Energy Shift: Africa leapfrogs transition with technology

Plus: $787 million for EV charging in Europe; 400MW compressed air energy storage in California; Giant offshore wind for hydrogen in Ireland

Hi Everyone,

I was busy this week reconnecting with other Fellows of the Energy Futures Lab, a unique hub leveraging social innovation with the convening question: How do we leverage our leadership position in today’s energy system to create the energy system the future requires of us? It was the first in person workshop since the start of the pandemic and boy, that was so much better than zoom.

All that is to say, I didn’t take the time this week to craft much in the way of observations, comments or visuals to grab your attention. You’ll need to comb through the content with extra diligence to make sure you don’t miss a story.

Thanks,
Peter


Observations & Comments

Check out the Feature Story to learn how technology is enabling parts of Africa to leap frog over traditional development pathways.

Boris Johnson wants the UK to add 145,000 EV chargers per year until 2030, adding to the 250,000 said to be in place already there. Currently, only 5,000 of which are fast charging stations. Bloomberg calls it a dramatic expansion – See the Transportation section.

Canada’s Justin Trudeau vowed to go ‘further, faster’ on climate policy in his third term, yet Federal Environment Commissioner Jerry DeMarco says Canada’s efforts on climate change are going from ‘failure to failure’, despite three decades of effort. Will this time be different from all the previous declarations of ambition by politicians? Judge for yourself the likelihood based on our ambition track record shown below.

According to Trudeau’s latest declaration, by 2030 Canada’s GHG emissions need to be 406-433 MT (40-45% below 2005), a reduction of ~300+ MT

Feature Story

How AI and IoT applications are helping bring renewables to rural households in Africa and beyond | Current± 

One of the key messages from COP26 is the need for a fair and just transition that includes people of all economic backgrounds, especially those in rural communities with little or no access to electricity.


Finance & Sentiment

ECB Says Most European Banks Still Don’t Have Climate Strategies | BNN Bloomberg
The European Central Bank has warned that most lenders it oversees have yet to produce concrete plans showing how they will change their business strategies to account for climate change. While around half the 112 institutions overseen by the Frankfurt-based central bank are “contemplating setting exclusion targets for some segments of the market, only a handful of them mention actively planning to steer their portfolios on a Paris-compatible trajectory,” ECB Executive Board member Frank Elderson said in a blog post on Monday.

FTSE 100 firms increasingly linking executive pay to ESG measures | edie
New research from PwC has found that almost two-thirds of FTSE 100s now include some sort of environmental, social and governance (ESG) measure as part of executive incentive pay plans, up from less than half in 2020.

Technology

Hydrogen 

Giant green hydrogen project powered by 6 GW of off-grid solar and wind proposed for South Australia | pv magazine
Kallis Energy Investments is proposing a whopping 6 GW renewable hydrogen project in South Australia, with founder Terry Kallis telling pv magazine Australia the project will not seek to connect its 3 GW of planned solar and wind assets to the already congested grid.

Giant Offshore Wind Farm Planned in Ireland for Green Hydrogen | BNN Bloomberg
A Singapore-based offshore wind developer has signed an agreement to build a huge $10 billion wind farm off the coast of Ireland to power a 3.2 GW onshore green hydrogen facility.

Indian Oil launches tender for green hydrogen generation units | pv magazine
The state-owned oil and gas company is seeking bids to set up green hydrogen generation units with annual capacities of 5,000 MT and 2,000 MT, respectively, at two of its facilities in India.

Plug Power selected as technology provider for 100 MW electrolyzer in Egypt | pv magazine
U.S. hydrogen solutions company Plug Power has been selected as the technology provider for a 100 MW electrolyzer in Egypt by Fertiglobe, a partnership between Dutch distributor of nitrogen and methanol products OCI, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, Norway’s renewable energy company Scatec, the Sovereign Fund of Egypt, and Egypt-based engineering and construction contractor Orascom Construction.The electrolyzer will produce green hydrogen as feedstock for up to 90,000 tons of green ammonia in Ain Sokhna, Egypt.

Technology produces zero-carbon ammonia via green hydrogen at 60% of the cost | Recharge News
A Canadian technology company says it has developed equipment that will produce zero-emissions green ammonia from renewable hydrogen at a far cheaper price than highly polluting grey ammonia. The shipping-container-sized ‘hydrogen ammonia synthesiser’ system developed by Toronto-based FuelPositive could clean up the global production of ammonia, CEO Ian Clifford tells Recharge.

