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Renewable energy and public transportation in the Netherlands

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Renewable energy and public transportation in the Netherlands

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Despite its beautiful windmills, the Netherlands doesn't rank that high for renewable energy production, and might miss its 2020 target. The good news is that it has launched an ambitious campaign for zero-emission public transport by 2025. Henning Twickler and Kathrin Glastra explain how the Netherlands could help pave the way for a transportation transition.

What is your first association when you think of the Netherlands? Among other things, windmills against a picturesque countryside score high. This is not the case when talking about renewable energy sources (RES), which have been a "non-issue" in the Dutch public debate for a long time. This comes as a surprise, given the country's long tradition to use wind power as well as abundant water resources for manufacturing.

Even though natural conditions for renewable energy sources are optimal, the Netherlands is behind most EU countries regarding energy production from renewable energies. Only Malta and Luxembourg had lower proportions. In 2014, renewable energies accounted for 5,0% of the Netherlands' final energy consumption. The use of RES is somewhat higher, thanks to energy imports. In 2016, the Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek reported that the RES share in gross energy consumption is expected to be around 11.1 %, with the long-term expectation of 11.9 % by 2020 - missing its intended target of 14% RES by 2020 under the European objectives for 2020.

The Netherlands is home to the largest natural gas field in Europe and is the second European exporter (after Norway). But the natural source comes at a price: since 1986, around 1000 induced earthquakes have been registered in the area of Groningen. Slowly but surely, the Dutch are realizing the devastating consequences of gas extraction in the densely populated areas, leading to what is referred to as a " gas-hangover ".

Despite the lacking momentum as far as a transition of the energy system is concerned, a silver lining can be seen: In April 2016, an administrative agreement was signed to achieve zero-emission public transport in the Netherlands by 2025, sending a clear signal to local authorities, vehicle producers and public transport providers. This agreement is also the outcome of the work done by the 'Zero Emission Bus Transport Foundation' (SZEB) which advocated for emission-free public transportation in the Netherlands since 2011. With the new agreement and a substantial number of electric buses already operating on Dutch streets by early 2017, the foundation now finished its activities.

The decision of the Netherlands to phase out petrol powered public transport is in line with the EU's climate and energy framework that wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% in 2030 compared to 1990 levels. Investments in the electricity sector alone will not be sufficient to bring emissions down to the required level. Transportation is an especially major polluter, causing almost a quarter of Europe's greenhouse gas emissions. While other sectors have seen a gradual decline in emissions since the 1990s, those from transport have only started to decline in 2007 and are still well above 1990 levels ( Figure 1).

Within this sector, road transport accounts for 70% of emissions. The biggest advantage of emission-free public transport is clear. It addresses the problem of greenhouse gases in a twofold way: 1) by not relying on fossil fuels; and 2) by collectivising transport - which would not be the case if only electric cars were promoted.

The SZEB ran a pilot project with one electric bus in Maastricht since March 2015. Currently, there are 4 electric buses in the city and even more are operating in Venlo. The expansion of operations is happening fast because of new public transport concessions which started in December 2016 in the southern provinces of North Brabant and Limburg. In Eindhoven, there are 43 electric buses operating since December. As of January, there are 14 buses on the Dutch islands of Vlieland, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog and 18 more to come in Haarlem. The Netherlands consequently serves as a testing ground for a potential use of zero-emission transport in bigger EU countries such as France and Germany.

The Dutch experience produced a number of insights. Firstly, both private and public parties acknowledge the great potential of zero-emission public transport. Nevertheless, some concerns remain. Several transport companies have expressed the need for longer concession periods in order to make investments in emission-free vehicles financially more attractive. Electric buses, for example, become more profitable when used over a longer period of time because of a lower total cost of ownership (TOC).

Secondly, survey research by Maastricht University students showed that citizens as well as tourists greatly value zero-emission vehicles. 62% of survey participants were convinced that zero-emission bus transport was very valuable for the city of Maastricht while 28% thought it was at least somewhat valuable. Furthermore, it became clear that air quality, health effects of pollution and emission reductions are primary concerns of citizens. More specifically, 74% judged air quality to be important while 73% were much concerned with the health effects of pollution. The reduction of traffic noise was judged to be less important ( Figure 2). One can well imagine that similar views exist in other European cities.

Therefore, zero-emission mobility is a way to respond to citizens' concerns. Despite the deficiencies in the Dutch energy transition, a silver lining can be seen in the field of public transport. The country has some way to go but introducing zero-emission buses is a step into the right direction.
About the authors: Henning Twickler was an intern in the Climate and Energy Programme of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union. He worked on a research project for the Zero Emission Bus Transport Foundation in Maastricht while completing his master's degree in Public Policy and Human Development. Kathrin Glastra is Director of the European Energy Transition Programme of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung European Union.

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Netherlands: A silver lining for renewables?

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Despite its beautiful windmills, the Netherlands doesn't rank that high for renewable energy production, and might miss its 2020 target. The good news is that it has launched an ambitious campaign for zero-emission public transport by 2025. Henning Twickler and Kathrin Glastra explain how the Netherlands could help pave the way for a transportation transition.

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UK to use geothermal energy from Iceland

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/david-cameron-to-announce-plan-to-power-uk-by-harnessing-icelands-volcanoes-a6712961.html

David Cameron to announce plan to power UK by harnessing Iceland's volcanoes

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there is no need to put the Mediterranean Sea in danger

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Here in the US fracking is an issue that affects many American lives. From pollution , i.e. Water and air; to degradation of land, I.e. Farmland, wildlife habitat, and homes. Fracking is a problem that is spread across the country. Even areas with no fracking are getting pipelines to transport the fracked gas and

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Shared by George Dobson:
This Guardian news article from March 2016 is interesting from 3 angles: (1) It suggests that both the media and the public still regard any conversation about energy as meaning primarily electricity failing to recognise that the majority of energy consumption for buildings is in relation to heat (2) It suggests that Government Policy in relation to the Capacity Market mechanisms has failed to deliver the immediate investment needed to secure UK power supplies both in the short term and long term, and (3) It discusses the important role of voluntary demand side management albeit a minor role in the eyes of businesses

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"Keeping the lights on" is supposed to be the primary duty of energy policy: for good reason.

Blackouts are not just difficult for consumers, but dangerous. Our basic infrastructure, from streetlighting to communications and home appliances, is entirely reliant on a dependable electricity supply, and businesses from retailers and offices to steelworks and food processors would be useless without it.

That is why the idea of blackouts is so incendiary, and why the government chose to make its "non-negotiable" commitment to keeping the lights on today. It was reacting to the closure of two power stations and the fears raised in some sections of the media that this could result in blackouts.

"The [regulated] capacity market [for electricity] has driven down costs and secured energy at the lowest possible price for billpayers, but I'm taking further action to tackle the legacy of under-investment and ensure our country's long-term energy security," said Amber Rudd, energy and climate change secretary. "By buying more capacity earlier we will protect consumers and businesses from avoidable spikes in energy costs."

But a Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc) spokeswoman confirmed to the Guardian that the department had no firm assessment of whether power cuts were likely in the next five years.

In reality, the danger of widespread or prolonged blackouts is remote. Some small blackouts happen every year for local reasons, such as roadworks, a temporary failure, or flooding. These are easily manageable, and have little impact.

The systems in place to avoid bigger blackouts include ramping up older and seldom-used generation capacity, called "supplemental balancing reserve", managing power dynamically across the grid so that areas of generation are joined up with consumption, and - most of all - taking power away from big energy users.

Called "demand-side response", this means energy-intensive companies, such as steelworks and factories, signing contracts with the National Grid that they will use less power at times of national need. It means that the lights are very unlikely to go out.

National Grid said: "For next winter, we'll continue to work closely with industry, Decc and Ofgem and have already concluded successful tenders for an extra 3.6GW of supplemental balancing reserve [from seldom-used power plants] for the winter of 2016-17, as well as continuing to focus on growing demand-side response activities."

For the businesses in question, however, this is another costly management headache.

Claire Jakobsson, head of energy and environment policy at the EEF organisation of manufacturers, told the Guardian: "Demand-side response can play its part in managing the grid, but it is imperative that any agreements made with industry are on a voluntary basis. Furthermore, it must not be in place of a credible strategy for delivering new [power] plants and security of supply should be a top priority."

Keeping otherwise redundant power stations at the ready and compensating big energy users for the costs of being flexible is also an expensive way of managing energy.

Those costs raise consumer energy bills, and are likely to continue to do so. About £1.50 will be added to each consumer bill this year solely to maintain "last resort" power from plants that have been mothballed, National Grid said. Demand-side response adds several pounds more.

Even if blackouts are unlikely, the UK's energy sector is in disarray. There's the closure of power stations with contracts to generate energy. The failure to build new gas-fired plants. The extension of the life of existing nuclear power plants, and doubts over plans for two new reactors. The tumbling oil price which has triggered thousands of job losses. The damages inflicted on the renewable energy sector by abrupt policy reversals.

Some of these problems are economic in origin, such as shutting old coal-fired power stations which no longer make a profit, and the failure to build gas-fired power stations when the use of gas as stand-by generation makes its economics tricky. They are also in part created by government policy, however. No part of the energy system is unscathed. And these ructions follow on years of mis-selling scandals and alarm at profit-taking by the " big six", which have shaken consumer confidence.

The latest announcement of changes to the government's flagship energy market reforms, which only became fully operational last year, illustrate how desperate matters have become, forcing ministerial reassurances to consumers and business. Rudd insisted: "Ensuring that our families and businesses have secure energy supplies they can rely on now and in the future is not negotiable and I'll take no risks with this."

Ofgem also moved to reassure consumers, but with a veiled warning to the industry. A spokesman told the Guardian: "National Grid has already procured 3.6GW of reserve for 2016-17, and the additional capacity market auction will provide further incentives for generators to be available to help secure supplies. However there is no room for complacency. Energy companies must be vigilant this winter."
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Analysis: UK energy policy is in disarray - but blackouts are unlikely

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"Keeping the lights on" is supposed to be the primary duty of energy policy: for good reason. Blackouts are not just difficult for consumers, but dangerous. Our basic infrastructure, from streetlighting to communications and home appliances, is entirely reliant on a dependable electricity supply, and businesses from retailers and offices to steelworks and food processors would be useless without it.

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Energy situation in Bangladesh

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Ricardo/ Primary sources of energy in Spain

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Ricardo/ Primary sources of energy in Spain

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Source I

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Making electricity with solar pv panels in roads
http://duurzaam-actueel.nl/wp-content/uploads/solaroad-fietspad.jpg

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Shared by: Faride Sagredo

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Proyectos de Generación Eléctrica - Ministerio de Electricidad y Energía Renovable

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Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors has received almost 400,000 orders for its latest car, the model 3 sedan, its CEO said on Thursday.

"We are now almost at 400,000 orders for the model 3," Elon Musk told a conference held in the Norwegian capital. He added that the interest in the model had "surprised even us".

On April 7, the company said it had received over 325,000 reservations for the model 3.

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Musk: Almost 400K orders received for Tesla Model 3

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Electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors has received almost 400,000 orders for its latest car, the model 3 sedan, its CEO said on Thursday. "We are now almost at 400,000 orders for the model 3," Elon Musk told a conference held in the Norwegian capital. He added that the interest in the model had "surprised even us".

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Laetitia Bonsange/ Energy diagnosis in the DR Congo

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Laetitia Bonsange/ Energy diagnosis in the DR Congo

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The Congo River with its basin astride the Equator, provides the DRC with a usable energy potential estimated at 100,000 MW, spread across 780 sites in 145 territories and 76 000 villages. This potential represents approximately 37% of the African overall potential and about 6% of the global potential.

The DRC also has significant potential resources of renewable energy such as biomass, wind, solar, biogas, biofuel, etc

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Australia is at a crossroads for renewable energy

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Australia stands at a crossroads after the Paris agreement and a week of talk about being an innovation nation. This has been coming for some time and, as a successful energy entrepreneur, I think the choices facing the country could not be starker.

A mate and I left Australia in 2007 to build a solar business in the United States called Sungevity, which is now selling solar systems to homes and businesses across America and Europe and holds a market value greater than that of Peabody Coal. As our business has continually strengthened, we've watched Australia's solar industry lurch up and down, struggling under the curse of intermittent policy and a lack of commitment. It has affected investment (the policy seesaw was behind our decision to sell our interests in Australia to Roofjuice) and cost Australia its place as a world leader in renewable ingenuity.

By comparison California, with its ambition to lead the solar game and its robust innovation culture, has thrived. We started up a business incubator, which now houses dozens of renewable energy companies. I also have the good fortune to run the California clean energy fund, which has invested in startups and entrepreneurs driving climate solutions, creating wealth and jobs and changing the world.

In the US they may not like to say the dirty words "industry policy" in public, but in California they've still got one and it's delivering major benefits in the new energy economy. Coming from an epicentre of the enormous changes that are disrupting energy industries globally, I have a few observations of the Australian industry following a recent trip home:

Firstly, hats off to the Australian solar industry which, despite it all, pioneers the best technology in the world. At a residential level, it's achieved some of the highest rates of solar penetration and lowest costs in the world. Thanks to those working in the sector, families are saving money on their power bills and we have great learnings for the rest of the world on how to integrate solar at scale into the electricity supply.

Secondly, Australia must build on this success. The last government seemed determined to quash it but there are positive signals from the new prime minister that he understands the world is moving this way and we need to invest to keep up. While I have reservations as to whether the recently announced $1.1bn innovation plan can turn around Australia's risk-averse business culture, at least it's a start. Political signals are important - now we need some meat on the bone.

Finally, now is the time to move quickly if Australia wants to benefit from the world's energy shift. Australia has to wake up from the illusion that fossil fuels will be its saviour. The UK has just announced that it will be done with coal by 2025, after hundreds of years of being powered by the stuff. California, the eighth largest economy in the world, is weaning itself off coal by 2020 and has laws in place demanding that 50% of its power comes from renewables by 2030. China, in its latest plan, is going to peak its coal use in 2017. The list goes on. Australia confused delegates in Paris by talking up the opportunities of the transition to renewable energy while seeking to protect the dying coal industry.

That is not an innovation nation - it's an inertia nation. Why not spend the $4bn Australia wastes each year on fossil fuel subsidies on bolstering the renewable energy sector? There's no market sense in skewing the playing field when the world's committed to get off coal.

There is so much talent in this country. Australia keeps punching above its weight in the world, but its brightest and most innovative minds are struggling for support.

We need to lean in on our genius. Australians are legends overseas in the photovoltaic industry, for example, which will dominate energy this century. They should also be household names at home, rather than the mining moguls who are risking everything we hold dear in order to keep profiteering. South Australian business Infratech, for example, is selling floating solar systems to California, which should have been much bigger news.

Renewable energy is an enormous export opportunity for Australia. More people live on earth today without electricity than were here when Thomas Edison started spreading the stuff. Most of those people live in nations to the north of Australia. Why can't we sell some of our solutions and systems for spreading solar and smart energy in these markets? There will be decades of work and trillions of dollars to be made in these emerging markets.

If you want an ideas boom, you need to create the infrastructure to mine the minds. Why not build a string of incubators up and down the country, tapping into the power of our people and ideas? We could provide spaces in every city and get the legal, mentoring and capital support to entrepreneurs capable of building the companies and solutions needed. We are willing to help build an energy lab in Sydney - who's with us?

At the end of the day, the transition will not be that hard. We have the technology and the momentum is already there. It's going to be a bit like the transition we went through from using phones and fax machines to being online. There's a lot of good work to do, but for most of us it simply means that our electricity service and mobility will be better and cheaper.

This is a historic opportunity for ideas and entrepreneurs to arise. The world needs to come up with new combinations of existing things: more than innovation, this energy transition requires great ingenuity. So the challenge is about backing people and their creative genius. Australia has been great at that and could be again, but if you aim to go long on ingenuity, you can't also be long on a commodity.

Danny Kennedy is the founder of US residential solar energy company Sungevity, and he wrote Rooftop Revolution: How Solar Power Can Save Our Economy-and Our Planet-from Dirty Energy (2012). He is currently the managing director of California Clean Energy Fund,

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Solar energy: Australia is not an innovation nation, it's an inertia nation

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Australia stands at a crossroads after the Paris agreement and a week of talk about being an innovation nation. This has been coming for some time and, as a successful energy entrepreneur, I think the choices facing the country could not be starker.

