Virginia’s new Republican governor is moving to withdraw his state from a regional carbon emissions-trading exchange to which 10 coastal and New England states currently belong, a move that promises to be a major setback for the left-wing environmentalist agenda. On Jan. 15, the day he took office, Gov. Glenn Youngkin signed Executive Order 9, which directs state officials “to re-evaluate Virginia’s participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative and immediately begin regulatory processes to end it.”

Energy Policy Virginia

A warning has been given that blaming calm weather for reduced power generation from wind farms could hamper investment in renewable energy. A summer of low wind has led to opponents of wind farms to claim they are ineffective and expensive but experts believe poor performance may be due to other reasons such as faulty equipment.

Energy Policy Europe UK

Even when global gas prices fall back, the green transition will bake in higher costs. The more renewables on the system, the bigger—and more expensive—their backup has to be. (Mr Helm thinks that, taking intermittency into account, wind power may be even pricier than the nuclear sort.) ...One way or another the public will pay, whether through higher bills, higher taxes or a combination of both. Whatever the government does about the immediate problem, arguments about the cost of energy will continue.

Energy Policy UK

Germany, despite its claim to be a renewable energy leader, is not currently on track to meet its 2030 climate and energy targets. This week, the nation’s new Green Minister for Economics and Climate, Robert Habeck, presented a bold new plan for expanding onshore and offshore wind power. If successful, the plan would add up to 10 gigawatts of new onshore wind capacity every year for the rest of the decade. To put that into perspective, Europe as a whole installed 11.8 gigawatts (GW) of onshore wind in 2020.

Energy Policy Germany

Blackouts are unavoidable with solar and wind because the wind can stop blowing strongly, sometimes for weeks, and the sun sets daily and may be blocked by clouds for many days consecutively. Massive storage to date cannot fill in for more than a few hours at anything like an acceptable cost. Blackouts can cost electric customers their lives. 

Energy Policy USA

Britain imports a large proportion of its gas supplies from the Continent who, in turn, rely on Russia for around 35 percent of their own natural gas flows. ...Britain is making gains in domesticating its energy supplies to solve this issue. ...But, its primary source of renewable energy is wind power, which is volatile at best. During an unseasonal windless winter it has underperformed significantly, leaving the UK increasingly reliant on gas exported from Europe.

Energy Policy UK

Wynne said she was warned that the province was taking on a lot of debt and that energy prices would go up, but she didn’t take it “seriously enough.” A C.D. Howe report published in June 2021 says the cost of Ontario’s electricity system rose from $12 billion in 2006 to $21 billion in 2019, while demand fell 10 percent over the same period.

Energy Policy Ontario

In Ontario under McGuinty and Wynne, their now-scrapped Green Energy Act contributed to a doubling of electricity prices in a decade, cost hundreds of thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector and increased energy poverty. That occurs when families have to struggle financially just to heat, light and power their homes, weighing those costs against other necessities such as rent and food. According to two Ontario auditors general reports, the Liberal government, ignoring the advice of its own experts, overpaid $9.2 billion for green energy.

Energy Policy Ontario

Just four months after Amos Hochstein, the U.S. envoy for energy security, said Europe wasn’t doing enough to prepare for the dark and cold season ahead, the continent is grappling with a supply crunch that’s caused benchmark gas prices to more than quadruple from last year’s levels, squeezing businesses and households. The crisis has left the European Union at the mercy of the weather and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s wiles, both notoriously difficult to predict.

Energy Policy Europe

The labelling system, which will cover industries that generate about 80 per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions in the EU, is the first attempt by a major global regulator to decide what counts as truly sustainable economic activity and help stamp out so-called greenwashing in the financial sector.

Energy Policy Europe

Perhaps as a UK website “Net-Zero Watch” recently suggested to the UK’s Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, Ontario’s Minister of Energy, Todd Smith should take heed and do as they recommend and; “compel wind and solar generators to pay for their own balancing costs, thus incentivising them to self-dispatch only when economic.” Ontario’s electricity sector needs to rid itself of the costs of IWT’s unreliable and intermittent supply so now is the time to bring in some new regulations to stop the bleeding!

Energy Policy Ontario

Wind speeds were milder than usual in Europe this year, so windmills across the bloc generated less electricity which worsened a crunch that sent power prices to record highs as utilities had to buy more coal and scarce, costly, natural gas. The situation illustrated a challenge facing the European Union as it tries to boost renewable power and meet its climate targets: Power prices can soar when the wind dies down, so generators need ways to store some of the excess power when winds are strong.

Energy Policy Europe

A lull in wind speeds over the summer was felt in boardrooms across Europe. As it blew at its weakest for around 60 years, major energy companies lost millions of pounds in electricity sales. ...“It’s very serious,” Mads Nipper, chief executive of Danish oil-turned-wind giant Orsted, told the Financial Times in August, as he warned shareholders of a hit to profits. “It is like you’re a farmer and it doesn’t rain.”

Energy Policy UK

KEY POINTS

Energy Policy USA

ISO New England’s draft plan aims to strike a middle ground. While the grid operator’s working proposal eliminates the automatic price floor for subsidized resources, a similar calculation should still “be applied in certain situations,” ISO New England explained in a presentation to stakeholders in September. “In June, when we launched the effort to remove the MOPR from the capacity market, we made clear that we will do so in a way that doesn’t jeopardize either power system reliability or competitive pricing in the capacity market,” Matt Kakley, senior communications specialist at ISO New England, said in an email.

Energy Policy Transmission Connecticut Maine Massachusetts New Hampshire Rhode Island Vermont

Some coal and gas power stations in Britain were paid double the price of exchange-traded electricity to help plug a gap left by a drop in wind generation on Monday. ...U.K. gas prices are more than three times higher than at the start of the year, as imports from Russia to Europe slowed, and periods with low wind will only increase dependence on the fuel. 

Energy Policy UK

House Bill 951 started out as a one page bill with a worthy goal, encouraging efficient modular nuclear reactors for producing electricity in our state.  It came out of the legislature as a draconian mandate, tracking the proposals of Governor Cooper, that requires North Carolina to reduce carbon emissions by 70% by 2030.  In comparision, the EU legislation passed earlier this year that is already wrecking havoc on European energy markets and dramatically raising electric rates only requires a 50% reduction by 2030.

Energy Policy North Carolina

Sector hit by low wind speeds, supply chain blockages and higher raw material prices

Energy Policy USA Europe

The CEO of French multinational utility Engie said on Saturday it would be a "huge mistake" to declare a moratorium on wind power development, criticizing proposals from the far and center right. Catherine MacGregor's comments came amid an active anti-wind movement in France, notably supported by Xavier Bertrand, the leading conservative contender in the presidential vote who says he opposes any "archaic growth" of wind turbines.

Energy Policy Europe

Ralph Schoellhammer, an assistant professor of international relations at Webster Vienna Private University in Vienna, Austria told Newsweek Europe had failed to address major issues arising from the energy transition. "The current energy transformation in Europe is probably the greatest geopolitical blunder since World War II, the last time when misguided ideologies plunged millions of people into what can justifiable be called the darkest period of human history," Schoellhammer said. ..."More expensive energy will affect the development potential for billions of people around the world, and particularly in Africa. The refusal of Europeans to make cheap energy available will lead to massive migration movements in the future," he said.

Energy Policy USA Europe