The permit application for the offshore wind farm slated for the North Sea has been approved. Now the partnership Evelop International and Ballast Nedam Concessies has the exclusive right to develop Scheveningen Buiten. Rijkswaterstaat Noordzee announced the approval includes the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). The wind farm, Scheveningen Buiten, which will be built outside the 12-mile zone off the seaside resort of Scheveningen, approximately 30 kilometers (km) from the coast, is expected to be finished by 2011. It will generate more than 300 megawatts (MW).

The European Commission on Wednesday called for a “new industrial revolution” via increased investment in renewable energy and nuclear power to combat climate change and curb Europe’s energy dependency. The proposals come as concerns over Europe’s energy security are making headlines as a bitter dispute between Russia and Belarus has disrupted the transit of oil supplies to Europe. The commission’s proposals are based on a forecast that the region’s energy imports will jump to 65% of consumption by 2030, when 84% of gas and 93% of oil will come from overseas, and sets out ways to reduce the block’s dependence on Russia and other suppliers. As its main measure, the paper proposes a 20% reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from the European Union’s energy consumption by 2020 and calls for a sharp increase in the use of renewable and biofuels.

PALMA DE MALLORCA, Spain: Spain will cut subsidies to wind-power plants following an overhaul of the way it calculates aid for renewable power sources, hurting earnings at utilities including Iberdrola, the world's largest producer of wind power.

The green energy sector has a lot riding on 2009. Policymakers from Washington to Beijing have pledged billions of dollars in "cleantech" investment to jump-start the depressed global economy and create millions of new low-carbon jobs. ...As with the solar industry, wind power has been hit by a sudden slowdown in private sector investment as credit has dried up and the price of oil has fallen from its mid-2008 high. The industry hopes public spending will help fill the gap until the global economy gets back on its feet.

In a Question to the Environment Minister in the National Assembly, Elin Jones, Assembly Member for Ceredigion has challenged Carwyn Jones to give priority to the use of Forestry Commission land for windfarm developments.

Apart from general bottleneck problems in times of high demand -- like during periods of extremely high or low temperature -- observers have questioned the grid's ability to cope with the addition of renewable energy sources, such as wind energy, into the mix and the network. Often, large wind parks that produce hundreds of megawatts of power in remote areas put a massive strain on local grids, which were designed to bring electricity from the center to the peripheries, and not the other way around. Due to the wind's variable strength, the amount of electricity injected into the grid is fluctuating constantly, further straining the grid.

MILAN, Italy, May. 11 (UPI) -- In order to continue its high rate of growth, the wind industry has many opponents to convert and obstacles to overcome. From siting to operation, wind project developers face a barrage of challenges. First, though regulations vary, you can't put a wind turbine within a certain distance of an area of national, historic or natural value. Also, unless residents are offered a share of the project, locals sometimes oppose them, citing aesthetic concerns.

GREEN lobby groups that oppose nuclear energy were accused of "fundamentalism" yesterday as the Government announced a review of whether to build a new generation of nuclear power stations.

Large swathes of scenic countryside are being ruined by massive wind turbines which damage people’s lives and the environment. That was the blunt message yesterday at the launch of a new nationwide alliance of communities fighting wind farms. Believing the answer to Ireland’s energy needs is not blowing in the wind, the Irish Wind Energy Truth Alliance (IWETA) insisted that the turbines damage the environment and, because of their inefficiency, do nothing to tackle the energy crisis.

The German feed-in system, called the Erneuerbare Energieen Gesetz (Renewable Energy Law or EEG) guarantees producers of sustainable power a fixed price per kWh fed into the grid. Since the introduction of the EEG in April 2000, the amount of renewable energy in Germany has more than tripled. Last year saw the production of 20,000 GWh of wind power and 18,000 GWh from other renewable sources. The share of renewables in the electricity mix has increased from 3.01% in 2000 to 10.53% in 2006. The target for 2012 is 20%. At the same time, the increasing share of renewables confronts the power sector with growing pains. They are facing an increasing input from highly variable sources. For instance, in 2004 the grid feed-in from renewable sources has varied between 1.8 and 14 GW.