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Local and national government in the UK blatantly ignore the demands of the people and take the easy route with dirty energy

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As you enter the village of Kirby Misperton, in North Yorkshire, the first thing you notice are the many signs dotted around asking visitors to respect the tranquility of the countryside.

There are the "No HGV" and "No dogs" signs near the village hall, a hand-painted "No bikes" reminder nailed to a post at the start of a public footpath, and a "No hunting" board reminding visitors that they are in a conservation area.

There are also large "No fracking" placards, because this tiny village nestled in Ryedale, near the North York Moors national park, has found itself at the heart of a battle to prevent shale gas extraction in the area.

On Friday planners at North Yorkshire county council recommended that permission be granted to a British firm, Third Energy, for testing on deposits from the area. Councillors are due to make a decision next Friday.

It is easy to see why locals are trying to save Kirby Misperton. Gardens are full of vibrant spring bulbs pushing through white fences, and starlings swoop down on to the numerous birdfeeders. It is a quintessential English village with a pub, post office, church and pre-school. The village hall is a hub of activity with car boot sales, tai chi classes and music recitals.

Dovecote Cottage, the home of husband and wife Graham and Jackie Cray, is the headquarters of the anti-fracking campaign. The couple, who have lived here for 22 years, argue that fracking poses serious health and environmental risks. They are at pains to deflect any charges of nimbyism, saying they are trying not only to protect their own backyard but to change in government's stance on the issue.

"We are worried about the domino effect this will have, opening up the potential for the whole area to be industrialised, which would sound the death knell for tourism and farming," says Graham, 69.

Jackie, 67, says: "We have to fight this because what is being proposed with all the increased traffic and the drilling will destroy this beautiful countryside for the children who will hopefully want to live here one day. We have to do everything we can to protect it for them."

Another opponent, Tim Thornton, a retired GP who lives in the nearby village of Middleton, recites a long list of health risks allegedly linked to fracking, including persistent nose bleeds, nausea and increased wheezing in children. Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into rock formations deep underground to release gas.

"There are so many reports about the detrimental effects on health in areas where fracking has already taken place," Thornton says. "We just want the government to do some more research into this before they give us up like sacrificial lambs.

"It seems some of the environmental policies have been made on the hoof and there is a real danger in this helter-skelter dash for gas without weighing up the environmental risks properly."

The biggest local tourism attraction, Flamingo Land, which lies just outside the village has raised concerns about visitor numbers and animal welfare. In a letter to council planners, the park's chief executive, Gordon Gibb, wrote: "Our fear is that the current application is merely the start of a process which will lead to at least 40 local drilling sites within the Ryedale district, then tourism within our area will be negatively affected permanently.

"We were informed that the used water would be piped to containers, removed and treated, but now this does not seem to be the case. Additionally, we now have concern for our beloved, and in many cases critically endangered, animal collection's welfare. The treatment of water was a fundamental issue to Flamingo Land and we have reconsidered our position on the issue of fracking due to the difference between what we were assured of and what is now being applied for."

Experts in the energy industry say concerns about contamination and potential harm to health are unfounded, and point to international studies that back this up. Third Energy has repeatedly insisted that public concerns are misplaced.

Rasik Valand, the company's chief executive, said: "We are pleased that the planning officer has recommended that North Yorkshire county council approve our application. Within our application, and throughout North Yorkshire county council's thorough assessment of it, including various stages of consultation, and through all the additional information provided, we have addressed the wide range of questions, concerns and comments raised by NYCC, statutory consultees and others.

"Third Energy has been drilling wells and producing gas safely and discreetly from this site in Kirby Misperton for over 20 years and we will continue to maintain the same standards in the future."

Fracking in North America has transformed the world energy market by making the US less reliant on Middle Eastern oil and pushing down the price per barrel. But in the UK, where land is far more densely populated, drilling for shale gas is only at the exploratory phase.

If North Yorkshire council approves the application, it will be the first green light for exploratory drilling since the government imposed a moratorium in 2011 after operations in Blackpool by the energy firm Cuadrilla caused small earthquakes.

The government lifted the moratorium at the end of 2012 but no drilling has been authorised in England. Last June councillors in Lancashire ignored the advice from their own planners and rejected an application by Cuadrilla to frack on sites in Little Plumpton on the Fylde and Roseacre Wood, between Blackpool and Preston.

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'We have to fight this': North Yorkshire village opposes fracking plans

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As you enter the village of Kirby Misperton, in North Yorkshire, the first thing you notice are the many signs dotted around asking visitors to respect the tranquility of the countryside.

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Here is a snapshot of the energy industry of Trinidad and Tobago. Oil and gas are the main sources of revenue. Very little interest and investment in renewables. 

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Here is a snapshot of the energy industry of Trinidad and Tobago. Oil and gas are the main sources of revenue. Very little interest and investment in renewables. 

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An Energy Snapshot of Trinidad and Tobago. Oil and Gas are the main sources. There is interest in renewables but there is a need for investment.

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An Energy Snapshot of Trinidad and Tobago. Oil and Gas are the main sources. There is interest in renewables but there is a need for investment.

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Pakistan is suffering from Load Shedding crises from about 16 years ..... With the passage of time the situation here getting worse ,although there are lots of resources available here for generation of electricity but no work had done on this project yet

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Pakistan is suffering from Load Shedding crises from about 16 years ..... With the passage of time the situation here getting worse ,although there are lots of resources available here for generation of electricity but no work had done on this project yet

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Asad Nadeem

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http://m.bangkokpost.com/news/951753
Electricity consumption peaked for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday due to the sweltering summer heat. Soonchai Kumnoonsate, governor of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat),...

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With the country's total power generation capacity of 32 GW, the new peak demand of 29.4 GW leaves only about 9% reserve margin, which posts a threat on her security of electricity supply. However, the peaks that put's her reserve margin below 15% occurs only a few hours a year in total. So, the country should look into a way that is cost-effective to avoid having to build peaking power plants in their development plan in order to maintain her threshold of 15% reserve margin.

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This is not what you want to hear. Time to do more

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This is not what you want to hear. Time to do more

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Updated May 11, 2016 12:08:33

The cleanest air in the world is becoming more polluted, with air measurements in remote north-west Tasmania poised to hit a new high of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide within two or three weeks.

The number sat at slightly more than 300ppm when measurements were first taken at the CSIRO's Cape Grim measuring site in the 1970s.

CSIRO consultant Paul Fraser said the landmark reading did not bode well for the earth's climate.

"It's going to continue to increase and there has to be a point before it gets to say 500 parts per million where we get that increasing CO2 under control, otherwise we're going to have some pretty serious climate change problems," he said.

Mr Fraser said world leaders needed to take action to prevent the carbon levels rising further this century.

"We do hope to slow it down, eventually stop it from growing, but the time scale for that is decades into the future, if the right policies about controlling CO2 emissions are adhered to," he said.

"At the moment, it's rising at about 3 parts per million per year, so on that sort of time scale it would take another 30 years to reach 500 parts per million, for example, which we hope it never does."

The primary impact of carbon dioxide is to cause the atmosphere to warm, and Mr Fraser said it could have a significant impact on the ocean.

"When it dissolves in the ocean, it makes the oceans more acidic, and that's likely to have a serious problem on life forms in the ocean."

Federal Government defends its climate policy

Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison said the Government was meeting its targets on climate change.

"Unlike other countries, we say what we mean, we mean what we say, and we do what we say we're going to do, in the way we say we are going to do it," he said.

"We've got our target of 25 to 27 [per cent reduction], it's a very reasonable target, it's an achievable target, it's a target we believe we can accommodate and ensure the continued growth of our economy."

At the recent Paris climate conference, the Federal Government committed to reduce carbon levels to about 27 per cent less than 2005 levels by 2030.

The baseline carbon level measures the level of carbon dioxide in the purest air on the planet.

The Cape Grim facility measures air from a large area of the southern hemisphere, unaffected by regional pollution sources such as nearby cities or industry that would contaminate the air quality.

The site is one of only three laboratories in the world that measures baseline carbon readings, and is the only office analysing baseline carbon levels in the southern hemisphere.

First posted May 11, 2016 10:23:58

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Carbon dioxide levels continue to rise in cleanest air in the world

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Updated May 11, 2016 12:08:33 The cleanest air in the world is becoming more polluted, with air measurements in remote north-west Tasmania poised to hit a new high of 400 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide within two or three weeks.

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PauPossible return to renewable energy funding in Australia, post Abbott.

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PauPossible return to renewable energy funding in Australia, post Abbott.

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Malcolm Turnbull, the new PM has reversed the attempt by the former PM, Abbott, to dismantle two renewable agencies, but the jury is out on the final implications of the funding

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Updated March 23, 2016 13:42:35

Cabinet has agreed to keep two renewable energy agencies that the former Abbott government attempted to dismantle.

Tony Abbott's efforts to ditch the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) were blocked by the Senate.

When Malcolm Turnbull defeated Mr Abbott and took over as Prime Minister his approach to both agencies was more positive.

He has now confirmed that his inner circle of senior ministers has agreed to drop the Abbott government policy.

"We're retaining both of those agencies and we are establishing a new $1 billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund," he said.

"What that is going to do is every year invest $100 million in the smartest, most cutting-edge, Australian, clean energy technologies and businesses to ensure that we not only drive jobs and innovation in Australia, but also play our part in [reducing emissions]."

Mr Turnbull made the announcement alongside Environment Minister Greg Hunt, who conceded he was previously critical of the CEFC.

Mr Hunt said significant changes had been made to the corporation, including changes to its mandate.

Mr Hunt said the Government would see the entire $1 billion funding returned, stating "our goal is to receive 100 per cent of the taxpayers' money back, but with an additional return".

The two agencies will jointly manage the Clean Energy Innovation Fund, but the money will come out of the existing allocation.

Greens say move is 'tricky political manoeuvre'

Greens leader Richard di Natale said the Government did not deserve any praise for retaining the climate agencies.

Senator Di Natale said Mr Turnbull had effectively gutted renewables funding, saying "Tony Abbott should never be the benchmark for good climate policy".

"What we need to do is judge this policy against whether it sets out what we need," he said.

"This proposal from Malcolm Turnbull is a con job, it's a sleight of hand ... [The Government has] used a tricky political manoeuvre to actually gut funding for ARENA, to change its mandate, to stop it driving the innovation which is necessary, and then expects those of us who care deeply about the nation's response to global warming to pat it on the back? Well. no."

Move 'constrains' funding, 'does not make up for other reductions'

Clean Energy Council chief executive Kane Thornton says he is worried the fund could give with one hand while taking with another.

"Essentially it is removing funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and really just constraining it in terms of its ability to provide capital grants to the sector into the future," he said.

The CEFC is a government-owned organisation, set up under Labor, to provide funding for renewable energy projects.

ARENA is an independent agency established around the same time to manage the government's renewable energy programs, with a primary aim of increasing the supply of renewable energy in Australia.

The agency uses its funding to "invest in projects and initiatives that hasten the commercialisation of renewable energy solutions and diversify Australia's energy mix", according to its site.

Labor has described the Cabinet decision as window dressing, and says it does not make up for the reduction in funding for other projects.

Mr Turnbull also defended the $3.3 million in funding recently allocated to investigating the health risks associated with wind farms.

He said that while some people were sceptical, it was "a matter of concern to a lot of people".

Topics: alternative-energy, electricity-energy-and-utilities, australia

First posted March 23, 2016 11:05:04

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Cabinet reverses Abbott-era cuts to renewables bodies

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Updated March 23, 2016 13:42:35 Cabinet has agreed to keep two renewable energy agencies that the former Abbott government attempted to dismantle. Tony Abbott's efforts to ditch the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) and the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) were blocked by the Senate.

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Bas Geerlings

President of De Dutch Bank calls on investors to invest less in dirty energy such as coal, and seize opportunities by investing money into clean energy.

http://nos.nl/artikel/2100909-knot-investeer-minder-in-vuile-energie.html

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Shared by: Sougat Dhungel

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The Future of renewable power in Mexico commonly has not improve because of bureaucracy inside of the goverment, sadly there are a lot of interests.
Share by: Natalia Barragán Orozco.

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Heyd Más
http://www.brasil.gov.br/meio-ambiente/2015/11/energia-renovavel-representa-mais-de-42-da-matriz-energetica-brasileira

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Ukraine tries to diversify energy source

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Energy in Ukraine is mainly from gas and coal, followed by nuclear and oil. The coal industry has been disrupted by conflict. Most gas and oil is imported, but since 2015 energy policy has prioritised diversifying energy supply.

About half of electricity generation is nuclear and a quarter coal. The largest nuclear power plant in Europe, the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, is located in Ukraine. Fossil fuel subsidies were USD 2.2 billion in 2019. Until the 2010s all of Ukraine's nuclear fuel came from Russia, but now most does not.

In 2020, Ukraine transited more natural gas than any other country in the world and it remains the main transit route for Russian natural gas sold to Europe, which earns Ukraine about $3 billion a year in transit fees, making it the country's most lucrative export service. Although gas transit is declining, over 40 billion cubic metres (bcm) of Russian gas flowed through Ukraine in 2021, which was about a third of Russian exports to other European countries. Some energy infrastructure was destroyed in the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine has a diversified energy mix, and no fuel takes up more than a third of the country's energy sources. The primary fuel has traditionally been coal, which dropped to 30% in 2018. Natural gas (28%) and nuclear (24%) follow.

Electricity production fell from 296 TWh in 1991 to 171 TWh in 1999, then increased slowly to 195 TWh in 2007, before falling again.

In 2011, Ukraine joined the European Energy Community, however there has been slow progress on implementing European energy regulations.

In 2014, total electricity production was 183 TWh; 88 TWh from nuclear, 71 TWh from coal, 13 TWh from natural gas, and 9 TWh from hydroelectricity. Electricity consumption was 134 TWh after transmission losses of 20 TWh, with peak demand at about 28 GWe. 8 TWh was exported to Europe. In 2015 electricity production fell to about 146 TWh largely due to a fall in anthracite coal supplies caused by the War in Donbass.

On 1 July 2019, a new wholesale energy market was launched, intended to bring real competition in the generation market and help future integration with Europe. The change was a prerequisite for receiving European Union assistance. It led to in increased price for industrial consumers of between 14% to 28% during July. The bulk of Energoatom output is sold to the government's "guaranteed buyer" to keep prices more stable for domestic customers.

Grid synchronisation with Europe

Since 2017 Ukraine sought to divest itself of dependency on the Unified Power System of Russia ( UPS) and instead connect westwards to the synchronous grid of Continental Europe, thereby participating in European electricity markets. Power lines coupling the country to the grids of neighbouring Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Hungary existed, but were de-energised.

A necessary prerequisite of Ukrainian integration was for the country to successfully demonstrate it was capable of running in a islanded manner, maintaining satisfactory control of its own frequency. To do that would require disconnection from the UPS grid, and a date of 24 February 2022 was set. This proved to be the date Russia invaded Ukraine, but the disconnection nonetheless proceeded to schedule. Ukraine placed an urgent request to synchronise with the European grid to ENTSO-E, the European collective of transmission system operators of which it was a member, and on 16 March 2022 the western circuits were energised, bringing both Ukraine and Moldova, which is coupled to the Ukrainian grid, into the European synchronised grid. On 16 March 2022 a trial synchronisation started of the Ukraine and Moldova grid with the European grid.

Nuclear power

Renewable energy

Ukraine signed a loan agreement in-principle for $3.65 billion with the China Development Bank in 2012, during President Viktor Yanukovich's term of office, contingent on the development of agreed development projects in the coal and gas sectors. However, by April 2017 Ukraine had not agreed any suitable projects due to a "lack of convergence in the positions of [Uglesintezgaz] and the energy ministry".

Elementum Energy Ltd owns the most power plants.

1. ^ "Fossil-Fuel Subsidies in the EU's Eastern Partner Countries : Estimates and Recent Policy Developments". .

2. ^ "Westinghouse and Ukraine's Energoatom Extend Long-term Nuclear Fuel Contract". 11 April 2014. Westinghouse. Archived from the original on 11 April 2014.

3. ^ "Kyiv's gas strategy: closer cooperation with Gazprom or a genuine diversification". Centre for Eastern Studies. 15 July 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-10-23.

4. ^ Lock, Samantha (2022-02-27). "Russia-Ukraine latest news: missile strikes on oil facilities reported as some Russian banks cut off from Swift system - live". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077.

