Solar Power

Las Cruces Utilities provides utilities like clean water, removes waste and wastewater, and ensures customers have access to natural gas energy. LCU is also working to achieve the goals set by Las Cruces City Council to provide locations to grow the needed infrastructure for clean energy, including solar. One of those locations for a nearly finished photovoltaic array is at the West Mesa Industrial Park Wastewater Treatment Facility.

“It’s not a place that most residents can get out to see, but the facility does serve the correctional facility and anticipated growth of the Las Cruces Innovation & Industrial Park,” said John Mrozek, deputy director Wastewater. “It had the space needed to build the array, plus we had the infrastructure to support it being in a protected location.”

With Resolution 18-117, the City of Las Cruces adopted a commitment to clean energy. It set the goal of generating 25 percent of Las Cruces municipal electricity from solar power by the end of 2022. The resolution was amended in 2019 to include the work done before 2017.

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Lorde is a real hottie.

The two-time Grammy-winner sat down with “Hot Ones” to dish all the dirt on her upcoming album “Solar Power” and feast on some spicy wings.

“I am hungry and the wings look pretty good,” the singer-songwriter told Sean Evans, host of the “First We Feast” YouTube series. “I feel like I’m inside the Internet. It’s a weird sensation to be here. It’s a little surreal, but I am ready.”

And ready she was. Lorde, 24, barely broke a sweat while chomping down on a variety of hot chicken wings ranging from a Scoville Level (which measures the potency of peppers) of 1,800 to 649,000. Near the end of the 24-minute episode, she even added extra sauce to increase the flavor and intensity of the late-night snack.

“That’s nice,” she said after biting down on an especially hot wing called “The Scorpion Disco.” “I Love that name. Funkin’ Hot. It’s so nice to eat a wing. In the pop star life, I feel like you’re not smashing wings that often, you know?”

Fans were very impressed by the performance of the New Zealand pop star’s ability to keep her composure while past guests such as Idris Elba, Gordon Ramsey, Halle Berry, Shaquille O’Neal, Justin Timberlake, Hannibal Burress and Billie Eilish have coughed, cried and shed tears.

When Lorde wasn’t putting previous guests to shame, the 24-year-old chatted in between bites about her third album. “I basically thought of the album as a sun worship album,” she said. “I’m not religious in any way, but my experiences in nature the last couple of years were as close to what I had experienced as religion, so it was like a sort of devotional record for me.”

Besides having a fondness for chicken wings, the singer also talked about what makes a perfect onion ring. “I want an onion that has been cut thickly,” she said. “I want a pretty toothsome, vertical bite. I want a pretty crisp yet thick crust. You know, I want it to have some substance. I guess I’d be more into a batter than a crumbed [covering] if forced to make a choice. So that’s maybe the way my bias skews.”

Ironically Lorde’s new album also has a strange connection to Jennifer Lopez. “This album features a lot of cicadas singing. The sound of cicadas to me is so emblematic of New Zealand summer,” she explained. “This year has brood IX, which is this big kind of boom of cicadas once you reached 17 years. The last time it happened was in 2004 when I guess JLo and Ben Affleck were together and now they’re back together, so people are like, brood IX is in the air, so I guess I am right on trend with my cicada moment.”

“Solar Power” debuts on August 20.

Contributing towards curbing global warming by reducing carbon emission, Pune has made a significant progress with the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) generating 1.25 megawatt of power from rooftop solar projects besides doubling electricity production through similar plans on private buildings.

The PMC administration on Friday tabled its Environment Status Report (ESR) for 2020-21 in a meeting. Along with the positive impact of lockdown due to the pandemic on the city’s environment, the ESR revealed the increase in solar energy generation within the city limits.

As per the report, the PMC set up rooftop solar power generation plants on 39 buildings of the civic body with a total capacity to generate 1.25 MW of power. “The power generated from the solar projects would be primarily used in civic offices and the excess power as well as those generated during holidays will be provided to the power grid of power utility Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL),” it said.

The report added that the number of people opting for rooftop solar power generation on their properties is also increasing. “As per MSEDCL, 1.53 crore units of power was generated by 2,667 customers through rooftop solar power plants in 2019-20 in the city, while total 3.02 crore units of power was generated from rooftop solar power panels by 3,211 customers in 2020-21,” it said.

The PMC initiative to encourage people to use solar energy by giving discounts on property tax has been yielding good results. In 2020-21, total 1.82 crore units of power was saved due to the use of 49,577 solar water heaters installed by people across the city.

