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Tag : Solar PV (70)

Canada has yet to embrace rooftop solar power

CBC News / Jade Prévost-Manuel / 5 February 2021

The U.K. and Germany, places Gall said receive less light on average than Canada, have more than 20 times the number of solar rooftops.

Quantity is one measure of uptake but the rate of installations is equally important, and in countries like Vietnam, rooftop solar is booming. Despite a global pandemic and countrywide lockdown last year, Vietnam saw rooftop solar installations increase by nearly 2,435 per cent from 2019, to more than 100,000 systems in total.

“Last year, Vietnam installed three times more solar than Canada did in the last 10 years, so it’s pretty incredible,” said Gall, who added there’s no reason Canada couldn’t achieve the same growth.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Oil and gas know-how looks to alternatives in business-led push

CBC News / Don Pittis / 20 November 2020

A series of private sector-led projects in Alberta and Saskatchewan are evidence that profit-motivated entrepreneurs have already seen which way the wind is blowing.

Even as jobs disappear from the traditional fossil fuel sector, a new report from the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy says the plunging cost of alternative power is helping to stoke a low-carbon investment boom.

“This suggests building new renewables is now cheaper than operating existing fossil power plants,” the University of Calgary report said. And the first signs of that boom are already appearing.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Solar is now ‘cheapest electricity in history’, confirms IEA

Carbon Brief / Josh Gabbatiss, Simon Evans / 13 October 2020

The world’s best solar power schemes now offer the “cheapest…electricity in history” with the technology cheaper than coal and gas in most major countries.

That is according to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2020. The 464-page outlook, published today by the IEA, also outlines the “extraordinarily turbulent” impact of coronavirus and the “highly uncertain” future of global energy use over the next two decades.

Reflecting this uncertainty, this year’s version of the highly influential annual outlook offers four “pathways” to 2040, all of which see a major rise in renewables.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Review: Planet of the Humans

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The film is controversial because it makes two big claims: first, that renewable energy is a sham; second, that big environmental organizations—by promoting solar and wind power—have sold their souls to billionaire investors.

I feel fairly confident commenting on the first of these claims, regarding renewable energy, having spent a year working with David Fridley of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to assess the prospects for a complete transition to solar and wind power.

We found that the transition to renewables is going far too slowly to make much of a difference during the crucial next couple of decades, and would be gobsmackingly expensive if we were to try replacing all fossil fuel use with solar and wind.

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Building climate-saving tech digs up new problems

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The solar power and electric vehicles we need to stop the climate crisis pose a different threat to people and the environment: a boom in mining. Moving away from fossil fuels depends on tech like batteries and solar panels that can provide alternative forms of energy. But digging up the raw materials can undermine human rights and destroy fragile ecosystems. As governments and industries try to tackle climate change by building up renewable energy, they’ll need to consider other problems unearthed in the process.

Policy experts writing in the journal Science warn that a more sustainable future could hinge on how leaders manage the demand for metals and minerals, including cobalt and lithium needed for rechargeable batteries.

[ FULL ARTICLE ]

Transformation shows benefits of rapid decarbonization

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The success of Denmark’s rapid transition off fossil fuels over the last 10 years could point the way for “naysayers” whose “failure of the imagination” is holding off a similar shift in Canada, Globe and Mail European Bureau Chief Eric Reguly writes in a recent opinion piece.

“Going quickly from black to green in, say, electricity generation seems a megaproject too far, an unfathomable exercise in science fiction, theoretically possible but about as easy as building a colony on Mars,” Reguly writes, citing Ontario Premier and “Fossil-in-chief” Doug Ford’s evidence-free opposition to renewable electricity generation.

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