5. ^ "Kyiv's gas strategy: closer cooperation with Gazprom or a genuine diversification". Centre for Eastern Studies. 15 July 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-10-23.

6. Reuters (2022-02-24). "Factbox: Ukraine's energy options limited in event of Russian gas disruption". Reuters. Ukraine has not imported gas directly from Russia since 2015, but it buys it from Western traders as part of the Russian gas that goes through Ukrainian territory to Europe. [..] If Russia maintains gas transit through Ukraine and transit gas pipelines remain operational, Ukraine is able to provide the population and industry with gas. [..] In theory, gas could be imported at up to 40 mcm per day, but this is barely feasible due to a lack of freely available resources in Europe and funds to buy it.

7. ^ Datskevych, Natalia (2020-02-20). "Top 4 reasons Ukraine's gas production is so low". Business. Kyiv Post. Figure: Ukraine's gas production in 1991-2019, billion cubic meters

8. ^ http://www.oecd.org/corporate/SOE-Reform-in-the-Hydrocarbons-Sector-in-Ukraine-ENG.pdf , OECD Report on SOE Reform in the Hydrocarbons Sector in Ukraine

9. ^ http://agpu.org.ua/en/association/section-member_companies/ Archived 2020-09-29 at the Wayback Machine Associations of Gas Producers of Ukraine

10. ^ "Naftogaz open letter: a year without gas imports from Russia". www.naftogaz.com. Naftogaz. 2016-11-25. Today is the first anniversary since Naftogaz stopped importing gas from Russia.

11. ^ "Connecting Ukraine to Europe's Electricity Grid". Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik. 24 November 2021. doi:10.18449/2021C57.

12. ^ Abnett, Kate; Strzelecki, Marek (1 April 2022). "Explainer: Europe and Ukraine's plan to link power grids". Reuters.

13. ^ Böttcher, Philipp C.; Gorjão, Leonardo Rydin; Beck, Christian; Jumar, Richard; Maass, Heiko; Hagenmeyer, Veit; Witthaut, Dirk; Schäfer, Benjamin (15 April 2022). "Initial analysis of the impact of the Ukrainian power grid synchronization with Continental Europe". arXiv:.

14. ^ "Ukraine joins European power grid, ending its dependence on Russia". . No. 16 March 2022. Associated Press. Archived from the original on 16 March 2022.

15. ^ Nuclear fuel imports from Sweden account for 41.6% in H1, balance from Russia, UNIAN (22 August 2016)

16. ^ Energoatom chief Kim overstepped his powers when signing contract, failed to show up for questioning, says interior minister, Interfax-Ukraine (12 June 2013)

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Energy in Ukraine is mainly from gas and coal, followed by nuclear and oil. The coal industry has been disrupted by conflict. Most gas and oil is imported, but since 2015 energy policy has prioritised diversifying energy supply. About half of electricity generation is nuclear and a quarter coal.

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The IEA produces around 70 free publications a year. Use the search box below to filter the list of publications by keyword or sort by clicking on the table header by either title, year, type or topic.

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In Japan, we have a big problem for unclear plant.

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In the chaotic two years after its name became forever associated with nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant "resembled a field hospital", according to the man who is now in charge of the most daunting task the nuclear industry has ever faced: removing hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the plant's stricken reactors.

"Now it really does feel like the situation is settling down and we can look ahead," said Naohiro Masuda, head of decommissioning at the plant's operator, Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco).

Five years after a magnitude nine earthquake triggered a giant tsunami that killed almost 19,000 people along the north-east coast of Japan and caused a triple meltdown at Fukushima, the plant has been transformed from the scene of a major disaster into a sprawling building site.

Masuda can point to lower radiation levels in and around the plant, better conditions for its 1,200 Tepco staff and 6,000 other workers - including the recent provision of hot meals and a rest area - and progress in containing huge quantities of radioactive groundwater.

In late 2014, the utility overcame arguably the most dangerous challenge since the meltdown, with the removal of hundreds of spent fuel rods from a storage pool inside a damaged reactor building.

But work on removing the melted fuel - something no nuclear operator has ever attempted - has barely begun.

All that Tepco knows for certain - although it was slow to admit it - is that fuel in three reactors melted down after the tsunami knocked out the plant's cooling system on 11 March 2011.

Of greatest concern, though, is reactor 1, where the fuel may have burned through the pressure vessel, fallen to the bottom of the containment vessel and into the concrete pedestal below - perhaps even outside it - according to a report by the International Research Institute for Nuclear Decommissioning. Reactors 2 and 3 are thought to have suffered partial meltdowns.

Masuda and Tepco engineers who spoke to the Guardian conceded that they still didn't know where the fuel is located. "To be honest, we don't know exactly where the fuel is and have to carry out more studies," Masuda said at a recent briefing. "But we do know that the fuel is in a solid state of cold shutdown.

"No one has ever done what we're doing, but 30 to 40 years is a target that we can work towards. There are so many people involved that it would be wrong to alter that deadline on a whim. We've established a goal and need to show ingenuity to reach it, not take the easy way out."

The technology needed to send robots deep into the reactors' bowels - where radiation levels are dangerously high - has yet to be developed. Two robots specially tailored to negotiate debris inside damaged tunnels and pipes stalled last year when they closed in on the reactors' highly radioactive innards.

Yet Tepco is persisting with the government's roadmap for the Fukushima cleanup, which envisions fuel removal to begin in 2021 and end between 30 and 40 years later, at an estimated cost of almost $20bn (£14bn).

But Shaun Burnie, senior nuclear specialist at Greenpeace Germany, said the decommissioning schedule was an attempt to convince the public that Japan was recovering from a major nuclear disaster.

"The idea that fuel debris removal will begin in 2021 is not realistic - it's just not going to happen," he said. "The roadmap is based on political considerations, not technical ones.

"This applies to the government's and industry's approach to the whole Fukushima crisis - to give the impression that things are retuning to normal and to weaken public opposition to the restart of nuclear reactors.

"No one really knows how long it will take, but it will be decades and decades and decades."

As the deadline for the start of fuel removal edges closer, even industry regulators are beginning to question the methods set out in the current decommissioning plan.

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The 1,000 tanks built for the storage of contaminated water from Fukushima's damaged reactors are nearing capacity. Photograph: AP

Last month, Toyoshi Fuketa, a nuclear regulatory authority commissioner, suggested removing all of the melted fuel could take much longer than four decades. "I wonder if it is desirable for work to extract fuel debris to still be going on 70 or 80 years from now," Fuketa told reporters. "There are a number of other options, including removing as much fuel as possible and solidifying the rest."

Fukushima Daiichi's stability is wholly dependent on water constantly being directed into the reactor basements to prevent the fuel inside from heating up. While the method has proved effective, it has led to a buildup of enormous quantities of contaminated water - a mixture of the coolant and groundwater that becomes radioactive when it flows from hills behind the plant into the reactor buildings.

The contaminated water is then pumped out and stored in tanks that cover large areas of the Fukushima Daiichi site. Tepco is able to remove 62 radionuclides from contaminated water - but not tritium - and has so far been unable to get permission from local fishermen to release the treated water into the Pacific Ocean.

While pumping out groundwater upstream and redirecting it into the sea has reduced the amount flowing into the reactor basements from 400 tonnes to 150 tonnes a day, the technology that was supposed to deliver a coup de grace to Tepco's perennial water problem has encountered problems.

The utility's plans to activate a 32bn yen (£198m) impermeable frozen wall, which was completed earlier this year, have been frustrated by delays and questions about its effectiveness. It hopes to start filling the underground wall's maze of pipes with water later this year.

The site is nearing its current water storage capacity of 850,000 tonnes, and there are plans to add to the existing 1,000 tanks, bringing the amount of contaminated water at the plant close to one million tonnes.

Tepco expects to have collected and treated all contaminated water pooled around the reactors by 2020, and will need to continue processing only coolant water for the reactors, according to Sadanobu Kanno, a general manager in the firm's nuclear power and plant siting division.

The slow progress at Fukushima is mirrored in the painstaking effort to make nearby towns and villages, abandoned five years ago, fit for human habitation.

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Thousands of large black plastic bags containing radioactive soil and debris removed from towns and villages near the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Photograph: Franck Robichon/EPA

The disaster forced 160,000 people to flee their homes, 100,000 of whom are still displaced. About 10,000 children whose families fled after the nuclear disaster have yet to return to Fukushima prefecture, amid parental concern over the possible health effects of long-term exposure to relatively low doses of radiation.

Their former hometowns have since been turned into temporary dumping grounds for more than 10m black bags containing soil and other low level radioactive waste cleared from areas around homes, schools and other public buildings.

Here, too, progress is slow, with local authorities reporting that more than 40 communities have yet to be decontaminated. The unprecedented cleanup, involving 26,000 workers, aims to reduce outdoor radiation exposure to one millisievert a year - a target Japan's environment minister recently criticised as unrealistically low.

But in a blow to the government's push to lift more evacuation orders in Fukushima communities over the next 12 months, a poll published on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the disaster showed that two out of three nuclear evacuees had given up hope of ever returning to their homes.

"It is wrong for the central government to say return home and to lift evacuation orders, even though its own declaration of an emergency situation for the nuclear accident is still in place," said Miyako Kumamoto, a 73-year-old evacuee, at a rally in Tokyo last week.

Topics

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Five years on, cleanup of Fukushima's reactors remains a distant goal

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In the chaotic two years after its name became forever associated with nuclear disaster, the Fukushima Daiichi power plant "resembled a field hospital", according to the man who is now in charge of the most daunting task the nuclear industry has ever faced: removing hundreds of tons of melted fuel from the plant's stricken reactors.

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Margaret Clarke - Interesting Web App showing G.B National Grid Status:

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Margaret Clarke - Interesting Web App showing G.B National Grid Status:

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http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

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Le Syndicat des énergies renouvelables estime que Paris doit faire une croix sur ses objectifs pour 2020, notamment à cause de l'éolien, mais que ceux pour 2030 sont accessibles.

On se souvient du " j'aime l'entreprise " lancé par Manuel Valls à l'université d'été du Medef. Jeudi 12 février, devant les entrepreneurs du Syndicat des énergies renouvelables (SER), réunis à la Maison de l'Unesco de Paris pour un colloque sur " une nouvelle croissance : les énergies renouvelables contre le dérèglement climatique ", le premier ministre a verdi son propos. " Nous devons réinventer notre modèle de croissance, a-t-il affirmé. L'écologie et l'économie, l'écologie et la compétitivité, l'écologie et la croissance ne sont pas opposées. "

Alors que la loi sur la transition énergétique est en cours d'examen au Sénat et que la diplomatie française prépare la conférence mondiale sur le climat de décembre 2015, M. Valls a promis que " 2015 sera en France une année verte ". Et d' ajouter : " On entend souvent dire que les régulations environnementales sont un frein à la croissance. C'est faux. " Une façon de prendre le contre-pied de Nicolas Sarkozy qui, en 2011, au Salon de l' agriculture, estimait que l' environnement, " ça commence à bien faire ".

Lire le décryptage : Le Sénat fait revenir en force le nucléaire dans la loi de transition énergétique
RÉVISION DES SUBVENTIONS AUX ÉNERGIES
Pas d'annonces concrètes pour autant dans le plaidoyer du chef du gouvernement en faveur des filières renouvelables, un " levier indispensable " selon lui contre le réchauffement climatique. M. Valls a simplement souhaité une révision du système de subventions aux énergies - " les énergies fossiles bénéficient de quatre fois plus d'aides dans le monde que les renouvelables ". Il a aussi estimé qu' " il faut redonner un prix au carbone ", même si, a-t-il précisé, " il faut tenir compte de nos industries, car il n'est pas question qu'elles s'en aillent hors d'Europe ".

Invité d'honneur du colloque, l'Indien Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, président du Groupe d'experts intergouvernemental sur l'évolution du climat (GIEC), a, lui, rappelé que pour espérer limiter à 2 °C la hausse des températures à la fin du siècle, " il faut réduire de 40 % à 70 % les émissions de gaz à effet de serre d'ici à 2050 ". Ce qui exige de " presque quadrupler la part des énergies à émissions de carbone nulles ou faibles ".
CROISSANCE DES INVESTISSEMENTS DANS LES RENOUVELABLES
On en est encore loin. A l'échelle de la planète, les ressources renouvelables ne pèsent que pour 22 % dans le bouquet électrique. Toutefois, la progression est rapide : les investissements annuels dans ce secteur ont grimpé de 39 milliards de dollars en 2004 (34 milliards d'euros) à 316 milliards dix ans plus tard.

La croissance est particulièrement forte dans les pays émergents : à elle seule, la Chine, en même temps qu'elle construit à tour de bras de nouvelles centrales à charbon, compte pour 40 % dans les nouvelles capacités électriques mondiales utilisant des ressources renouvelables. " Le monde connaît une révolution énergétique depuis une dizaine d'années et ce n'est pas celle des pétroles et gaz de schiste, mais celle des énergies renouvelables ", commente Jean-Louis Bal, président du SER.
LA FRANCE À LA TRAÎNE
Dans ce paysage en mutation, l'Hexagone, en dépit des accents aussi verts que vertueux des discours officiels, reste à la traîne. " La France peut faire une croix sur ses objectifs de renouvelables pour 2020. Quoi qu'on fasse, il est trop tard pour redresser la barre ", constate M. Bal. Toutefois, veut-il croire, " on peut se mettre sur une bonne trajectoire pour ne pas faire une croix sur les objectifs pour 2030 ".

Lors de la signature du " paquet énergie-climat 2020 " de l' Union européenne, adopté en 2008, la France s'était fixé un objectif de 23 % de renouvelables dans sa consommation finale d'énergie, pour la fin de cette décennie. Elle n'en était, fin 2013, qu'à 14,2 %, principalement à partir du bois-énergie et de l'hydraulique. Un score très loin de celui de la Suède (52,4 % fin 2012), la Finlande (34,4 %), la Lettonie (33 %) ou l' Autriche (31,9 %). " Au rythme actuel, la part des énergies renouvelables pourrait ne s'élever qu'à 17 % en 2020 ", prévoit le SER.

RETARD COLOSSAL DE L'ÉOLIEN TERRESTRE
La faute, principalement, au retard colossal pris dans l'éolien. " Alors que l'objectif est de 19 000 mégawatts (MW) installés en 2020 pour l'éolien terrestre, nous n'en sommes qu'à un peu plus de 9 000 MW, en dépit d'une nette remontée du volume des raccordements au réseau en 2014. Nous ne sommes pas du tout sur la bonne tendance ", note M. Bal.

Quant à l'éolien offshore, qui visait 6 000 MW installés en 2020, il doit pour l'instant se contenter des 3 000 MW programmés par les deux appels d'offres lancés en 2011 et 2013. Encore les six parcs de turbines en mer prévus face au littoral normand et breton (Fécamp, Courseulles-sur-Mer, Saint-Brieuc et Saint-Nazaire), ainsi qu'entre les îles d'Yeu et de Noirmoutier (Vendée) et face au Tréport (Seine-Maritime), ne commenceront-ils à tourner qu'après 2020. La profession espère à présent l'ouverture d'un troisième appel d'offres, avant la fin de l'année.

Lire : La France prête à mettre le cap sur les énergies marines

Seule note positive, le photovoltaïque a atteint et même dépassé son objectif. " Nous visions 5 400 MW en 2020, nous en sommes à 5 300 MW en métropole et, avec les zones insulaires, à 5 700 MW ", indique M. Bal. Le parc hydraulique, lui, demeure étale, tandis que la biomasse (bois-énergie et déchets) monte en puissance. Quant aux autres énergies marines, elles sont encore émergentes, avec deux fermes pilotes d'un total de 11 hydroliennes attendues, fin 2016 ou début 2017, dans le Raz Blanchard, une zone agitée par de puissants courants au large du Cotentin.

Or, pour 2030, la barre a été placée haut : la loi de transition énergétique en cours de discussion prévoit 32 % de renouvelables dans le mix énergétique français, davantage que la cible de 27 % retenue par l'Union européenne à la même échéance. Il s'agit d'un objectif " à la fois ambitieux et raisonnable ", estime toutefois le SER, qui considère 2015 comme " une année charnière ".