As per the ESR, vehicles cause the maximum air pollution in the city. There was 39 per cent reduction in registration of new vehicles in Pune in 2020 as against that in 2019.

A total of 31,53,453 vehicles are now registered with the regional transport office in Pune till June 2021. The registration of new vehicles was the lowest during the initial lockdown period of April and May last year. “The increase in use of electric vehicles in future would have a good impact on the air quality of the city,” it said.

The report showed that levels of particulate matter, PM 10 and PM 2.5, most harmful air pollutants, dropped significantly in the city during the lockdown period. “The PM 10 reduced to 63.94 in 2020 compared to 79.30 in 2017. It was below the standard mark of 60 microgram per cubic metre in all parts of the city during the five months of the year from May to September last year.”

Similarly, the PM 2.5 has reduced to 39.92 in 2020 from 53.70 in 2017. It was below the standard mark of 40 microgram per cubic metre in all parts of the city from April to September last year. The nitrogen oxide was below the standard mark of 40 microgram per cubic metre for eight months from March to October last year.

– Stay updated with the latest Pune news. Follow Express Pune on Twitter here and on Facebook here. You can also join our Express Pune Telegram channel here.

July 30 (Reuters) – Australia’s Origin Energy (ORG.AX) warned on Friday of a A$2.25 billion ($1.67 billion) charge in fiscal 2021 and a steep fall in next year’s earnings for its energy markets business, which is struggling from a collapse in wholesale electricity prices.

Shares of the company plunged 7.9%, their most since April, as Origin flagged “significant headwinds” in fiscal 2022 with a flood of wind and solar power into Australia’s grid hurting prices and squeezing margins.

The bulk of the expected charge, Origin said, would be a A$1.58 billion post-tax impairment in its power generation business, including a A$583 million write-down in the value of Australia’s biggest coal-fired power station, Eraring.

Core earnings at the unit are expected between A$450 million and A$600 million in fiscal 2022, a sharp drop from the A$940 million to A$1.02 billion forecast for 2021 to be delivered in August.

“This is at least the third downgrade this year,” Macquarie said in a note, adding that earnings appeared to be rebasing in the medium term to between A$750 million and A$800 million.

The company, however, said the unit’s earnings should start to show some recovery in fiscal 2023, to between A$600 million and A$850 million.

Origin’s impairment warning comes as Australia weighs recommendations from the Energy Security Board on reforms to the national electricity market, which aims to prolong the life of coal- and gas-fired plants to ensure reliable supply at a time of rapid growth in renewable power.

The reforms would create a “capacity mechanism” that would pay generators for flexible power capacity, crucial for backing up weather-dependent wind and solar.

Shares of AGL, Origin’s peer and Australia’s biggest power producer with the most coal-fired generation, fell 3%. AGL plans to split into a bulk power generator and energy retailer. read more

($1 = 1.3510 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Shashwat Awasthi and Savyata Mishra in Bengaluru and Sonali Paul in Melbourne, additional reporting by Nikhil Kurian Nainan; Editing by Maju Samuel, Subhranshu Sahu, and Sherry Jacob-Phillips

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Sunlight has a couple of advantages over your traditional gas and coal. It’s cheap, it’s powerful, and there’s a lot of it. But there’s a barrier to entry — to harness solar power, you need your own solar panels. This would be true even on the Moon, the next stage of civilization, if billionaires get their way.

But don’t worry, a new company based in Luxembourg will have you watching Netflix in your moon apartment in no time.

But first, let’s solar panel Earth

Maana Electric, and its CEO Joost van Oorschot, has a deceptively simple product pitch. It’s a factory the size of several shipping containers that takes sand and produces solar panels. But before they get to the Moon, they’ll need to send self-contained solar panel factories to Earth’s deserts as a stepping stone.

The company says customers could utilize sand in desert landscapes to save shipping from China, which manufactures most of the world’s solar panels.

It could even produce solar panels for Mars and elsewhere — assuming its planned Earth-based pilot project is successful next year.

Maana is developing a payload for a future Moon mission that could take lunar regolith and convert it into high-purity silicon, producing around one megawatt of solar panels per year. The system could also produce oxygen.

Want to know more about the technology behind Maana panels, how Earth deserts lead to the Moon, and where Elon Musk sees humanity by 2050? Read the full interview with Maana CEO Joost van Oorschot, only in MUSK READS+.