Why gas companies can’t count on green hydrogen to save their distribution grids | RenewEconomy
Operators of gas distribution grids need to prepare for a “disruptive end to their business model” with net-zero scenarios seeing very limited use of hydrogen in heating buildings, according to a new study from German think-tank Agora Energiewende. The report points to an emerging consensus concluding “that the role of hydrogen for climate neutrality is crucial but secondary to direct electrification”, with green hydrogen to be used to decarbonise industry, shipping, aviation, “and firming a renewable-based power system.”

Carbon Capture 

Petronas teams up with ExxonMobil, Technip Energies, for CCS | Energy Voice
State-backed Malaysian energy company Petronas will jointly explore opportunities in carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies with ExxonMobil, to help decarbonise Malaysia’s upstream industry and provide storage solutions for Asia.

Bitumen Beyond Combustion 

Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge Selects Successful Phase II Projects | EnergyNow
Alberta Innovates and the Clean Resource Innovation Network (CRIN) have selected 12 projects to participate in Phase II of the Carbon Fibre Grand Challenge (CFGC). Participating teams will share $5.27 million as they develop processes to scale up and improve the quality of carbon fibre manufactured from Alberta bitumen.

Energy Storage

Hyundai creates platform to help homeowners buy solar panels, battery and EV charger | pv magazine
The one-stop marketplace platform will be launched in the US market next year. It will help homeowners find the best combination of products depending on their consumption profile.

World needs up to 140TWh of long duration energy storage to meet net-zero goals | RenewEconomy
Between 85 and 140 terrawatt-hours of long-duration (8 hours or more) energy storage technologies such as pumped hydro, flow batteries and concentrating solar thermal will need to be deployed globally to achieve net-zero emissions power grids by 2040, a new report has found.

Hydrostor plans 400 MW / 3200 MWh compressed air energy storage in the U.S. | pv magazine
The plant would be able to deliver 400 MW of electricity for 8 hours, and would be comparable in size to some of California’s largest fossil fuel power plants.

Tesla Batteries Seen Undercutting Australia’s $5 Billion Project | BNN Bloomberg
An Australian government-backed plan to turn the island state of Tasmania into a power hub supplying urban centers in the southeast of the mainland would be a costly dud, according to a Victoria University-linked energy researcher. The plan to build out pumped hydro and wind generation and transport the electricity through a 250-kilometer (155-mile) undersea cable known as the Marinus Link would cost as much as A$7.1 billion ($5.1 billion), the Victoria Energy Policy Centre said in a report. It would be preferable to build the same amount of generation in the form of lithium-ion grid-scale batteries directly in Victoria, the study showed.

591MW of battery storage receives grid connection offers in Ireland alongside 1.5GW of solar PV | Energy Storage News
Transmission system operator Eirgrid and grid maintenance and construction group ESB Networks have released the full list of renewable energy projects to receive grid connection offers in Ireland through their enduring connection policy (ECP) process, with solar PV representing the majority of these.

US$2.6bn financing secured by developer Intersect Power for 2.2GW solar with 1.4GWh battery storage | Energy Storage News
Utility-scale renewables developer Intersect Power has secured US$2.6 billion in financing for the construction and operations of a portfolio of solar and energy storage projects in California and Texas.

 

Solar and Wind 

First Solar signs multi-year deals for 5.4 GW of modules | pv magazine
Lightsource bp and bp placed orders for around 4.4 GW of modules, with options for an additional 1 GW.

A net-zero Canada would need 1.6 GW of solar per year from now on | pv magazine
Clean energy trade group the Canadian Renewable Energy Association has told policymakers CA$8 billion worth of solar and wind projects will be needed each year to decarbonize the electricity supply by 2035 and remove net emissions by mid century.

OX2 unveils €650m deal to build 455MW wind farm in Finland | Renewables Now
Swedish renewables developer OX2 has been contracted to build a zero-subsidy wind farm in Finland of 455.4 MW, the largest one in the country to date, and then sell it to a consortium of local energy companies.

Israeli-led JV targets 1.25GW in Poland | reNEWS.biz
Israeli company Nofar Energy is setting up a joint venture with Electrum to initiate, develop, manage and maintain 1250MW of wind and solar in Poland.