FINANCEMENTS
Le colloque du syndicat professionnel a été l'occasion pour ce dernier de remettre au premier ministre, ainsi qu'à la ministre de l'écologie, Ségolène Royal, une liste des actions à mettre en œuvre pour pousser les filières vertes. Les entrepreneurs attendent d'abord une programmation pluriannuelle de l'énergie (prévue par la loi de transition) " à la hauteur des enjeux ", c'est-à-dire, précise M. Bal, " assortie de financements ". Ils demandent aussi la généralisation (également prévue par la loi) de l'autorisation unique pour les installations renouvelables. Une formule déjà testée dans sept régions pour les éoliennes et la méthanisation, qui doit permettre de réduire des délais de réalisation qui sont aujourd'hui, en moyenne, de huit ans.

Le SER demande encore une généralisation du recours aux renouvelables dans les bâtiments neufs et en rénovation. Il souhaite aussi une mise en œuvre " progressive ", laissant aux opérateurs une période d' " adaptation ", du nouveau dispositif de soutien aux filières renouvelables. Celui-ci prévoit, à partir du 1 er janvier 2016, de remplacer les tarifs d'achat garantis actuels par un mécanisme de complément de rémunération, sous forme de prime, pour l'électricité vendue sur le marché par les installations de grande puissance.

A ces conditions, la profession annonce que les filières renouvelables, qui comptaient 75 000 emplois en 2013, pourraient en totaliser 300 000 à l'horizon 2030.

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Energies renouvelables : la France peut-elle rattraper son retard ?

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Le Syndicat des énergies renouvelables estime que Paris doit faire une croix sur ses objectifs pour 2020, notamment à cause de l'éolien, mais que ceux pour 2030 sont accessibles. Alors que la loi sur la transition énergétique est en cours d'examen au Sénat et que la diplomatie française prépare la conférence mondiale sur le climat de décembre 2015, M.

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Scotland generated enough electricity from wind to power 1.9 million homes in April 2016

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Scotland generated enough electricity from wind to power 1.9 million homes in April 2016

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source: weatherenergy.co.uk
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-36187324

Esther Hughes

Scotland has expanded significantly its generation of electricity from renewables, in the past decade.   This has not been without controversy; owing to the visual impact of turbines in Scotland's extraordinarily beautiful countryside.  Wind has, however, succeeded in meeting a large portion of demand for electricity in Scotland: exceeding 100% of demand on eight days in April 2016.  This is not a bad thing as Scotland decommissioned its 2.4 GW coal fired power station in March of this year http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-35882883.  Baseload is now provided by only two nuclear power stations

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French Nuclear Firm Signs Preliminary Deal To Build Six Nuclear Plants In India

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French Nuclear Firm Signs Preliminary Deal To Build Six Nuclear Plants In India

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PARIS:  Nuclear Power Corp of India has signed a memorandum of understanding with French utility EDF for the construction of six EPR nuclear reactors at Jaitapur.

With this agreement, the EDF takes over the long-delayed project from French nuclear group Areva, which will sell its reactor arm to EDF later this year.

The Jaitapur project is at the preliminary technical studies stage after getting initial environmental clearance in 2010, the EDF said in a statement.

The EDF said that in the next few months it would continue work started by Areva and NPCIL to secure certification for the EPR reactor in India and to finalise the economic and financial conditions, and technical specifications of the project, supervised by Indian atomic organisation DAE.

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Scotland Beats 2015 Renewable Energy Target

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Scotland Beats 2015 Renewable Energy Target

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News | Scotland beats renewables t... - Scottish Renewables

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Figures released today show Scotland generated the equivalent of mo...

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Shared by: Maria Camila Escalante

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Months of a devastatingly strong El Niño pattern have left large portions of Colombia parched from lack of rain and drained the country's substantial hydroelectric capacity.

Now, the loss of two important power plants in the past few days has thrown into doubt the ability to meet electricity demands.

According to the national Comptroller's Office, Colombia is just 130 megawatts away from a level of energy production that would result in widespread cuts.

"The combination of factors such as El Niño, scarcity of natural gas, the financial situation of power companies and operational stress have created a risky situation," said Comptroller Edgardo Maya in a statement Wednesday.

The alert mirrors concern from Colombia's Ministry of Mines and Energy.

"As you know, the country has been going through one of the strongest and most acute El Niño periods in recent years, and perhaps the worst ever," said Minister of Mines and Energy Tomás González in a press conference Tuesday.

"Nonetheless, with the measures we have taken, we have confronted this phenomenon successfully."

But unexpected damages to key power generators have threatened the country's ability to continue providing electricity, he said.

A fire at the Guatapé hydroelectric plant late last month damaged equipment and shut down generation, creating a domino effect by limiting the amount of water flowing to other plants.

And on Monday, the Termoflores plant shut down partially due to damage in a turbine.

Colombia also auctioned one of the country's largest hydroelectric power plants, Isagen, in January. There was only one bidder, Canadian asset management firm Brookfield.

Officials at Public Enterprises of Medellín (EPM), the utility company that operates the Guatapé generator, suggested this week that reduced electric capacity might necessitate daily shut-offs at peak hours starting in April.

But González affirmed Tuesday that such drastic measures shouldn't be necessary.

"We had the misfortune of happening right at the end of the El Niño phenomenon, and that they cut off more or less 10 percent of the electric resources the country needs," said González, who confirmed that the government will take additional measures to ensure that energy needs are met.

Those measures include using energy reserves built up over the past year, tapping an agreement with Ecuador to buy excess energy from that neighbor country and asking electric and gas companies to create a voluntary energy savings program.

"With the analysis that we have, and the most updated models, we are not foreseeing electricity cuts, blackouts or rationing," explained González.

It wouldn't be the first time Colombia took drastic measures to cope with an energy crisis. In 1992, then-President César Gaviria signed a law rationing electricity in the wake of another strong El Niño period. Gaviria also decided to move the nation's clocks one hour ahead for a brief period in order to take advantage of natural light during the day.

While Minister González wouldn't rule either of those options out completely on Tuesday, he stated that neither measure would be necessary barring further unforeseen circumstances.

"We will listen to other ideas, and if the necessity arises, we won't hesitate to take additional, proven measures."

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Colombia energy crisis sparks fears of rationing, power cuts | The City Paper Bogotá

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Months of a devastatingly strong El Niño pattern have left large portions of Colombia parched from lack of rain and drained the country's substantial hydroelectric capacity. Now, the loss of two important power plants in the past few days has thrown into doubt the ability to meet electricity demands.

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The energy issue in Italy has been central to the political and technological debate at least since 1974 (the oil crisis). The use of nuclear energy has been rejected in two referendums, in 1987 and again in 2011. This has stimulated the public consciousness in the energy field, but changed to a smaller extent the thinking of the dominant forces in politics and in 'economy. So, we have not done the nuclear, but very little has been done for energy saving and alternative energy. I studied the energy efficiency in buildings (my field) in 70-80 years, but then the oil price drop led to traditional policies. Paradoxically, the today's energy-saving proposals are similar to those of the time, even if the technological context is more advanced and there are technologies, such as photovoltaics, not available 30 years ago. In the years 2011 to 2015 has grown about the share of solar PV; But recently the government has blocked the growth of solar energy by eliminating the incentives and taxing the self-production. Feel again talk of apparent common sense "the exit from oil will require decades" and regrets the fact that we do not use nuclear power. Recently, a law was extended to the oil industry the opportunity to drill the seabed within twelve miles off the coast. A referendum to repeal it did not reach the quorum of votes required. The government makes every effort to protect the electrical and oil industries frightened by the growth of new production methods.

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Eduardo GARCIA CANO

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En los dos primeros meses de este año, la oferta de electricidad en Panamá se duplicó 8% y ascendió a 1,594 millones de kilovatios, en comparación con el mismo período de 2015, impulsada por las energías limpias, revelan datos de la Contraloría General de la República.

De enero a febrero de 2015, la oferta energética había aumentado 4.6%.

Generar energía no solo con combustible sino con la fuerza del viento y del sol es una tendencia creciente, según la Contraloría y opiniones de especialistas.

Para este año, por ejemplo, las fuentes de energía eólica crecieron a números impresionantes: 554.7%. Las solares crecieron más, a unos drásticos 28,631.3%, mientras que las térmicas 18.6%. Contrario, la hidráulica cayó 19.9%.

El incremento de la oferta de energías limpias respecto a la hidráulica, para Víctor Urrutia, secretario Nacional de Energía, está relacionado al empuje empresarial y a las condiciones climáticas.

'Las inversiones de energía eólica y solar en el país están creciendo, aunado a que ambos campos tienen más posibilidades de generar más durante el verano. Por eso tuvimos una participación muy importante', subrayó Urrutia a La Estrella de Panamá .

No obstante, Urrutia señaló que ahora que entra el invierno el panorama podría cambiar por las lluvias y 'probablemente' las eólicas y solares registren menos participación y más las hidráulica existentes.

'La complementariedad es uno de los objetivos que estamos tratando de lograr con el Plan Nacional de Energía 2015-2016', afirmó Urrutia, quien resaltó la importancia del parque eólico 'Laudato-Si' de Penonomé, para la matriz energética del país.

Para el economista Felipe Chapman, los indicadores de Contraloría no son más que un indicativo de que el país está empezando a aprovechar otros recursos más allá de los combustibles fósiles y del agua que se ha utilizado por mucho tiempo.

'Se están empezado a diversificar las fuentes de generación de energía eléctrica en el país, lo cual crea mayores alternativas, crea más cobertura de riesgos en el mercado para cuando escasea el agua y se encarece por el derivado del petróleo', expresó Chapman.

El consumo facturado aumentó este año 6.1%, principalmente del residencial en 12.5%, comercial en 5.7%, Gobierno 10.0% y el industrial en 1.6%.

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Energía renovable impulsa la oferta energética del país

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En los dos primeros meses de este año, la oferta de electricidad en Panamá se duplicó 8% y ascendió a 1,594 millones de kilovatios, en comparación con el mismo período de 2015, impulsada por las energías limpias, revelan datos de la Contraloría General de la República.

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This push developed countries to adopt energy policies and the internal and external sides, Internally interested choosing energy sources and the security of its infrastructure and how to demand management and efficiency, as well as the liberalization of the sector from the constraints with finding possible means to develop energy alternatives, while externally, it is concerned with providing continuing supply and variety of external power sources and secure transport routes to ensure its energy flow. For that developed nations focused on energy and resources and made it part of their policies to sustain superiority and tighten control over the global economy,We look renewable energy transition that provide us contrast demand   

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This push developed countries to adopt energy policies and the internal and external sides, Internally interested choosing energy sources and the security of its infrastructure and how to demand management and efficiency, as well as the liberalization of the sector from the constraints with finding possible means to develop energy alternatives, while externally, it is concerned with providing continuing supply and variety of external power sources and secure transport routes to ensure its energy flow. For that developed nations focused on energy and resources and made it part of their policies to sustain superiority and tighten control over the global economy,We look renewable energy transition that provide us contrast demand   

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How the Dutch developed consensus on the "Agreement on Energy", to achieve their energy goals.
(Arjan Lucius)

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Uploaded by SERcommunicatie on 2016-04-08.

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Posted by Colin Scott

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Renewable Energy in Albania Report from Energy Community

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Renewable Energy in Albania Report from Energy Community

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shared by: Nevin Alija

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Electricity from lake Kivu methane gas  by Kamayirese Germaine from Rwanda

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Rwanda adds 25MW from KivuWatt, Symbion signs methane deal

Saturday December 12 2015

In Summary

Rwanda's installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid.

The national demand of electricity is 105MW.

Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, also signed a contract to generate 55MW. Symbion is the second independent power producer to invest in the methane-to-power plant after KivuWatt signed a concession.

Lake Kivu contains an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of naturally occurring methane gas. The total power generation potential of this resource has been conservatively estimated at more than 500 MW over 40 years.

Advertisement

By KABONA ESIARA, The EastAfrican

Rwanda's efforts to generate electricity from methane gas in Lake Kivu are starting to yield results with its installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid.

The national demand of electricity is 105MW.

The first phase of the KivuWatt power plant, which is at the pilot stage, has already added 22MW to the grid as part of the 25MW it is to generate in the first phase before embarking on the remaining 75MW to make it 100MW.

And now, Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, last week signed a contract to generate 55MW. Symbion is the second independent power producer to invest in the methane-to-power plant after KivuWatt signed a concession.

"The country has enough power," said John Bosco Mugiraneza, the chief executive officer of the national electricity utility Rwanda Energy Group (REG). "Should any incident that disrupts power generation occur, there will be no load-shedding."

Lake Kivu contains an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of naturally occurring methane gas. The total power generation potential of this resource has been conservatively estimated at more than 500 MW over 40 years.

The government also owns Kibuye Power 1 (KP1), a 3.5MW methane-to-power plant that was used as a pilot project to prove to investors that the methane gas in Lake Kivu can be used in power generation and there is technology to support investment in clean, affordable and reliable energy sources.

SIGNIFICANT DROP IN TARIFFS

The investments at Lake Kivu are expected to result in a significant drop in electricity tariffs. Power prices went up in September by 35 per cent with residential consumers now paying Rwf182 (0.24 US cents) per unit and industries Rwf126 (0.16 US cents) per unit.

Residential and industrial consumers used to pay a uniform Rwf134 (0.17 US cents) per unit. The increment was largely attributed to higher costs of generation amid rising demand.

REG is also expected to save huge amounts of money that it used in purchasing electricity from independent power producers and on subsidies on power costs to keep final tariffs affordable.

By June, Rwanda was generating 51.8MW from diesel generators and spending $37 million annually in subsidies to make power affordable. The cost of electricity from the independent power producers' thermal plants is 0.33 US cents per Kwh, which is the most expensive option.

Minister for Infrastructure James Musoni said the 9.8 US cents per kWh feed in tariff that the government negotiation team got was a good deal in a market where the industrial electricity tariff is 18 cents.

Symbion's tariff is also cheaper than the 0.12 cents at which fellow American company KivuWatt is selling its power to Rwanda's energy utility company.

"The people who negotiated the power purchase agreement with KivuWatt on behalf of the government did not have experience; that's why they settled on that high price," a REG official told The EastAfrican.

"Phasing out the heavy fuel plants is to be gradual as affordable and reliable electricity sources are developed," said Mr Mugiraneza.

With the breakthrough in commercial methane-to-power technology, Mr Mugiraneza is optimistic that ongoing projects on Lake Kivu will add to the targeted power generation capacity.

Paul Hinks, the Symbion Power CEO, has promised to deliver the new project much earlier, saying the firm would use its savings to fund the project should lenders take too long to release the funds.

"We shall start the work without waiting for the financial close and we expect to bring on the 14MW much faster than specified in the power purchase agreement," said Mr Hinks. "Probably, 18 months from now.

"We ask the lenders for debt financing for the project to speed up their efforts so that we can accelerate delivery of the power to the people of Rwanda."

In a competitive tender, Symbion was granted the right to develop a 55MW methane gas-to-power plant on Lake Kivu under a 25-year concession. The production facilities will have two primary elements: A gas extraction and processing plant and an onshore gas-fired power plant. The sole off-taker for the project is REG.

The base load power generated from this domestic resource by Symbion will help to stabilise electricity supply and help to bring down the overall cost of electricity.

The implementation of the project will follow a modular deployment of four offshore extraction barges and corresponding onshore processing facilities, each using established gas industry technologies.

Now that the power purchase agreement (PPA) is in place, design and procurement for the project have begun. After achieving financial close, Symbion expects the first 14 MW to become available in 15 months, and the full 50 MW to be commissioned in 36 months.

Related Stories

Sat Aug 02 15:33:04 EAT 2014

Investors say high cost of power makes their products uncompetitive.

Those that fail to do so face a jail term.

Electoral agency says 73pc voted "Yes" in the referendum.

Rwanda adds 25MW from KivuWatt, Symbion signs methane deal

Saturday December 12 2015

In Summary

Rwanda's installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid.

The national demand of electricity is 105MW.

Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, also signed a contract to generate 55MW. Symbion is the second independent power producer to invest in the methane-to-power plant after KivuWatt signed a concession.

Lake Kivu contains an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of naturally occurring methane gas. The total power generation potential of this resource has been conservatively estimated at more than 500 MW over 40 years.

Advertisement

By KABONA ESIARA, The EastAfrican

Rwanda's efforts to generate electricity from methane gas in Lake Kivu are starting to yield results with its installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid.

The national demand of electricity is 105MW.

The first phase of the KivuWatt power plant, which is at the pilot stage, has already added 22MW to the grid as part of the 25MW it is to generate in the first phase before embarking on the remaining 75MW to make it 100MW.