Are Moon and Earth solar panels different?

This box will differ from Earth-based ones as it wouldn’t be so heavy. The box doesn’t need to factor in humidity or other atmospheric conditions on a place like the Moon. The goal is to send the pilot project to the Moon “in the next couple of years or so.”

The firm’s Earth-based projects should lead to the Moon. Van Oorschot says the two boxes share around 60 percent of the same technology.

Does this mean we can expect a panel-covered Moon, one day visible from Earth?

“Initially no … but I think what you’re more likely to see is the same as how astronauts … when it’s night on Earth, you see all the lights,” he says. “I think you’ll see something similar when you’re looking at the Moon.”

SpaceX plans to use its upcoming Starship rocket to build a base on the Moon, while NASA also has plans for a long-term Lunar Gateway spaceship to support Moon missions. This could lead to a more significant human presence, one that will need solar panels.

“That’s really what we’re trying to enable,” he says. “We’re trying to power that lunar economy.”

Further out, van Oorschot says the firm could “definitely” do Mars if it can do the Earth and Moon. The big difference will be how the planet is much further from the Sun, which means the panels are less effective.

But as Musk gears up to build a city on Mars as early as 2050, it could find itself in need of a way of producing panels.

“We call ourselves the utility company of the Solar System,” van Oorschot says.

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With her anticipated new album Solar Power due out very soon, Lorde stopped by talk show/endurance test Hot Ones to discuss a variety of subjects while eating increasingly spicy wings. As the first New Zealander to appear on the series, Lorde got quizzed about the “Kiwi lifestyle” (sheep, “hokey pokey” ice cream), working with Jack Antonoff, cicadas, onion rings, her love of books, and more. As to how she can handle the heat, you’ll have to watch, but she does a lot better than DJ Khaled, and at one point host Sean Evans is taken aback by her composure. Watch Lorde’s Hot Ones episode below.

Solar Power is out August 20 and you can pre-order it on vinyl in the BV shop.

Lorde will be on tour next year, including two nights at NYC’s Radio City Music Hall.

In a bid to encourage the use of clean energy, the Nagpur Municipal Corporation offers a 5% rebate on property tax to residents who install rooftop solar systems. But the corporation’s own buildings and facilities run up an annual power bill of about Rs 100 crore, show corporation documents we accessed. Its biggest power guzzlers, we found, are water treatment plants, pumping stations and street lights – all of which can be run on rooftop solar power.

In 2018, the city corporation had planned a 42-megawatt peak capacity solar photovoltaic installation to be distributed between its water treatment plants, pumping stations, streetlights, buildings and gardens, said Sunil S Navghare, an engineer at the municipal corporation’s electricity department. But the project has been delayed for almost two years. “We have ironed out almost all issues now and hope this year it will be up and running,” said Navghare.

The apathy towards clean energy is notable because Nagpur enjoys 300 days of sunshine a year and was declared one of India’s 60 solar cities in a move to promote sustainable energy. It also explains why India has been slow in achieving its target for rooftop solar energy even as it pushes for a substantial switch to sustainable energy. Under its Nationally Determined Contributions pledged in 2015 to combat climate change, India has set a target of 175 GW renewable energy by 2022. Of this, as much as 100 GW is to come from solar energy, including 40 GW of rooftop solar.

The government is aware that the rooftop solar sector is nowhere near this target. During the first phase (2015-2020), 2,071 MW was installed against a target of 4,200 MW by January 31, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy told the Lok Sabha in February.

What are the reasons for the tardy growth despite the many advantages of solar rooftop systems?

In Nagpur, for example, the city’s public sector units, central government offices, corporate offices, industrial units, commercial units and even big hospitals have been installing rooftop solar systems, with or without the funds offered by the Central Financial Assistance to promote solar energy over the last decade. For example, last year, the Reserve Bank of India completed a rooftop grid-interactive 55 KWp SPV system for its staff quarters in the city. And Nagpur Metro has installed rooftop solar systems at several of its stations, rails, depot boundary walls and sheds.

“So far, to promote solar rooftop, the government has relied on subsidies to residential households. This approach does not address the main bottlenecks: high up-front costs and lack of financing, discoms’ reluctance to support installations, low comfort with technology and bureaucratic hurdles,” said a 2019 report of the Centre for Science and Energy, suggesting the setting up of Renewable Energy Service Companies to offer long-term supply contracts to households.

