process (reference – Paris Council of the Parties on Climate Change in 2015). Governments are recognising the growing interest in renewable energy in their constituencies, and in fact the public is arguably leading the political agenda. The regional Victorian experience in relation to community energy is instructive. Daylesford began a conversation about two community …

Read the full article

Lower Costs, Greater Investment Produces Record Year for Australian Renewable Energy

Renewable energy produced a record share of Australia’s electricity in 2016, with a slew of new projects putting Australia on track to reach the 2020 Renewable Energy Target. More than 17 per cent of Australia’s electricity came from renewable sources last year, up from 14.6 per cent in 2015, thanks to greater rainfall in key hydro catchments and a series of new wind and solar projects, according to a new report from the Clean Energy Council. Clean Energy Council Chief Executive Kane Thornton said the industry was set for another record year in 2017. “Every month brings new project announcements. While …

Read the full article

German Battery Giant Teams with Australian Solar Tile Maker to Take on Tesla – Again

German battery storage giant and major Tesla rival, Sonnen, has opened up competition on yet another front in Australia, with the announcement this week of a partnership with a local roofing company that is set to launch its own version of an integrated solar tile. Sonnen said on Thursday that it had signed an agreement with Australian company Bristile Roofing to be the national supplier of solar powered energy storage systems for homes using its new solar tile, which is due to hit the market in September. Under the deal, Bristile will offer the Sonnen AC Coupled modular battery storage system …

Read the full article