And now, Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, last week signed a contract to generate 55MW. Symbion is the second independent power producer to invest in the methane-to-power plant after KivuWatt signed a concession.

"The country has enough power," said John Bosco Mugiraneza, the chief executive officer of the national electricity utility Rwanda Energy Group (REG). "Should any incident that disrupts power generation occur, there will be no load-shedding."

Lake Kivu contains an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of naturally occurring methane gas. The total power generation potential of this resource has been conservatively estimated at more than 500 MW over 40 years.

The government also owns Kibuye Power 1 (KP1), a 3.5MW methane-to-power plant that was used as a pilot project to prove to investors that the methane gas in Lake Kivu can be used in power generation and there is technology to support investment in clean, affordable and reliable energy sources.

SIGNIFICANT DROP IN TARIFFS

The investments at Lake Kivu are expected to result in a significant drop in electricity tariffs. Power prices went up in September by 35 per cent with residential consumers now paying Rwf182 (0.24 US cents) per unit and industries Rwf126 (0.16 US cents) per unit.

Residential and industrial consumers used to pay a uniform Rwf134 (0.17 US cents) per unit. The increment was largely attributed to higher costs of generation amid rising demand.

REG is also expected to save huge amounts of money that it used in purchasing electricity from independent power producers and on subsidies on power costs to keep final tariffs affordable.

By June, Rwanda was generating 51.8MW from diesel generators and spending $37 million annually in subsidies to make power affordable. The cost of electricity from the independent power producers' thermal plants is 0.33 US cents per Kwh, which is the most expensive option.

Minister for Infrastructure James Musoni said the 9.8 US cents per kWh feed in tariff that the government negotiation team got was a good deal in a market where the industrial electricity tariff is 18 cents.

Symbion's tariff is also cheaper than the 0.12 cents at which fellow American company KivuWatt is selling its power to Rwanda's energy utility company.

"The people who negotiated the power purchase agreement with KivuWatt on behalf of the government did not have experience; that's why they settled on that high price," a REG official told The EastAfrican.

"Phasing out the heavy fuel plants is to be gradual as affordable and reliable electricity sources are developed," said Mr Mugiraneza.

With the breakthrough in commercial methane-to-power technology, Mr Mugiraneza is optimistic that ongoing projects on Lake Kivu will add to the targeted power generation capacity.

Paul Hinks, the Symbion Power CEO, has promised to deliver the new project much earlier, saying the firm would use its savings to fund the project should lenders take too long to release the funds.

"We shall start the work without waiting for the financial close and we expect to bring on the 14MW much faster than specified in the power purchase agreement," said Mr Hinks. "Probably, 18 months from now.

"We ask the lenders for debt financing for the project to speed up their efforts so that we can accelerate delivery of the power to the people of Rwanda."

In a competitive tender, Symbion was granted the right to develop a 55MW methane gas-to-power plant on Lake Kivu under a 25-year concession. The production facilities will have two primary elements: A gas extraction and processing plant and an onshore gas-fired power plant. The sole off-taker for the project is REG.

The base load power generated from this domestic resource by Symbion will help to stabilise electricity supply and help to bring down the overall cost of electricity.

The implementation of the project will follow a modular deployment of four offshore extraction barges and corresponding onshore processing facilities, each using established gas industry technologies.

Now that the power purchase agreement (PPA) is in place, design and procurement for the project have begun. After achieving financial close, Symbion expects the first 14 MW to become available in 15 months, and the full 50 MW to be commissioned in 36 months.

Related Stories

Sat Aug 02 15:33:04 EAT 2014

Investors say high cost of power makes their products uncompetitive.

Those that fail to do so face a jail term.

Electoral agency says 73pc voted "Yes" in the referendum.

In Summary

Rwanda's installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid.

The national demand of electricity is 105MW.

Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, also signed a contract to generate 55MW. Symbion is the second independent power producer to invest in the methane-to-power plant after KivuWatt signed a concession.

Lake Kivu contains an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of naturally occurring methane gas. The total power generation potential of this resource has been conservatively estimated at more than 500 MW over 40 years.

Advertisement

By KABONA ESIARA, The EastAfrican

Rwanda's efforts to generate electricity from methane gas in Lake Kivu are starting to yield results with its installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid.

The national demand of electricity is 105MW.

The first phase of the KivuWatt power plant, which is at the pilot stage, has already added 22MW to the grid as part of the 25MW it is to generate in the first phase before embarking on the remaining 75MW to make it 100MW.

And now, Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, last week signed a contract to generate 55MW. Symbion is the second independent power producer to invest in the methane-to-power plant after KivuWatt signed a concession.

"The country has enough power," said John Bosco Mugiraneza, the chief executive officer of the national electricity utility Rwanda Energy Group (REG). "Should any incident that disrupts power generation occur, there will be no load-shedding."

Lake Kivu contains an estimated 55 billion cubic metres of naturally occurring methane gas. The total power generation potential of this resource has been conservatively estimated at more than 500 MW over 40 years.

The government also owns Kibuye Power 1 (KP1), a 3.5MW methane-to-power plant that was used as a pilot project to prove to investors that the methane gas in Lake Kivu can be used in power generation and there is technology to support investment in clean, affordable and reliable energy sources.

SIGNIFICANT DROP IN TARIFFS

The investments at Lake Kivu are expected to result in a significant drop in electricity tariffs. Power prices went up in September by 35 per cent with residential consumers now paying Rwf182 (0.24 US cents) per unit and industries Rwf126 (0.16 US cents) per unit.

Residential and industrial consumers used to pay a uniform Rwf134 (0.17 US cents) per unit. The increment was largely attributed to higher costs of generation amid rising demand.

REG is also expected to save huge amounts of money that it used in purchasing electricity from independent power producers and on subsidies on power costs to keep final tariffs affordable.

By June, Rwanda was generating 51.8MW from diesel generators and spending $37 million annually in subsidies to make power affordable. The cost of electricity from the independent power producers' thermal plants is 0.33 US cents per Kwh, which is the most expensive option.

Minister for Infrastructure James Musoni said the 9.8 US cents per kWh feed in tariff that the government negotiation team got was a good deal in a market where the industrial electricity tariff is 18 cents.

Symbion's tariff is also cheaper than the 0.12 cents at which fellow American company KivuWatt is selling its power to Rwanda's energy utility company.

"The people who negotiated the power purchase agreement with KivuWatt on behalf of the government did not have experience; that's why they settled on that high price," a REG official told The EastAfrican.

"Phasing out the heavy fuel plants is to be gradual as affordable and reliable electricity sources are developed," said Mr Mugiraneza.

With the breakthrough in commercial methane-to-power technology, Mr Mugiraneza is optimistic that ongoing projects on Lake Kivu will add to the targeted power generation capacity.

Paul Hinks, the Symbion Power CEO, has promised to deliver the new project much earlier, saying the firm would use its savings to fund the project should lenders take too long to release the funds.

"We shall start the work without waiting for the financial close and we expect to bring on the 14MW much faster than specified in the power purchase agreement," said Mr Hinks. "Probably, 18 months from now.

"We ask the lenders for debt financing for the project to speed up their efforts so that we can accelerate delivery of the power to the people of Rwanda."

In a competitive tender, Symbion was granted the right to develop a 55MW methane gas-to-power plant on Lake Kivu under a 25-year concession. The production facilities will have two primary elements: A gas extraction and processing plant and an onshore gas-fired power plant. The sole off-taker for the project is REG.

The base load power generated from this domestic resource by Symbion will help to stabilise electricity supply and help to bring down the overall cost of electricity.

The implementation of the project will follow a modular deployment of four offshore extraction barges and corresponding onshore processing facilities, each using established gas industry technologies.

Now that the power purchase agreement (PPA) is in place, design and procurement for the project have begun. After achieving financial close, Symbion expects the first 14 MW to become available in 15 months, and the full 50 MW to be commissioned in 36 months.

Related Stories

Sat Aug 02 15:33:04 EAT 2014

Investors say high cost of power makes their products uncompetitive.

Those that fail to do so face a jail term.

Electoral agency says 73pc voted "Yes" in the referendum.

Those that fail to do so face a jail term.

Electoral agency says 73pc voted "Yes" in the referendum.

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Rwanda finally taps electricity from Lake Kivu methane gas

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Saturday December 12 2015 In Summary Rwanda's installed capacity set to increase to 186MW this month when 25MW is added to the national grid. The national demand of electricity is 105MW. Symbion Power Lake Kivu Ltd, an American company, also signed a contract to generate 55MW.

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Bad Time for Renewable enrgy in the UK

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Britain's renewable energy industry is about to "fall off a cliff" just at the point it would come into its own, analysis for The Independent reveals.

The dour forecast comes as the industry celebrated a record-breaking year in 2015, with billions of pounds poured into solar and wind energy and more homes powered by nature than ever before.

But experts have warned this is all about to grind to a halt as the Government abandons its commitment to green energy and instead invests in fracking and nuclear power.

The impact of the Government's end to wind-farm subsidies and the carrying-out of its manifesto pledge to "halt the spread of onshore windfarms" has been laid bare with research for The Independent. The figures from Bloomberg forecast that over the next five years the country will lose at least 1 gigawatt of renewable energy generation - enough to power 660,000 homes.

After 2020, the new renewables infrastructure will collapse to almost nothing because of a lack of investment and the blossoming industry could wither, the figures suggest.

"The Government is kicking the onshore wind industry off the ladder too soon," said David Hostert, an analyst at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, which carried out the research. "Without some form of change in policy support, we could see investment drop off a cliff after 2019."

New figures from Bloomberg further underlined the damage the government was inflicting on the renewable energy industry, critics said. These showed that investment in onshore wind farms more than doubled to a record £2.6bn last year.

Combined with offshore wind - a more expensive form of energy, which the Government is championing - total wind-power investment jumped to an all-time high of £11bn last year.

Meanwhile, solar-power investment slumped from a record £5bn in 2014 to £3.5bn last year following cuts to large-scale generators. Solar investment is expected to fall further this year after the Government cut support to household panels by 65 per cent last month.

This comes as wind farms powered a record 11 per cent of the UK's electricity last year, up from 9.5 per cent the year before, according to the National Grid. This means that enough wind power was generated to meet the needs of 8.25 million homes, or 30 per cent of UK households, up from 6.7 million in 2014.

Mr Hostert's forecasts are based on an analysis of the prospects of those onshore wind farms that have received planning permission for a new development being able to afford to build it.

In some cases providers, such as big six companies EDF and npower, have already abandoned proposed onshore windfarms in the wake of the Government changes. In others the cancellations are yet to come, Bloomberg forecasts.

Critics of the Government say onshore wind power is the best and cheapest opportunity the UK has of hitting its environmental targets. But the industry still needs support before it can stand on its own two feet, according to analysts, who point out that nuclear and fossil-fuel power stations also receive subsidies.

Dr Doug Parr, chief scientist and policy director at Greenpeace UK, said: "Wind and solar energy are at the point of becoming really competitive with fossil fuels, but failure to support them for another few years will result in huge losses of potential jobs."

Shadow Energy Secretary Lisa Nandy added: "The Chancellor's decision to overhaul the Government's entire energy policy is going to put off the construction of new clean-power stations we urgently need to keep the lights on, control costs and create new jobs."

A spokesman for the Department for Energy and Climate Change said: "Our priority is providing clean and secure energy while keeping bills as low as possible. To do this, we have driven down the cost of renewables, helping new technologies stand on their own two feet while still meeting our renewable energy commitments."

Reuse content

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Britain's renewable energy industry is about to 'fall off a cliff'

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Britain's renewable energy industry is about to "fall off a cliff" just at the point it would come into its own, analysis for The Independent reveals. The dour forecast comes as the industry celebrated a record-breaking year in 2015, with billions of pounds poured into solar and wind energy and more homes powered by nature than ever before.

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U.S. electric grid needs major overhaul: utility

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U.S. electric grid needs major overhaul: utility

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Here is a link to a Reuters article:

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-electricity-grid-idUSTRE56N0HQ20090724

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http://www.carbonforestservices.co.nz/carbon-prices.html

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NZU and ERU Carbon Prices in NZ Carbon Market

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Changing energy sources in New Zealand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Changing energy sources in New Zealand to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Bob Bingham

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At the recent Lima climate talks New Zealand did not do very well and the minister for climate change Tim Groser made a poor job of explaining why we had such a poor performance.

The perception within NZ is that the National government is only playing lip service to climate change by promoting ourselves as clean and green while continuing to promote fossil fuels with road transport and oil exploration.

.The root of the problem is that NZ does not burn coal to make electricity and has 85% renewable energy, with gas as a quick top up to balance supply and demand. Our transport uses oil for fuel and here we are the same as most other nations.
The area we have problems with is our seven million dairy farming cows, three point five million beef cattle and thirty million sheep so that we have ten million cattle against a population of four million people and it is an expanding industry.
Unless we are going to stop dairy farming or can find a way to export their methane emissions with the dairy products and meat, we are stuck with it..

The only area left to make savings is in our transport. The National government has bought some electric trains for Auckland but has no idea what to do with the rest of the extensive railway network. The network is not in very god condition so it needs serious money spending to modernise it as, currently, it moves a few logs to ports and that is about it.

The electrical generating companies and the government should have a big interest in transport as their business is on a plateau and they need new markets. NZ has an oil import bill of five billion a year and oil is a diminishing resource with a volatile price which makes it vulnerable to competition.

If the electrical generating companies joined forces and collectively bought the railways operations and, with the involvement of the government, converted the network to electricity we could achieve several objectives.
We could reduce our dependence on oil as our sole fuel for transport, reduce our CO2 emissions, reduce our oil import bill and the electricity companies would open up a whole new market.

We do not need to worry about our oil companies as oil will be needed for many years and its price will increase as its scarcity and cost of extraction increases.

Electric cars have an increasingly important future and some countries are trialling hire cars at rail terminals so that the commuter can reach his destination quickly and independently.
There is a whole new transport system in its infancy, in Europe in particular, and we need to be making the first steps to embrace it.

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At the recent Lima climate talks New Zealand did not do very well and the minister for climate change Tim Groser made a poor job of explaining why we had such a poor performance.

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Taylor Wilsons factory made nuclear fission reactor can supply power to 35k to 100k homes

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Taylor Wilsons factory made nuclear fission reactor can supply power to 35k to 100k homes

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Post by : Hooman Enshaian

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Rejection of another massive wind farm in the same locality of Ireland.

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Planning permission for the biggest wind farm in the country in a sparsely populated area of Donegal has been refused.

Cork firm Planree Limited lodged plans in 2014 with An Bord Pleanála under the strategic infrastructure development fast-tracking planning process to erect up to 49 giant turbines.

The site stretches for 17km over 31 townlands near the famous Barnesmore Gap in Donegal, close to the border with Tyrone.

The development would have been bigger than the 88.5 Megawatts (MW) Meentycat wind farm in Donegal which is the biggest in the Republic.

More than 200 objections were lodged with the appeals board. Many of them focused on concerns about the visual impact of the turbines with a hub height of up to 117m (384ft), only slightly lower than Dublin's 121m Spire on O'Connell Street.

'Vigorously opposed'

The planning application has been refused, mainly because of the environmental impact.

A spokesperson for the Finn Valley Wind Action Group said: "We wish to make it clear to the applicants in this case, and any others who may consider making a similar application in our area, that any future applications here will also be vigorously opposed."

According to the promoters of the project, the proposed Carrickaduff wind farm would have had an installed generation capacity of 105MW, enough to power the equivalent of 60,000 homes, or approximately 80 per cent of all Donegal households.

Nationally, the total installed capacity of wind farms is 3,073 MW with Cork (438 MW) and Kerry (315 MW) ahead of Donegal, with its 33 wind farms generating 297 MW.

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Planning refused for 49-turbine Donegal wind farm

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Planning permission for the biggest wind farm in the country in a sparsely populated area of Donegal has been refused. Cork firm Planree Limited lodged plans in 2014 with An Bord Pleanála under the strategic infrastructure development fast-tracking planning process to erect up to 49 giant turbines.