Maharashtra’s target

Six months after it assumed power in 2014, the Modi government approved the setting up of 1,000 MW grid-connected solar photovoltaic power projects with viability gap fund support of Rs 1,000 crore on the condition that all photovoltaic cells and modules be made in India. Among other decisions, it also approved the setting up of 25 solar parks of 500 MW each and an ultra-mega solar power project with the central financial support of Rs 4,050 crore.

As we said, India has set a target of 175 GW for renewables by 2022 and of this, 40 GW is to come from rooftop solar. However, as per Ministry of New and Renewable Energy data, as on March 31, the cumulative installed renewable energy capacity was 94.43 GW, including 40.09 GW solar capacity. (No break-up of rooftop solar is available). These targets comprise state-wise targets, which in turn comprise city-wise and sector-wise targets – rooftop solar, windmills or large solar plants and so on.

Under phase II of its grid-connected rooftop solar photovoltaic programme, the ministry announced that 40,000 MW of grid-connected rooftop solar projects in the residential sector would be set up with the Central Financial Assistance scheme by 2022.

It set a 2022 target of 4,700 MW rooftop solar for Maharashtra, the highest for any state or union territory. with annual and state-wise targets. As per the second phase of the Central Financial Assistance scheme, the state’s primary discom, the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, or Mahavitaran, was to get 25 MW worth of subsidies. The package included rooftop solar systems with and without subsidy in residential and commercial/industrial structures.

Maharashtra itself has set an ambitious target of 2,000 MW by 2025 for grid-connected rooftop solar projects as part of the State Renewable Energy Policy 2020 announced on December 31, 2020.

Yet, the state ranks only eighth on solar installations, as per the ministry’s 2019-’20 annual report. It scored only 52.0 (out of 100) and was ranked ninth in the “SARAL: State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index 2018-2019” worked out by the ministry.

The Maharashtra government has failed to make it compulsory for its new buildings to have rooftop solar, which was a major recommendation in the 28th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy (2016-’17), National Solar Mission – An Appraisal. “The ministry should pursue all the states/UTs to make Rooftop Solar compulsory on new buildings by making changes in building byelaws,” the report said.

No new target was set for 2020-’21 as the previous year’s target had not been reached and as of October 11, 2020, there was no disbursement of subsidy as none of the projects had been completed by then.

Reluctant discoms

The role of discoms features repeatedly in all discussions on the problems faced by the rooftop sector. In part one of the series, we had referred to allegations by the Maharashtra Solar Manufacturers’ Association and others that MSEDCL has been sabotaging the expansion of the sector. Inconsistent policies, procedural hassles and lackadaisical response to consumer needs are some of the problems Maharashtra Solar Manufacturers’ Association pointed out.

Why are discoms key to the rooftop sector? Power discoms supply electricity via grids for which they are paid by consumers. Since rooftop installations cannot offer round-the-clock power supply for various reasons, consumers find it useful to link up with the grid through a system called net metering. If the consumer generates extra solar power, its value is adjusted against the next months’ consumption by the discom.

Discoms have argued that the rise of the rooftop sector could end up causing them revenue losses. Though no official at the discom was willing to go on record on the subject, enough communication has been put out by the agency to explain its reservations.

“Large amounts of rooftop solar make it difficult for utilities to maintain the stability of the local grid,” the MSEDCL said in its comments on the 2018 amendment to the net metering regulation. “Utilities maintain the distribution voltage within specified limits to provide reliable power to their customers. However, conventional grids were not designed with solar in mind and some solar generation characteristics, such as intermittent output and safety-triggered circuit trips, aggravate voltage instability.”

The discom also spoke of its anxieties about the revenue loss caused by cross subsidising of the rooftop sector. “At present, only high-end consumers are opting for rooftop renewable energy through net metering arrangement and although it is beneficial for such consumer (sic), it reduces the ability of the distribution licensee to subsidise low-end consumers,” the discom said. “The same may destroy the delicate cross subsidy balance mechanism provided in the Electricity Act 2003 and will push the rate of electricity for small and poorer consumers very near to the average cost of supply.”

The discom is referring to the fact that the bills of high-paying consumers are used for cross-subsidising low-paying or no-returns consumers such as agricultural consumers or those in the least consumption bracket. So, if these high-paying consumers start using solar power, thus effectively reducing regular power bills, who will bear the cost of the cross-subsidy?

