Plus: UK offshore wind 30% cheaper than 2 years ago; Australia has a lot going on
Hi Everyone,
If you only have time to read one article (after scanning my headlines, of course), read The new language of climate change: Trillions, by Joel Makower at Greenbiz. See the first story below. There are some very material numbers at play that ought to have your attention.
I am paying more attention to hydrogen these days. Thanks to Maggie Hanna for helping to get that on our radar. I include a few headlines for stories that I thought were interesting.
In a show of just how much money is out there, US$750 million was pledged by a billionaire couple to CalTech for environmental sustainability research.
Last week, I posted about Amazon’s order of 100,000 electric delivery vans from startup Rivian. Here are four take-aways from that order. Chief among them is a wake up call to get the grid ready.
Please forward on to others you think would be interested and encourage them to subscribe. As always, comments welcome! All feedback is a gift, so tell me what you like or don’t like.
Thanks,
Peter
The new language of climate change: Trillions | GreenBiz
Excerpt:
- More than 1,100 institutions with more than $11 trillion in assets under management have committed (PDF) to divest from fossil fuels.
- And leading banks and the United Nations launched the Principles for Responsible Banking, with 130 banks — collectively holding $47 trillion in assets, or one-third of the global banking sector — committing to strategically align their business with the goals of the Paris Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals, “and massively scale up their contribution to the achievement of both.”
WATCH: Greta Thunberg’s 5 min speech to world leaders at UN Climate Action Summit
Comment: This one feels somehow different. Likely an important marker for galvanizing action. Note she is targeting governments and businesses. Yet governments listen to voters and businesses listen to customers. That’s us. You and I are the ones creating demand for products and choosing our governments.
Under pressure on climate, Big Oil pitches to the young | Reuters
Excerpt: “I am here to tell fossil fuel companies that our lives matter and that climate change is not affecting us in 10 years but right now,” said Mayana Torres, 19, a student and volunteer with SustainUS, a youth-led movement campaigning to bar fossil fuel companies from influencing climate policy.
Cost of UK offshore wind down 30% in 2 years | Current
Excerpt: Rock-bottom CfD results proof renewables are ‘blowing the competition out of the water’ | Today the government confirmed the winners of the third CfD auction round, with offshore wind projects clearing at just £39.65/MWh, representative of a ~30% reduction in the two years since the second round delivered offshore wind projects at strike prices of £57.70/MWh.
Comment: See? This is what happens when a technology get built out at scale. Granted future cost reductions will likely flatten out. No wonder the Labour party there plans billions for a massive build out. And these things are huge. Check out this short time lapse video.
Australia is the runaway global leader in building new renewable energy | The Conversation
Comment: Not surprisingly, an emerging barrier is transmission lines to connect all that renewable energy to the grid.
Excerpt: In Australia, renewable energy is growing at a per capita rate ten times faster than the world average. Between 2018 and 2020, Australia will install more than 16 gigawatts of wind and solar, an average rate of 220 watts per person per year. This is nearly three times faster than the next fastest country, Germany.
“Australia’s largest” virtual power plant completed by AGL in South Australia | One Step Off The Grid
Comment: Note that the prospective customers were being offered $7000 in subsidies:$6,000 from the South Australia state government and $1000 from AGL.
Excerpt: AGL Energy has marked the installation of the 1,000th – and final – battery system in its South Australia virtual power plant, a milestone it says makes the 5MW scheme the largest of its kind completed and operating in Australia.
Gogoro’s new GoStation electric scooter battery swap stations are huge | Electrek
Comment: What a cool battery system for scooters. Saves on having to round up scooters every night to re-charge them, then put them all back out again.
Excerpt: Taiwan-based Gogoro electric scooters rely on the company’s GoStations to swap out discharged batteries for fresh packs. There are over 1,000 such GoStations across Taiwan, helping Gogoro maintain nearly the entire market share of electric scooters in the country. In Taipei alone, riders are never further than 1 km (0.6 mi) from a battery swap station.
The station can actually power itself off of some of its batteries in the event of a power interruption. It can apparently continue operating without a power source for over two and a half days.
And in the event of power outages, the station can operate bidirectionally to help power urban microgrids and keep critical systems running in a city.
Other headlines of interest…
Energy Storage
- Compressed air energy storage company secures A$55m in finance | RenewEconomy
Hydrogen
- South Australia unveils plans for 100% renewable hydrogen economy | RenewEconomy
- Hyundai will work with Cummins on fuel cell technology for commercial vehicles | CNET
- 20 buses serving S.Africa Gautrain to switch to green hydrogen | SABC News
- Japan-Led Initiative Calls for 10 M. Fuel Cell Vehicles in 10 Years | Nippon.com
- Redesigned Toyota Mirai coming in 2020 | Motor Authority
Solar (& Battery)
- France, Netherlands, UK commit US$350m to emerging solar and storage | PV Tech
- Kenya to build utility-scale solar plants in $147m deal to power about 300,000 homes | Mambo Zuri
Wind (& Battery)
- Rock-bottom CfD results proof renewables are ‘blowing the competition out of the water’ | Current News
- Offshore UK wind project to power 1 million homes nearly complete | CNN
Transport
- Honda Strikes Biggest Deal Ever by Automaker to Buy Clean Power | BNN Bloomberg
- FF spinoff Canoo unveils new futuristic-looking electric vehicle you can subscribe to | Electrek
Transition
- San Jose, CA to become largest US city to ban natural gas | Smart Cities Dive
- Japan to invest $10 billion in global LNG infrastructure projects – minister | Reuters
- LNG investments hit record of $50 bln in 2019 -IEA chief | Reuters
Carbon Capture
- AT&T gets to 1.5 GW with purchase of 960 MW in renewables | Yahoo Finance
Circular Economy
- Net-zero not possible without circular economy, Ellen MacArthur Foundation finds | Edie