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New nuclear power in the UK comes at a high price. Is it justified to pay such a high premium for low carbon electricity which is reliable and does not depend on the weather? Hinkley Point C, the first new nuclear power plant for decades which would generate 3,200 MW throughout the year (7% of the UK's demand), requires a price guarantee from the UK government for 35 years at £100.68/MWh in today's money (£92.50/MWh in 2012 money). The wholesale price for electricity is currently below £35/MWh.
Supporters of Hinkley Point C correctly argue that wind and solar produce variable amount of electricity whereas Hinkley Point would produce a steady baseload. Their argument for Hinkley Point C is that despite the higher cost, it is needed because cheaper forms of low carbon electricity generation are less reliable, and that other forms of baseload power (such as gas or coal) are less green.

We analyse whether one could replicate the electricity generation of Hinkley Point C with a cheaper, equally low carbon combination of a) solar farms, b) wind farms, c) energy storage and d) backup gas generation at costs that would allow their deployment today.

Our analysis shows it is possible at a price of only £75/MWh, 25% less than for Hinkley Point C. This would save Britain's consumers £720 million per year (or £25 billion in today's money over the 35 year contract term).

Transforming weather-dependent solar and wind into a stable generator is possible because the weather variations between wind turbines and solar panels largely cancel each other out.

Any remaining variation is managed with energy storage (charging batteries when generation exceeds demand and vice versa) and with backup natural gas generators. Gas generators are the only technology emitting carbon dioxide, but as they are rarely used, the average carbon intensity is still 80% lower than today's average of electricity from the grid.

At a carbon intensity of only 100gCO2/kWh our "renewable Hinkley Point" would meet the UK's 2030 target already today. We also show a cost effective way to reduce the carbon intensity further.

This essay is not a diatribe against new nuclear in the UK. We look only at the economics and climate change aspect and leave out a number of other considerations, positives (job creation, industrial policy, attracting Chinese investments) as well as negatives (delivery risks, risks of radioactive contamination, uncertain end storage).

We merely argue that the case for new nuclear cannot rest on costs and security of supply alone as there are cheaper alternatives available already today. As 35 GW of power plants will be shut down permanently in the coming decade, we may have to install both new nuclear and new renewable energy with storage.

The analysis shows that politicians and civil servants should not pick winners but rather create a level playing field between all different technologies. This will stimulate innovation and bring forward substantial cost savings to consumers.

We encourage the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to negotiate with Green Hedge and other low carbon firms to put in place the contracts to deliver the same results as Hinkley Point but faster and cheaper.
NIELS KRONINGER is Joint Managing Director of Green Hedge Energy.
Green Hedge develops and operates low carbon electricity generation and storage projects. The group's developer arm has realised over 200 megawatts of renewable energy projects to date, with a focus on large-scale grid connected and private wire solar PV systems (solar farms). The group's O&M business provides operation and maintenance services for ground mounted solar farms. With over 150 megawatts under contract in the UK, it is one of the country's top independent O&M providers

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How to save UK electricity consumers £ 720 million per year for 35 years by low cost, low carbon, reliable baseload power

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New nuclear power in the UK comes at a high price. Is it justified to pay such a high premium for low carbon electricity which is reliable and does not depend on the weather?

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Last year the UK elected a conservative government. This has been disastrous for our pursuit of 2020 targets.

Claire Frost

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Amber Rudd has been accused of "grotesque hypocrisy" today for claiming the government is leading on climate change while overseeing a string of attacks on green policies. Some environmentalists say it's the worst period for environmental policy in three decades.

We've rounded up the green measures that have been axed or find themselves in the firing line, to show the breadth and scale of the changes.

Scrapping support for onshore wind

Amber Rudd, the energy and climate change secretary said she was halting new subsidies to onshore wind farms on the grounds that the technology should stand on its own feet and save bill payers money.

In fact the writing had been on the wall for onshore wind farms since February 2012 when 101 backbench Conservative party MPs wrote to David Cameron demanding "dramatic cuts" in subsidies.

A moratorium on more onshore wind was rejected by the Tories' coalition partners, particularly the Lib Dem energy and climate change secretary, Ed Davey. But the Conservatives went into the election promising to "halt the spread of onshore wind farms".

Ironically onshore wind has attracted a lot of investment and can be the most cost-efficient way of producing low carbon energy.

Solar subsidies to be axed too

Ministers have targeted larger solar installations of less than five megawatts - enough to power 2,500 homes - in a consultation on the early closure of the renewable obligation (RO) subsidy aimed at April 2016.

But the government also announced a review of another subsidy, the feed-in tariff, to make further significant savings in a move that could threaten state support for solar panels on domestic roof tops.

The solar power sector has grown dramatically over the past 18 months, leading ministers to panic about a forthcoming potential budget overspend on support schemes of £1.5bn by 2020. It later admitted the benefit of scrapping support for this nascent industry at this stage would only save energy consumers 50p a year.

Biomass hit too

The government also confirmed this week that it was removing the guaranteed level of RO subsidy for coal or other fossil fuelled-power stations which are converting to wood or another biomass fuel.

Killing the flagship green homes scheme

On Thursday, the government effectively killed off the green deal, its "transformational" way of helping homeowners bring down their energy bills through installing insulation, and fitting new boilers and draught-proofing. Few will mourn the scheme, which provided loans to homeowners to fund the measures - but as the Guardian reported many times, take-up was very low.

But what's striking is Rudd has nothing to replace it with. So, apart from poorer households, who get support through the separate ECO scheme, there is now no serious energy efficiency policy for homes, which account for around a third of UK carbon emissions. A review of all remaining energy efficiency schemes is currently underway with details expected in the autumn budget.

Selling off the green investment bank

Launched in 2012 to help green projects with an initial injection of £3.8bn of public money, the green investment bank is probably the example cited most often by George Osborne and David Cameron in their defence of the government's environmental record. But last month the business secretary, Sajid Javid, said he would be selling off as much as 70% of the bank.

Whether that harms the energy efficiency, waste and offshore wind power projects that the bank invests in remains to be seen. But even the influential Tory thinktank Bright Blue was unimpressed by the move, saying it was the "last thing we need".

Watering down the incentive to buy a greener car

The summer budget ripped up the current system of taxation for new cars (vehicle excise duty, often erroneously referred to as road tax). Anyone who currently buys a new car pays a different rate for the first year based on how polluting the car is, a system which continues every year thereafter, ranging from free for electric cars to £505 for the dirtiest.

But from 2017, after the first year, all cars will pay the same £140 annual fee, so a Porsche will be taxed the same as a Prius. The car industry says the change takes away the incentive to buy a low-emissions car, while Friends of the Earth says a greener car will now cost £1,000 more over seven years.

Giving up on zero carbon homes

A decade-long plan to force all new homes to be 'zero carbon' from 2016 was binned by the Treasury earlier this month, prompting the former Lib Dem energy secretary Ed Davey to say David Cameron "may as well hug a coal power station". Major housing developers said the decision was "extremely disappointing", a view that was echoed by planners, green groups and the designer of a new 'carbon positive' house that just opened in Wales.

Edward Davey (@EdwardJDavey)
Conservatives ditch Zero Carbon standards for new homes after killing onshore wind: Cameron may as well hug a coal power station

Fracking in Britain's most important nature sites

Rudd said in January that fracking wouldn't be allowed in sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs). Last week she changed her mind, opening the door to fracking in thousands of SSSIs in England, Wales and Scotland, if the shale companies can get past planners. Green party MP, Caroline Lucas, said the u-turn was outrageous.

Goodbye green tax target

A target set during the last government to keep increasing the proportion of revenue from environmental taxes was dropped in Osborne's emergency budget.

Tidal power in the firing line?

There has already been speculation that one talismanic project, the Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon, currently awaiting a subsidy offer from the Treasury, could be being lined up for the chop.

This £1bn scheme is expensive but was name-checked positively by chancellor George Osborne in the spring budget. Its supporters have always argued it would trigger a whole new industry that could lead to 30 similar projects starting around an island country perfectly suited for this low carbon technology.

What's left - and safe?

Nuclear power certainly. The government - like its predecessors of all political stripes seem mesmerised by atomic power and are willing to provide extremely generous financial support and other help to kickstart a renaissance.

Britain's first planned new nuclear plant for over 25 years at Hinkley Point in Somerset is backed by government but faces all sorts of other hurdles such as uncertain equity investors, legal challenges and ever-increasing costs and delays, which could scupper it yet.

Offshore wind, much more expensive than onshore farms, has so far escaped the axe although there are plenty of Tory critics willing to decry the cost and claim it is a blot on the seascape.

How long will this pioneering industry survive unscathed?
Topics

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The nine green policies killed off by the Tory government

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Amber Rudd has been accused of "grotesque hypocrisy" today for claiming the government is leading on climate change while overseeing a string of attacks on green policies. Some environmentalists say it's the worst period for environmental policy in three decades.

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Mexican energy reforms: Mexico’s path to a clean economy

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Mexican energy reforms: Mexico’s path to a clean economy

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In recent years Mexico has experienced an energy boost, bringing renewable sources into the mix. With its ambitious target of 50% clean energy by 2050, David Barrie at SgurrEnergy believes the country has the potential to become a key player in the renewable energy industry, but explains that there will be challenges along the way.

For the first time in its history, the Mexican power market is opening up for both competition and foreign investment. As part of the 2013 Mexican energy reform, a suite of policies and targets were brought into legislation with the aim of modernizing and advancing the country’s energy system. The reform was introduced to provide an energy boost after the declining production of Mexico’s state owned oil and gas company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and to reduce the electricity price, which is on average 25% higher than electricity prices in the US for residential and commercial users.

Mexico’s reformed energy market has drawn significant amounts of attention and interest from companies keen on entering emerging growth markets. Coincidentally, this interest comes at a time where the development conditions for wind and solar projects have never been more favorable.  The installed costs of wind energy projects have dropped in parallel with a significant increase in productivity of modern wind turbines. Similarly, the installed costs of solar photovoltaic (PV) projects have dropped tremendously over the last few years.

Until recently, Mexico has been slow to develop its very considerable renewable resource potential. Until eight years ago, Mexico only had 85MW of wind energy installations and approximately 22 MW of solar PV systems (the bulk of which were stand alone, self-supply systems). Fast forward to today and the market has changed considerably. As of 2014 the installed capacity of wind power projects exceeded 2,600 MW, and the solar industry, while still small, had begun to see multi-megawatt, grid-connected projects being installed.

Challenges and opportunities on the horizon

While the recent growth has been laudable, it does not compare with the ambitious targets set by the government for the supply of clean energy. The Mexican government has prescribed clean energy generation targets of 25% by 2018, 30% by 2021, 35% by 2024, and an ultimate target of 50% by 2050. These ambitious targets, combined with the energy reform, have triggered significant growth in the industry. The Mexican government is aiming to triple the total amount of clean energy generation and to achieve a 9.5GW target by 2018 is a huge logistical and operational challenge by any standards. To put it into perspective, achieving the 2018 target alone equates to adding new operational wind farms equivalent to Canada’s 23 year cumulative installed capacity in only three years. Meeting half of this target capacity would be equivalent to the entire Danish fleet of wind turbines being energized in Mexico in three years’ time , so even achieving 50% of this target would make a significant difference.

Procurement opportunities in this newly energized market will take shape in one of four forms:

(i) selling power directly to suppliers or qualified users (large electricity users who buy power from the National Center of Energy Control (CENACE) or suppliers at non-regulated rates);

(ii) selling power to the wholesale electricity market;

(iii) participating in the long-term auctions for service and capacity supply;

(iv) partnering with Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) or its subsidiaries for projects.

The first opportunity to participate in long term auctions was announced in Q4 of 2015 and successful bids are to be announced by the end of Q1 2016. While there is a lot of interest from companies willing to participate in the auction, many have been choosing to take the ‘wait and see’ approach in order to see where the floor for power costs will lie. As a partial result of the auction announcement, few, if any, companies have entered into third-party power supply agreements with independent power producers (IPPs) in the last two years and consequently, a backlog of potential projects exists, including many natural gas cogeneration projects.  This has potential to lead to aggressive pricing during the first auction and it will be the duty of IPPs and their advisors to ensure they have properly assessed the viability of their projects in order to produce competitive bids.

In many regions around the world, governmental subsidies and tax credits constitute a broadly used benefit for investors in wind energy. For the time being, Mexico’s Ministry of Energy has chosen not to be over reliant on a subsidized system, in part, as a means of promoting the most competitive renewable energy sources. Nevertheless, Mexico’s tax code provides for accelerated depreciation of investments in renewable energy equipment. Under these provisions, a company investing in wind power generation equipment may deduct up to 100% of its total investment during its first taxable year (and may be able to carry forward any deduction amount it is unable to use).

SgurrEnergy’s involvement in the energy market

SgurrEnergy’s recent work in Mexico includes supporting developers in identifying and assessing wind and solar sites and working with established operators of wind farms to improve the performance of their assets. More broadly, SgurrEnergy is currently working on several projects across Latin and Central America. The company’s global expertise is far-reaching, including the recent creation of a global Solar Developer’s Handbook to assist those constructing solar projects, giving guidance and good practice to developers to increase consistency and reduce risk in projects.

Recently, SgurrEnergy has been working on feasibility and measurement campaigns for solar and wind projects across Latin America, with heavy involvement in contract reviews and negotiation support, construction monitoring and commissioning verification. Social impacts and Equator Principles reviews are mandated by the development banks as well as many of the large international corporate lenders and SgurrEnergy conducts these reviews to enhance the social license of local renewable projects. SgurrEnergy’s main aim is to help clients to find the best site, develop it well and then optimize the project to ensure the best return possible and a successful project all around.

What next for Mexico?

The challenges of meeting the short and long term goals are numerous. The regulatory system in Mexico is still evolving and uncertainty remains on how and when the final implementation of the laws will take shape. Additionally, the social, economic, and political context in Mexico varies widely and care must be taken to ensure that this consideration is taken into account during project planning.  Case studies of projects where landowner and community considerations were not fully taken into account exist, and projects and companies have suffered considerably as a result. With the energy reforms the entire landscape for the operation of the Mexican electrical system will change, and a successful outcome will require a deep level of learning both by existing developers in the market and by new entrants. As with many systems in transition, there will be companies that will find great success, and others that will fail. The ability to learn and adapt to the new and evolving market will be key in ensuring that projects are successful.

Growth in the electricity market in Mexico is anticipated to be 4% annually in the coming years. There are ambitious goals set for meeting demand growth and transitioning old generation to clean energy sources. Despite uncertainty with respect to the rollout of the Mexican energy reforms, significant opportunities will continue to exist in Mexico, and the installation of new renewable and clean energy projects is likely to outpace that of many of the more established and mature markets.

FURTHER INFORMATION

As a multi-disciplinary, global consultancy, SgurrEnergy, a Wood Group company, provides a variety of services and expertise across the whole lifecycle of renewable energy projects. The team of engineers has consulted on projects in over 90 countries, using significant global expertise and local knowledge of markets to work with developers to ensure that projects are well planned, well-constructed and perform optimally in operation.

www.sgurrenergy.com

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May we have a moment of your time?

Our public funding only covers some of the cost of producing high-quality, balanced content. We depend on the generosity of people who believe we all should have access to accurate, fair journalism. Caring people just like you!

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Our public funding only covers some of the cost of producing high-quality, balanced content. We depend on the generosity of people who believe we all should have access to accurate, fair journalism. Caring people just like you!

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Germany Asks Belgium to Shut Two Nuclear Reactors

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Germany Asks Belgium to Shut Two Nuclear Reactors

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The German government made an unprecedented request of Belgium to temporarily shut two nuclear reactors, citing technical issues involving possible safety defects.

Germany asked Belgium to take Engie SA's Tihange-2 and Doel-3 atomic plants offline until the safety concerns can be addressed, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement. The two facilities, which were shut for investigations for 20 months, are safe to operate, Belgium's nuclear regulator AFCN said in response to the request.

"We've never made such a request to a neighboring state before," Deputy Environment Minister Jochen Flasbarth told reporters on a conference call. "This is an unusual procedure."

Engie's Belgian unit Electrabel operates the two reactors. AFCN decided Nov. 17 that the reactors were safe to restart after investigations of the steel walls of the reactor vessels. With the approval, AFCN concluded the defects don't affect safety. The two units account for about 14 percent of the nation's installed power capacity.

"I don't see this developing into another issue for Engie," Elchin Mammadov, utilities analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence said by phone. "Nuclear security is the prerogative of national regulators."

Germany is phasing out nuclear energy in the wake of the Fukushima atomic accident in Japan in 2011, instead developing an energy market built on wind and solar power. The nation is set to close down its remaining eight reactors by 2022.