It is not that the government is not aware of the hurdles facing the rooftop sector. The 28th report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Energy (2016-’17) titled “National Solar Mission – An Appraisal” has dealt with its under-achievements.

Responding to the appraisal, the ministry had cited: “Reluctance of discoms to operationalise net-metering regulations as rooftop solar systems may reduce their income from high paying customers, lack of consumer awareness, tedious process for project commissioning and subsidy disbursement and frequent changes in government policies.”

Another issue is grid support charges to be levied on consumers once solar power generation in the state reaches 2,000 MW.

‘Framework needed’

What is a grid support charge? If high-use power consumers migrate to solar power, it reduces a discom’s earnings. To make up for this loss, Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited suggested an additional fee, the grid support charge. It proposed grid support charges of Rs 3.60-Rs 4.08 per unit for high tension and a maximum of Rs 8.60 per unit for low tension consumers.

Stakeholders reacted with dismay saying this would make solar rooftop unviable for users. The Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission too rejected the proposal but to compensate Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited, it allowed the discom to impose a banking charge (charges for supply of electricity using the grid infrastructure) –7.5% for high tension and 12% for low tension consumers. Banking charges would only apply to consumers with net installed capacity above 10 kW. However, the issue remains unresolved.

A lot of commercial and industrial consumers in Maharashtra keen to switch to solar rooftops are dismayed by these frequent policy changes that they allege only protect discoms. “Why do you want to kill that market? With such uncertainties, you are making it more and more unlucrative for the developers to even think about it,” said Vibhuti Garg, energy economist at the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.

Solar consultant Sudhir Budhay objected to the formula being used to calculate grid support charges, in accordance with this December 2019 regulation, but admitted that banking charges can be justified because the “grid is utilised for banking of power during daytime”.

The question of finding a balance between discoms’ earnings and the protection of solar consumers’ interests is not unique to Maharashtra.

“There is no one perfect answer to this, but geographies are evolving their own responses to this emerging situation and the answer certainly does not lie in blanket bans or restrictions on rooftop solar, but by evolving a fair, just and balanced risk and reward framework for all stakeholders,” said Ashwin Gambhir, a fellow at Pune’s Prayas Energy Group. “As prices of rooftop solar drop, there is no doubt that consumers would want to benefit from the same. But similarly, discoms need to be compensated adequately for the risks and services provided to promote renewable energy and facilitate sales migration.”

He said net metering should be promoted as a form of energy storage for the unused power generated by consumer’s rooftop solar installations, without extra charge to the consumer, one that avoids battery costs too.

“This needs to be coupled with larger changes in the sector with a movement towards time of day and seasonally changing tariffs even for residential consumers,” Gambhir said. Time of day tariffs incentivise consumers to use electricity when its demand is lower, by lowering its price and disincentivise power use by raising prices when demand is high.

This helps discoms use the minimum load of power they are mandated to buy even if there is no demand for it, and limit the amount of extra electricity they need to buy because of extra demand.

Going off grid?

Given the intermittent nature of solar power, without cheap and sizeable storage capacity, going off-grid with solar power is not tenable for households.

“Rooftop solar is not a stable supply, naturally a headache for energy operators,” said Prafulla Pathak, head of the Solar Energy Society of India. “The grid needs to balance the demand and supply. As the number of solar rooftop power generators increases in any given transformer’s network, some part of the quantum required will be supplied by those who are within the network. In technical terms, a stable network will be that which allows fluctuating inputs within 40% to 70%.”

The percentages he is referring to is the contribution of rooftop solar power generated in a grid.

Atul Upadhyay, who runs an incubation centre to mentor start-ups in solar entrepreneurship, has installed off-grid DC rooftop solar for rural and tribal areas in Vidarbha for the last 20 years, has a different view.

“Our average consumption is between normal consumption and peak consumption,” he said. “Every time a mixer or air conditioner is switched on, it peaks. Solar panels are installed according to average consumption. So, we are dependent on grid power for peak power, which makes it hard to go off-grid.”

Going in for DC solar in urban areas would mean a lifestyle change-making do without air conditioners, refrigerators or food processors – or having a better-quality battery to last 24 hours’ requirement.

This story was supported by a grant from the Earth Journalism Network.

This article first appeared on IndiaSpend, a data-driven and public-interest journalism non-profit.

New Jersey already has more solar installations per square mile than any other state in America, with tens of thousands of rooftop residential installations as well as larger-scale projects that pump megawatts of clean energy into the power grid.