The Government's new fast track planning bill for strategic infrastructure has been published.

The argument between price and reliability continues because dwindling European gas reserves are creating new pressures. In Britain, wind power is fashionable but very expensive and causes network problems. Scotland, being windy, is a good place for wind turbines, but the power is needed in southern England and National Grid worries about the cost of transmission. How much should it build? Because wind is intermittent, each turbine is only 30 per cent efficient, but transmission lines must be able to cope with maximum output....... 100 per cent reliable, clean energy. It’s not feasible and, faced with an expensive dilemma, the British Government has exposed its intellectual failure by threatening consumers with tax increases. Europe has opted, more or less, for market-based solutions that produce cheap rather than secure energy, but suppliers of fuel, such as Gazprom, are becoming more monopolistic. A collision between the two is not far away. Mr Piebalgs needs to get thinking.

A DRAMATIC stop has been put on an application to erect 10 of the largest wind turbines in Wales on a site near Pencader.

Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday signalled a shift away from the Government's stance on wind power when he ordered a wide-ranging review of Britain's energy needs.

High wind-power production in Germany one Saturday night helped extend a blackout across Europe. Last month, the Conservative government joined the long line of governments around the world subsidizing the production of wind power. Meanwhile, new information about wind power from Europe raises the spectre of unexpected blackout risks, high costs, unreliable production and even questionable environmental benefits. Concerns over wind power used to focus on whether enough wind would blow to keep wind generators busy and electric power grids supplied. Now, after a major power blackout in Europe in November that left 15 million households in the dark, concerns over wind power come from an entirely opposite direction – fear that wind power can unpredictably produce more power than a system can handle.

In conclusion, this study has shown that in many countries deregulation is having the expected effect of increased competition leading to price reduction. However, it is evident that pricing in markets depends not just on the status of deregulation, but also on the broader aspects of competition. Key factors here include the balance of supply and demand, generation fuel costs, the learning process that new markets go through, competition within different market segments and the costs of access to transmission and distribution networks. Deregulation is a long-term process that requires sustained attention.

The regulator has approved an additional 1,300mw of renewables, mostly wind, for the system. A further 620mw is at the planning stage and is contracted for connection. This will bring the total for renewables to around 3,000mw by 2010, when the total capacity will be 7,800mw.

The Chinese electric utility Huaneng and the Spanish National Power Corporation Endesa have unveiled a pioneering initiative for purchasing emissions credits generated under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), according to the 21st Century Business Herald.

European power companies are making billions of euros in excess profits in the European Union's battle to beat global warming by cutting emissions of carbon gases, and consumers are paying for it, economists say. The electricity generators are given, free of charge, permits to emit millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide which are currently worth around 20 euros a tonne, but are then charging consumers as if they had been made to pay for the permits. Michael Grubb, Chief Economist at the Carbon Trust and Director of Climate Strategies, calculates that this practice which he says is economically justifiable gives the industry windfall profits of some 20 billion euros ($27.14 billion) a year. "It is free money," he told Reuters. "It's how you'd expect companies to behave, but politically and morally it is going to be hard to justify making so much money out of a scheme designed to reduce emissions - with consumers footing the bill."

William Kovacs, at U.S. Chamber of Commerce, warns: "Anyone who thinks you can have a cap-and-trade system in which trillions of dollars of new securities will be traded is just not paying attention to what's happening on Wall Street." Meanwhile, prices in emerging carbon markets (Carbon Finance) globally have held up better than in other commodities markets, but financial analysts caution that these markets are too immature to provide a safe haven for investors (Reuters). Though sales of carbon emission offset credits--investment in green projects in lieu of direct emissions reductions--have been strong, some experts still express concern over the quality of oversight (WSJ) these projects receive.