The plants resumed output by the end of last year. Germany wasn't satisfied with AFCN's assessment and called for a Belgium-German working group and for the national independent reactor safety commission, known as RSK, to examine the security issue. The commission concluded that in case of an incident it is unclear that safety provisions are adequate.

Germany's query must now be assessed by Belgian authorities, Flasbarth said. The Belgian Energy Ministry declined to comment and referred questions to the regulator.

Astonished Watchdog

The watchdog said Wednesday that the units meet the most strict safety standards and that it was astonished by the German request.

AFCN is willing to work with German counterparts provided that there is willingness to be "constructive," according to a statement. It doesn't intend to reverse its decision to allow the reactors to operate.

'Our reaction is surprise," Geetha Kayaert, a spokeswoman for Electrabel, said by phone. "We have proven that the reactor vessels are safe and it's the result of a very long process of research that has been evaluated and confirmed by experts in Belgium and abroad. The AFCN decided the reactors were safe to restart."

Doel-3 has a capacity of 1,006 megawatts, while Tihange-2 has a capacity of 1,008 megawatts. The units have permission to operate until their retirement on Oct. 1, 2022 and Feb. 1, 2023, respectively, according to AFCN's website.
- With assistance by Weixin Zha, and Jones Hayden
(Updates with Germany's plan to close reactors in fifth paragraph.)

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Germany Asks Belgium to Shut Two Engie Nuclear Reactors

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The German government made an unprecedented request of Belgium to temporarily shut two nuclear reactors, citing technical issues involving possible safety defects. Germany asked Belgium to take Engie SA's Tihange-2 and Doel-3 atomic plants offline until the safety concerns can be addressed, Environment Minister Barbara Hendricks said Wednesday in an e-mailed statement.

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Translated: "Who does not believe in solar energy, should take a sunbath.

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Sydney (AFP) - An Australian politician has set fire to a river to draw attention to methane gas he says is seeping into the water due to fracking, with the dramatic video attracting more than two millions views.

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham used a kitchen lighter to ignite bubbles of methane in the Condamine River in Queensland, about 220 kilometres (140 miles) west of Brisbane.

The video shows him jumping back in surprise, using an expletive as flames shoot up around the dinghy.

"Unbelievable. A river on fire. Don't let it burn the boat," Buckingham, from New South Wales, said in the footage posted on Facebook on Friday evening, which has been viewed more than two million times.

"Unbelievable, the most incredible thing I've seen. A tragedy in the Murray-Darling Basin (river system)," he said, blaming it on nearby coal-seam gas mining, or fracking.

Australia is a major gas exporter, but the controversial fracking industry has faced a public backlash in some parts of the country over fears about the environmental impact.

Farmers and other landowners are concerned that fracking, an extraction method under which high-pressure water and chemicals are used to split rockbeds, could contaminate groundwater sources.

The Murray-Darling Basin is a river network sprawling for one million square kilometres (400,000 square miles) across five Australian states.

But the industry has said the practice is safe and that coal seam gas mining is a vital part of the energy mix as the world looks for cleaner fuel sources.

Origin Energy, which operates wells in the region, said it was monitoring the bubbling.

"We're aware of concerns regarding bubbling of the Condamine River, in particular, recent videos demonstrating that this naturally occurring gas is flammable when ignited," the company said in a statement to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

"We understand that this can be worrying, however, the seeps pose no risk to the environment, or to public safety, providing people show common sense and act responsibly around them."

The Australian energy firm said the methane seeps could be due to several factors, including natural geology and faults, drought and flood cycles, as well as human activity including water bores and coal seam gas operations.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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Australian politician sets river on fire to protest fracking

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Sydney (AFP) - An Australian politician has set fire to a river to draw attention to methane gas he says is seeping into the water due to fracking, with the dramatic video attracting more than two millions views.

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Nuclear power in Germany has been a fiasco that has cost the country hundreds of billions of euros to build and now to unwind. In the end, the German public, not the industry, will probably end up footing the bill.

A nuclear plant in the German state of Bavaria.

Why it matters

Was nuclear power worth it for Germany, given the high costs of winding it down?

Facts

Nuclear power covered all of Germany's energy needs for 11 years.

In 2011, the German government decided to abandon nuclear power.

Providers have set aside €38 billion to wind down nuclear plants but many believe this will not be enough.

They celebrated with a picnic, drank champagne, lit sparklers and even set off a few fireworks on a summer's night next to the nuclear power station.

The environmental activists from Bavaria were toasting energy giant E.ON's shutdown of Grafenrheinfeld nuclear power plant on June 27, 2015.

The opponents of nuclear power had met up earlier at an intersection near the reactor. Sitting in folding chairs, they watched the plumes rise from the two cooling towers for the last time.

"We have been calling for the phase-out of deadly nuclear technology for decades," said Hubert Weiger, chairman of BUND, an environmental organization and the German association of Friends of the Earth Germany.

The Grafenrheinfeld shutdown, Mr. Weiger said, was "a success and cause for celebration."

After the Fukushima reactor disaster in Japan, the German government announced the immediate shutdown of eight reactors in March 2011.

This was part of Germany's energy transition, the country's sudden switch away from nuclear power towards renewables, a move that is costing companies and the public billions of euros.

There were no further closures during the next four years but now the Grafenrheinfeld shutdown marks the beginning of the last stage of Germany's nuclear phase-out.

Still, the mood among the activists wasn't exactly exuberant. The next day, they held a small prayer meeting as a reminder that the fight isn't over yet, not even in Grafenrheinfeld, where years will pass before the demolition of the plant begins.

Contaminated waste from the reactor may well be stored on the grounds for decades to come.

"As pleased as we are about the shutdown, we mustn't forget that the nuclear industry is burdening us with a deadly legacy, one that continues to supply fuel for political conflict today," said Greenpeace nuclear expert Tobias Riedl.

In 2022, when the last of the eight nuclear power plants still in service today stops generating electricity, Germany will be closing only one chapter in its nuclear history.

The next chapter, of demolition, has already begun. It is likely to be costly and difficult - it will take decades to knock down the reactors and disposing of the nuclear waste could literally take forever.

Looking back at 60 years of nuclear power in Germany, there have been high costs but few benefits.

This last phase of nuclear power in Germany will be especially complex. There has already been months of discussion of who should pay for the disposal.

For months, the government and the four utilities in Germany involved in nuclear have been wrangling over who should cover the costs of winding down the power plants and disposing of the waste.

It is unclear whether the sum set aside by the utilities - €39 billion or $44 billion - will be enough; the total cost is likely to be closer to €50-60 billion or more.

What is clear is that the utilities companies are overwhelmed by the phase-out of nuclear power. German citizens will ultimately be expected to pay for the consequences.

Looking back at 60 years of nuclear power in Germany, there have been high costs but few benefits.

It began in 1955 with such euphoria. That year, the Paris Accords put an end to the occupation statute and the Federal Republic of Germany was granted full sovereignty.

The treaty also ended the ban on the use of nuclear energy in Germany, including for peaceful purposes. That year, the Federal Ministry for Atomic Energy was established and Franz Josef Strauss was made Minister for Atomic Affairs.

The Federal Atomic Law, which regulated the scientific and economic use of nuclear technology, was introduced four years later.

The first nuclear chain reaction in a German power plant was triggered on November 13, 1950 in Kahl, in the southwestern state of Hessen.

Six months later, for the first time, electricity generated by nuclear power was fed into the grid.

West Germany was the fifth country to generate electricity through nuclear power, after the United States, the USSR, France and the United Kingdom.

At the time, Mr. Strauss said "The peaceful use of atomic energy is as important a milestone in human history as the invention of fire was for our forefathers."

Half a century later, it is clear that the decision in favor of nuclear power was indeed a milestone in German history - but a fatal one. No other technology has divided the country as much as nuclear energy.

While reactors were being built one after the next in the 1970s, partly in response to the 1973 oil crisis, a resistance movement was growing, first locally and then nationwide. It left a lasting impression on German politics; in 1980, the Green Party emerged from the environmental movement.

By the time of the 1986 Chernobyl reactor disaster, the conflict over nuclear power had become a dispute over the country's political orientation.

At nuclear waste disposal sites from Bavaria to northern Germany, activists held demonstrations, blocked construction and took on the nuclear industry. Each of the trains transporting nuclear waste was accompanied by thousands of demonstrators - and as many police officers.

Germany decided to phase out nuclear power in 2000 under a coalition government between the Green Party and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD).

Until Fukushima, there had been support for nuclear energy from the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). After the disaster in 2011, the party abandoned its support and under Chancellor Angela Merkel, accelerated the phase-out of nuclear power.

Looking back at 11 years of nuclear energy in Germany, the economic record is sobering.

By the end of 2014, five trillion kilowatt hours of electricity had been generated in the 36 German nuclear power plants, including prototypes, test and demonstration plants.

A maximum of 590 billion additional kilowatt hours will be generated by the time the last plant is shut down in 2022.

The utility companies kept the key figures in their nuclear departments secret.

But using wholesale prices and historic prices for industrial customers, the Arthur D. Little consulting firm, in a calculation performed for Handelsblatt, estimated that electricity from nuclear power has generated total revenues of €175 billion to date. Another €17 billion could be added to the total by 2022.

One of the pluses of nuclear power is its contribution to protecting the climate, its proponents argue.

In contrast to coal-fired and gas-fired power plants, nuclear reactors produce virtually no carbon dioxide.

According to the calculations, Germany's nuclear power plants will have prevented the emission of 2.1 billion tons of carbon dioxide compared to gas-fired power plants, by the end of the phase-out.

When coal-fired power plants are used as the benchmark, nuclear power plants accounted for 6 billion tons of reduced CO2 emissions.

What does this count for, compared to the technology's enormous risks and the fears it triggered across the country? Germany has never known a major nuclear scare but after the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 and to the Fukushima meltdown, no-one had any more illusions.

Still, a series of incidents in Germany fueled the citizens' fears of the technology and worries about the capabilities of plant operators.

One was in June 2007, when thick smoke rose into the sky from a power plant near Hamburg. A short circuit led to a fire in the transformer. The reactor was shut down using emergency shutdown procedures.

Not 50 miles away, almost simultaneously, there was a short circuit at another reactor. It too was shut down. Two years later, embarrassingly for operator Vattenfall, another serious problem occurred shortly after the reactor had been restarted. It was shut down again.

There were other mishaps.

In 2006, provider RWE had to take the two reactors in Hessen offline because special screw anchors were installed incorrectly. RWE had to replace 15,000 of the 20-cm anchors, a repair job that lasted almost two years.

Another plant, in Koblenz, was only online for two years. RWE had to shut down its reactor in 1988 because there had been irregularities in the approval process.

Now, nuclear energy is nothing but a burden, its waste as problematic for its citizens as the reactors were worrying.

The demolition and disposal of the remnants of the technology are a huge task that will cost a lot of time and money.

At the power plant in Grafenrheinfeld, little will change during the next five years.

The fuel rods will initially stay in the reactor holding basin. Provider E.ON says they will eventually be taken to the adjacent interim storage site on the plant grounds. Only then can the plant actually be dismantled.

The cooling towers will presumably be torn down in 2028. And in 2030 - 15 years after it is shut down - the plant will be completely dismantled.

Operator E.ON estimated the costs of decommissioning and dismantling the plant at €1.2 billion.

The other providers face similar costs.

These break down into two sections. First, when the fuel rods are still in the reactor during decommissioning, the costs reach €70-90 million a year. Safety requirements remain stringent and the plant is essentially kept operational, complete with the entire staff. Decommissioning takes five years, at an estimated cost of more than €300 million.

Only when the fuel rods have left the reactor - and about 98 percent of radioactivity has been disposed of - can providers go ahead with the demolition.

What the actual demolition costs depends on the type and size of the reactor.

Industry estimates place the cost of demolishing a medium-sized reactor with an output of 1,000 megawatts at €700-850 million.

The total cost of demolishing the 17 reactors affected by the German government's phase-out decisions will be €18 billion at least.

There are already a few precedents for demolishing nuclear power plants in Germany; operators know the procedure and costs can be estimated with reasonable reliability.

But the disposal and storage of nuclear waste is a great unknown.

At the end of 2014, there were already 29,000 radioactive fuel rods in interim storage sites and the holding basins of power plants. The Society for Plant and Reactor Safety (GRS) estimates that the waste consists of about 15,000 tons of heavy metal. The problem is that there are currently no final storage sites for highly radioactive waste.

Two years ago, the German government started to search anew for permanent storage sites for the waste.

One manager involved in the search for sites said there was no clarity at all about the number of sites considered or whether salt, rock, clay or granite are considered suitable for the places where the waste will be buried.

Nuclear power companies had estimated the price for storing nuclear waste at Gorleben, the site used so far, at €7.7 billion.

That price tag included construction, operation and shutdown. But these figures are now obsolete. Even the costs of the selection process, estimated at €2 billion as recently as 2013, are already being questioned.

In a recent report by the Federal Environment Ministry, it is "currently unreasonable to conduct a credible, updated cost assessment."

The industry aims to find a site by 2031, but it is unlikely that a final repository will be in operation before 2050, according to an industry manager.

Until then, temporary storage mean year after year, costs are piling up. There are no official figures, but insiders estimate an annual cost of €5 million each for Germany's two large interim repositories in Gorleben and in Ahaus in the western Germany.

There are 12 other storage sites next to nuclear power plants. This would bring the costs of temporary storage to €50 million a year. The costs could easily reach into the billions before a final repository is up and running.

Plus, many tons of low and medium level radioactive waste need to be disposed of. Work is underway to transform a mine into a repository. By the time it is launched, this project will also have eaten up €7.5 billion.

One question keeps coming up in light of the unsolved repository issue. Have nuclear operators set enough money aside?

The federal government has been looking into this question for months. It hired auditors Warth & Klein Grant Thornton to do a stress test of nuclear companies' balance sheets. The results are still under lock and key, but the interim results are alarming.

The experts at Warth & Klein mainly check whether the companies are making calculations with realistic assumptions regarding future interest rate development?

Currently, E.ON, RWE, EnBW and Vattenfall have taken interest rates between 4 and 4.7 percent as a basis.

For the companies, high interest rates are favorable because with them the present value of the provisions turns out to be lower - and so does the burden on the company's balance sheet.

But in light of the low bond yields, a rate of more than 4 percent hardly seems realistic, especially if you compare nuclear provisions with pension provisions.

According to calculations made by the management consulting firm Mercer, the DAX companies recently lowered their actuarial interest for their pension obligations by an average of 1.4 percentage points. At many DAX companies it is now at a value of about 2 percent.

The parallel to the nuclear provisions is obvious.

The full explosiveness of the stress test became evident in mid-September. One extreme scenario was made public which figured in a negative interest rate, meaning the provisions had to be increased to €30 billion; the stock price for both E.ON and RWE dropped 13 percent within two hours.

Even Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel had to intervene. "The current numbers games are no basis for our concrete political negotiations," he said, speaking of "irresponsible speculation."

The debate over the stress tests and the level of the provisions has raised an even more critical question: Are the German nuclear energy companies still capable of managing the nuclear phase-out?

If they have to set aside more money for the wind-downs, that would "kill" E.ON and RWE, according to Ingo Becker, an analyst at Kepler-Cheuvreux.

The companies have been badly stricken by the energy transition, not only because of the loss of the power plants, but the boom in wind and solar energy has detracted from the coal and gas-fired power plants and as a result is destroying the providers' core business - operating larger power plants.

Because the market is flooded with solar and wind energy, wholesale prices fell by more than €20 to €30 per megawatt hour within three years. For a long time, gas-fired power plants have only paid off in times of unusually high demand, coal power plants even less so, and even with nuclear plants the limit of profitability has since been reached.

The stock exchange has long questioned the performance of the shrinking energy giants. RWE shares have forfeited more than half their value this year, and E.ON lost more than 40 percent. RWE is not even worth more than €7 billion overall, and is worried about staying on the DAX. E.ON is just worth €16 billion, while in 2008 the company was worth more than €100 billion.

Now a commission is supposed to work on the crucial question of how, despite the crisis of the energy companies, it will be possible to secure the financing for dismantling the reactors and storing the waste.

There's discussion of how a fund could work. Conceivably, the companies could be required to manage the dismantling of the plants themselves from the money they have set aside. They would then be required to put the portion of the provisions that is meant for the final disposal of waste in a public foundation or in a fund.