And the Garden State is trying to build on its 3,655 megawatts of solar power through a new program approved Wednesday by the state’s Board of Public Utilities that would incentivize homeowners and large-scale developers alike. The goal: Have another 3,750 megawatts of solar power by 2026.

“It’s another historic day,” BPU President Joseph Fiordaliso said in a conference call with reporters after the approval.

He said the new initiative, called the Successor Solar Incentive Program (SuSI), needs all sizes of solar installations to continue to grow.

“New Jersey is the Saudi Arabia of rooftops. We have a lot of rooftops,” Fiordaliso said, referring to the state’s densely-populated neighborhoods of single-family homes. “However, putting solar on my roof is not going to get us to that (3,750-megawatt) number. Do we need larger projects? Definitely. Warehouse roofs? Definitely. Brownfields installations? Definitely.”

The current makeup of the 3,655 megawatts is broken down like this:

• Behind the Meter (residential/smallscale installations): 143,363 that provide 2,876 megawatts of electricity
• Grid Supply (largescale installations): 185 that provide a total of 763 megawatts
• Community Solar (installations that link to local homeowners): 7 that provide 14 megawatts

There is another 770 megawatts of solar installations currently in the state’s development pipeline, according to the New Jersey Clean Energy Program. Those include 14,000 smallscale, 11 largescale and 35 Community Solar installations.

Community Solar has become more viable through state incentive programs in the last couple years.

New Jersey produces the seventh-most solar energy, by total megawatts, in the United States, trailing only California, Texas, Florida and a few southwestern states.

“In establishing the SuSI Program, we are solidifying New Jersey as a magnet for green jobs and taking yet another step toward Governor Murphy’s goal of 100 percent clean energy by 2050,” Fiordaliso said. “This tremendous action has taken many perspectives into consideration and ensures the solar industry will remain a vibrant part of our clean energy innovation economy while prioritizing long-term affordability for ratepayers.”

China’s major coal power companies are getting serious about new energy investment as the nation prepares for a historic energy transition.

Guangdong Electric Power Development Co. Ltd. (000539.SZ) on Monday announced a plan to invest 12 billion yuan ($1.8 billion) in a solar power project. The state-owned coal power giant based in South China’s Guangdong province said it has reached an agreement (link in Chinese) with a local government in western Qinghai province to launch the project which will generate as much as 3 million kilowatts of electricity.

This is the sixth project Guangdong Electric has announced this year that involves funding solar or wind energy. These have a combined planned investment of as much as 57.5 billion yuan, which represents about two times its total annual revenue last year. The company’s shares jumped 10% Tuesday following the announcement, before falling 7.1% Wednesday.

As part of a longer-term, net-zero emissions strategy, the company is working to build solar power plants and wind farms in energy-rich western regions including Xinjiang, Guangxi and Guizhou in cooperation with local governments, according to multiple company filings.

China’s leaders have vowed to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2060 and are formulating a timetable and road map to achieve that transition. Experts estimated tens of trillions yuan in funding will be plowed into the initiative. In the electricity generation sector, a widely-accepted approach to implement the energy transition is to develop renewable energy power while reducing its dependence on high-emission coal power generation.

 Read more  

Caixin Explains: How China’s New Carbon Market Will Work

Traditional coal plants are under pressure as at least one local coal power company has been forced to close coal mines. More have launched investment programs to develop solar, wind and hydropower. Beijing Energy Group Co. Ltd., a coal power giant based in the capital city, vowed to (link in Chinese) add at least 15 gigawatts of installed solar and wind power capacity over the next five years, seeking to raise its share of renewable energy relative to total power capacity to 50% by 2025.

Nationwide, renewable energy capacity is expected to also account for more than 50% of the total installed power capacity by 2025 and exceed half of incremental primary energy consumption, Li Chuangjun, an official with the National Energy Administration, said (link in Chinese) at a briefing in March.

While Guangdong Electric is making big investments on new energy, it forecast sharply lower net profits attributable to shareholders for the first half year in a range of 100 million yuan to 130 million yuan, down 87.7% to 84% from the same period last year. The company attributed the sluggish performance to sharply rising coal costs and declining electricity prices.

In response to an investor inquiry last month, the company pledged to be serious in planning its investment projects while making sure any added risks are kept under control.

Contact reporter Guo Yingzhe (yingzheguo@caixin.com) and editor Flynn Murphy (flynnmurphy@caixin.com)

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