Tata Power to set up 4 GW integrated solar manufacturing plant in Tamil Nadu | pv magazine
The company’s solar arm is planning a 4 GW integrated solar PV manufacturing unit with an investment of around INR 3,000 crore (US$403 million).

 

Transportation 

Johnson Boosts Electric Cars With 145,000 Charging Points a Year | BNN Bloomberg
Prime Minister Boris Johnson will set out plans for a dramatic expansion of the U.K.’s electric-vehicle charging network by 2030 when the government will ban the sale of new gasoline and diesel cars.

BlackRock, Carmakers to Pour $787 Million Into Charging Network | BNN Bloomberg
BlackRock Inc. is joining automakers including BMW AG, Volkswagen AG and Ford Motor Co. as shareholders in electric-car charging consortium Ionity GmbH, contributing to a 700 million-euro ($787 million) investment in the venture.The joint outlay will more than quadruple Ionity’s high-power charging points in Europe to at least 7,000 by 2025, the group said in a statement Wednesday.

Shipping push for world-first CO2 charge stalls at IMO talks | JWN Energy
Shipping’s global regulator signaled that a tiny CO2-based charge on vessels’ fuel consumption will not be approved at a meeting this week, underscoring the challenge facing the industry in its bid to decarbonize. While the proposed price is low, the levy is significant because it would be the first ever mandatory, global “fee-based” carbon price, according to the World Bank. The plan was discussed at international talks on Wednesday and, with many countries raising concerns, provisionally deferred to a future meeting.

Rolls-Royce claims to have developed the world’s fastest all-electric aircraft | CNN
British aero engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce says it has developed the “world’s fastest all-electric aircraft,” according to a statement from the company. The aircraft — dubbed the “Spirit of Innovation” — attained a maximum speed of 387.4 mph (623km/h) in flight, which Rolls-Royce said it believed makes it “the world’s fastest all-electric vehicle.”

Global Shipping Is Under Pressure to Ease Pollution After COP26 | BNN Bloomberg
Global talks on how to clean up shipping are set to begin Monday (Nov 22) as momentum builds to cut pollution from the sector, The sector, which transports more than 80% of the world’s internationally traded goods, has a carbon footprint bigger than Germany and the Netherlands combined.

Mercedes-Benz teases upcoming hyper-efficient electric car with over 1,000 km (620 miles) of range | Electrek
Mercedes-Benz teased its upcoming hyper-efficient electric car with over 1,000 km (620 miles) of range with a new photo. The automaker plans to use the vehicle to test new technology to improve efficiency in its electric vehicles.


Circular Economy 

UK business claims to offer ‘world’s most sustainable lithium-ion battery’ | pv magazine

English manufacturer Aceleron claims every component of its devices can be accessed for replacement, repair or recycling, with the business’ co-founder stating the aim is to ensure ‘100% of the materials in our batteries will continue to be used for as long as possible – preferably forever.’

GE wind energy unit to build zero waste turbine blades by 2030 | RenewEconomy
Danish wind turbine manufacturer LM Wind – a subsidiary of GE – has announced that it will produce zero waste wind turbine blades by 2030, giving up on any landfilling and incineration as future waste management solutions. Currently, around 20% to 25% of materials purchased by wind turbine blade manufacturers do not go into the final product, meaning that waste from manufacturing represents one of the biggest challenges faced by the wind industry.

Policy

European Commission approves €2.3bn renewables incentive plan by Greece | pv magazine
Competitive bidding for onshore solar and wind will establish a clean-power strike price acceptable to successful developers under the contracts-for-difference approach. The three-year incentive scheme is also applicable to biogas, biomass, landfill gas, hydropower, concentrated solar power, and geothermal plants.

Australia greenlights offshore wind | Electrek
Australia has the world’s highest uptake of rooftop solar, but it also has a huge dependency on coal. And the country just threw open the door to another clean energy source: offshore wind. On Thursday, its Parliament passed a law that establishes a regulatory framework for offshore wind power.

Germany’s New Government to Channel $67 Billion to Climate Fund | BNN Bloomberg
Germany’s new government under incoming Chancellor Olaf Scholz plans to channel 60 billion euros ($67 billion) into a climate fund to help finance the administration’s climate goals over the next four years.