It remains unclear who would lead such a commission. Jürgen Trittin, a veteran Green party member and a father of the nuclear phase-out, was named as a potential member, as was the former Environment Minister Klaus Töpfer of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Yet these names have not been confirmed. The economy ministry, which is responsible for naming members of the commission, only says that a list of names has been drawn up, but a decision has not yet been made.

One thing is clear, however: Representatives from the energy companies will not have a seat at the table for the talks about how to secure the financing of the phase-out in the long-term.

E.ON's chief executive Johannes Teyssen has some ideas about the government participating in the nuclear phase-out. "You can't just hide in the bushes," he told Handelsblatt recently in an interview. "This is a task to shoulder together. We should remember that it was a joint activity from the start, and it must also be ended together responsibly."

But is that fair? Haven't the companies earned enough money for a long time from the reactors?

That argument doesn't wash with Michael Kruse, director of the division of Energy & Utilities at Arthur D. Little. "Viewed economically, the nuclear phase-out comes at the wrong time," Mr. Kruse said. "The plants will be turned off at the time at which they would first have started counting."

It's true that the operation of nuclear power plants is inexpensive by comparison. The variable costs per megawatt hour are estimated in the industry at under €15. In comparison: the variable costs of coal-fired energy are at least €25, and for gas at least €45.

But for the cost of constructing the plants is especially high and it takes a long time to cover the investments.

Arthur D. Little calculated investment costs of €250,000 per megawatt of power with the first power plants, and up to €1.45 million for the most modern German reactors. A new plant with an output of 1,000 megawatts would cost almost €1.5 billion. Depending on the level of electricity prices, the amortization could last up to 30 years, according to the consultants.

But after the decision for the phase-out, the plants can only operate on average 32 years. In a sample calculation in which the consultants used variable operating costs of €15 per megawatt hour, a capital cost rate of 3 percent and even added a federal investment of €17 billion, they reach a surprising result with the capital expenditure: The German nuclear industry would first break even in the 2020s.

So even for the companies, it didn't make sense to use nuclear energy. Their balance sheets would have been even worse if the government had not already supported its use by providing high subsidies. Energy executives like to complain about the support for wind and solar energy, but they have been profiting themselves for decades from open and hidden subsidies for nuclear energy.

So what will the nuclear adventure truly cost the Germans?

Swantje Fielder at Green Budget Germany (FÖS), ran calculations that caused a ripple of horror through the nuclear industry. According to her analysis, one kilowatt hour of nuclear power in 2014 did not cost 4 cents, which corresponded approximately to the selling price on the stock exchange that year, but it cost instead between 14 and 37 cents per kilowatt hour. At least if you factor in all of the true costs.

Ms. Fiedler factored in numbers that the industry does not have to take into their calculations, primarily the funding from the government and external costs. In her most recent report, "What electricity really costs," completed for Greenpeace Energy, the green electricity subsidiary of the environmental protection organization, and published in January 2015, she wrote that the nuclear energy industry profited "for decades to a considerable extent from state funding in the form of financial aid, tax incentives and further beneficial framework conditions."

Among other things, Ms. Fiedler included €53 billion that has flowed into nuclear research so far. In her opinion the companies also benefited because they were able to make their provisions tax-free and could use them somewhere else for corporate financing.

She set the figure for this effect at almost €80 billion. In all, according to her calculations, the reductions over the time period from 1970 to 2014 totaled €219 billion.

Even higher numbers are still at play when it comes to external costs, though they are difficult to quantify. "That primarily depends on the fact that here you have to make assumptions about the likelihood and the resulting costs of a nuclear accident with the release of radioactive material," wrote Ms. Fiedler. FÖS estimates a range of between 11 and 34 cents for external costs in its calculations.

From FÖS' point of view, there are external costs because the nuclear plant operators only have to account for very negligible insurance coverage. The German Nuclear Reactor Insurance Association, which pools insurance for the operators, covers liability damage up to €256 million. The nuclear power plant operators have pooled another €2.2 billion. If the damages are higher, the operator of the reactor has unlimited liability related to its assets. But that may not be nearly enough, because no company could absorb financially the recourse for a nuclear catastrophe.

A look at Fukushima makes clear that insurance ought to be considerably higher than it currently is in Germany. The damages from a reactor catastrophe will be assessed in the high hundreds of billions, and the trend is rising. A similar event in Germany could result in even higher damages, because the region around Fukushima is sparsely populated.

According to an academic worst-case scenario, the damages, in prices from 2012, could total €8.5 trillion. FÖS calculates that in that case the liability premium due would be €445 billion - per year. Considering such a trillion-euro bomb, nuclear energy would be unaffordable.

These numbers might not be completely plausible but the doubts about the insurability are clear. So it is no accident that the insurance industry did not issue liability policies for the reactors in Germany, and the operators had to tailor their own solution.

FÖS describes itself as an "independent political think tank," which is financed by a "combination of contract work for ministries, foundations, parties and environmental organizations," as well as by donations and membership dues. From the operators' point of view, the organization is a nuisance, however, because for years it has doggedly focused on the industry's weakest points.

The German Atomic Forum, an interest group for the operators, says it is all right in principle that the FÖS includes the technology subsidies in recent decades in its calculations. But, it says, on other points, work done by FÖS is based on a questionable definition of subsidies and calculations as the institute sees fit.

The people at FÖS are reluctant to accept such criticisms because the methods and sources are documented exactly. Aside from that, they argue that not everything has even been recorded that can actually be factored in. "Our full costs accounting, for example, does not include the future costs for the dismantling of the reactors and the storage of nuclear waste," said Ms. Fiedler.

And according to all calculations about the profitability of nuclear power plants, the nuclear power companies had enough time to prepare for a phase-out and to make provisions.

E.ON alone has raked in a net profit of almost €56 billion since the 2000 nuclear consensus, and RWE had €26 billion in profits. E.ON also distributed a total of €30 billion to the shareholders, while those holding RWE shares got almost €28 billion.

The nuclear power companies tried for far too long to reverse the decision. The energy executives fought for far too long for their core energy, and for far too long ignored the unstoppable boom in wind and solar power, therefore dumping enormous sums. While the competition was investing in wind turbines and solar panels, E.ON and RWE spent tens of billions on coal-fired power plants. At the same time, E.ON wasted a lot of money in Spain, Italy and Brazil, and RWE overspent in the Netherlands.

The energy companies led the good life for decades. Now, when the times are tough though, they are suddenly too weak to count on.

The politicians are stuck in a dilemma, as Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel underlined recently.

At the beginning of September, Mr. Gabriel presented a proposed law memorably entitled "Parents are responsible for their children." It is meant to prevent the energy companies from shirking their responsibilities when they split off their nuclear divisions, as the Swedish company Vatenfall did in 2012 and as E.ON planned.

With his proposed law, Mr. Gabriel forced E.ON's chief executive Mr. Teyssen to reverse his course: the energy company will now keep its nuclear power plants, even though Mr. Teyssen complains that the law would be unconstitutional.

Last week, though, Mr. Gabriel surprisingly took a milder tone. He said at a public discussion of energy policies at the Bonn University Forum: "The energy companies are facing very difficult market conditions, for which they are partly at fault. But they are also the victims of politics."

He said that the nuclear energy companies should not be released from liability when it comes to dismantling the reactors and disposal. "But we must be careful not to endanger four companies because then we wouldn't get the €38 billion at all," Mr. Gabriel said.

The writing is on the wall. The public will have to prepare to foot the bill.
Jürgen Flauger covers the energy market for Handelsblatt, including electricity and gas providers, international market developments and energy policy. Klaus Stratmann is the deputy bureau chief of Handelsblatt in Berlin and covers the energy market. To contact the authors: flauger@handelsblatt.com and stratmann@handelsblatt.com
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Nuclear power in Germany has been a fiasco that has cost the country hundreds of billions of euros to build and now to unwind. In the end, the German public, not the industry, will probably end up footing the bill.

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Evelyne LOEILLET,  sûreté nucléaire, un contexte particulier

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C'est un aveux inquiétant. Les organismes français responsables de la sûreté nucléaire ne disposeraient pas des ressources nécessaires pour remplir l'ensemble de leurs missions, déclare, Pierre-Franck Chevet, le président de l'Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN) dans un entretien publié dans "Le Monde".

Trente ans après la catastrophe de Tchernobyl en 1986, Pierre-Franck Chevet souligne qu' " un accident majeur, comme ceux de Tchernobyl ou de Fukushima, ne peut être exclu nulle part dans le monde, y compris en Europe, même si nous faisons tout pour le prévenir. " Quelques heures auparavant, François Hollande a affirmé, lors de la quatrième conférence environnementale, qu'EDF devrait impérativement proposer la fermeture de " certaines centrales " dès 2018.

150 installations de près de 40 ans

Mais le président de l'ASN s'inquiète surtout d'un contexte " particulièrement préoccupant " pour la sûreté nucléaire en France, du fait des " graves difficultés économiques, financières ou budgétaires des acteurs industriels du nucléaire ", qui surviennent alors que 150 installations (réacteurs d'EDF, sites d'Areva mais aussi réacteurs de recherche du Commissariat à l'énergie atomique, CEA) ont été mis en service il y a près de quarante ans.

" La question est de savoir, en particulier pour les réacteurs, s'ils peuvent être prolongés, avec des normes de sûreté rehaussées ", ce qui nécessitera non seulement " un très gros travail d'analyse " préalable mais aussi " un contrôle renforcé de l'ASN ", observe Pierre-Franck Chevet. Sauf que l'ASN et l'Institut de radioprotection et de sûreté nucléaire (ISRN) " n'ont actuellement pas les ressources nécessaires pour assurer pleinement leurs missions de contrôle ".

" Cette situation n'est pas satisfaisante "

Faute d'avoir obtenu les 150 postes supplémentaires réclamés au gouvernement, ce qui représente selon le président de l'ASN un budget d'environ 20 millions d'euros, les deux organismes sont " contraints d'arbitrer entre (leurs) priorités, en privilégiant les installations en activité par rapport à celles en construction. " " Cette situation n'est pas satisfaisante ", déclare-t-il.

D'autant plus qu'un contrôle renforcé sera nécessaire pour suivre les travaux visant à éventuellement prolonger la durée de vie de certaines installations, qui vont demander de lourds investissements à une filière nucléaire encore en cours de réorganisation.

" Pour l'instant, il n'y a pas de signaux alarmants qui indiqueraient que la sûreté se dégrade en France. Mais la situation peut dériver dans les années à venir. Il nous faut rester extrêmement vigilants ", note le président de l'ASN.

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Sûreté nucléaire : un contexte " particulièrement préoccupant ", selon l'ASN

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C'est un aveux inquiétant. Les organismes français responsables de la sûreté nucléaire ne disposeraient pas des ressources nécessaires pour remplir l'ensemble de leurs missions, déclare, Pierre-Franck Chevet, le président de l'Autorité de sûreté nucléaire (ASN) dans un entretien publié dans "Le Monde".

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Latest newsRegion of Leiden to receive residual heat from the port of Rotterdam		 12 april 2016				 Reducing natural gas consumption and optimizing the use of residual heat from the port of Rotterdam - these are the topics of recent agreements between six parties in the region of Leiden. Representatives of Nuon, Heineken Nederland, the municipalities of Rotterdam and Leiden, the Rotterdam Heat Distribution Company and the province of South Holland signed a declaration of ambition to enhance the sustainability of heat distribution in the region of Leiden.In the declaration of ambition, these six parties laid down agreements on the installation of a heat transfer pipeline to meet the demand for heating and hot tap water in Leiden using industrial residual heat from the Rotterdam port area. The piping system is part of the Heat Loop, a large-scale heating network in the province of South Holland.Heat LoopThe Heat Loop is a network of heat pipes connecting greenhouses, industrial buildings and residential consumers in South Holland. It is one of the instruments leveraged to promote a sustainable, reliable and affordable heat supply. The intention is to start supplying heat from the port of Rotterdam to the district heating network in Leiden as from 2020. The efficient use of industrial residual heat will reduce future natural gas consumption, which will result in a dramatic reduction of CO2 emissions.Residential homes as well as commercial buildingsBesides 7,800 households and 200 companies in the Leiden region, residual heat from Rotterdam will also be supplied to the Heineken brewery in Zoeterwoude. In addition, other municipalities and businesses along the pipe alignment will also be able to connect to the heating network in the future, such as greenhouse companies in the Westland region and offices at the Bio Science Park in Leiden. Furthermore, the system offers opportunities to connect other renewable heat sources to the heating network as well, such as geothermal energy and biomass.

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Latest newsRegion of Leiden to receive residual heat from the port of Rotterdam		 12 april 2016				 Reducing natural gas consumption and optimizing the use of residual heat from the port of Rotterdam - these are the topics of recent agreements between six parties in the region of Leiden. Representatives of Nuon, Heineken Nederland, the municipalities of Rotterdam and Leiden, the Rotterdam Heat Distribution Company and the province of South Holland signed a declaration of ambition to enhance the sustainability of heat distribution in the region of Leiden.In the declaration of ambition, these six parties laid down agreements on the installation of a heat transfer pipeline to meet the demand for heating and hot tap water in Leiden using industrial residual heat from the Rotterdam port area. The piping system is part of the Heat Loop, a large-scale heating network in the province of South Holland.Heat LoopThe Heat Loop is a network of heat pipes connecting greenhouses, industrial buildings and residential consumers in South Holland. It is one of the instruments leveraged to promote a sustainable, reliable and affordable heat supply. The intention is to start supplying heat from the port of Rotterdam to the district heating network in Leiden as from 2020. The efficient use of industrial residual heat will reduce future natural gas consumption, which will result in a dramatic reduction of CO2 emissions.Residential homes as well as commercial buildingsBesides 7,800 households and 200 companies in the Leiden region, residual heat from Rotterdam will also be supplied to the Heineken brewery in Zoeterwoude. In addition, other municipalities and businesses along the pipe alignment will also be able to connect to the heating network in the future, such as greenhouse companies in the Westland region and offices at the Bio Science Park in Leiden. Furthermore, the system offers opportunities to connect other renewable heat sources to the heating network as well, such as geothermal energy and biomass.

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                 French energy transition bill adopted
            
                23 July 2015
            
                
	France's National Assembly yesterday gave final approval of 
the country's energy transition bill. Under the legislation, France's 
reliance on nuclear energy will be reduced to 50% of power generation by
 2025.






Energy minister Royal speaks to the National 
Assembly following adoption of the energy transition bill (Image: French
 energy ministry)



French president Francois Hollande's 2012 election pledge was to 
limit nuclear's share of French generation at 50% by 2025, and the 
closure of France's oldest nuclear power plant, Fessenheim, by the end 
of 2016. In June last year, following a national energy debate, his 
government announced that the country's nuclear generating capacity 
would be capped at the current level of 63.2 GWe. It will also be 
limited to 50% of France's total output by 2025. Nuclear currently 
accounts for almost 75% of the country's electricity production, making 
closures of power reactors appear inevitable.
Debate about France's Energy Transition for Green Growth bill began 
in the lower house of parliament - the National Assembly - last October,
 with deputies agreeing on the overall objectives of the bill. These 
include: a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a 75% 
reduction by 2050, compared with 1990 levels; halving overall energy 
consumption by 2050 compared with 2012; increasing renewable energy's 
share of final energy consumption to 32%; and cutting the share of 
nuclear in electricity generation to 50% by 2025.
Yesterday, following 150 hours of parliamentary debate - during which
 5034 amendments were discussed in open session and 970 amendments were 
passed - the National Assembly adopted the legislation.
While not calling for the closure of any currently operating power 
reactors, the new policy means that EDF would have to close older 
reactors in order to bring new ones online. The utility is constructing 
an EPR unit at Flamanville which is currently expected to start up in 
2017. EDF would therefore be forced to shut one of its reactors - most 
likely Fessenheim - by that time in order to begin operating the 
Flamanville unit.
The upper house of parliament - the Senate - has pushed for nuclear 
generating capacity to be capped at 64.85 GWe, which would have enabled 
Fessenheim to continue operating after the Flamanville EPR enters 
service. It had also called for no particular timeframe in which the 50%
 nuclear share should be achieved. However, both these were rejected.
The approved bill also sets long-term targets for France's carbon 
tax. Currently standing at €14.50 ($15.90) per tonne, this tax will 
increase to €22 ($24) in 2016, then to €56 ($62) in 2020, rising to €100
 ($110) in 2030.
Addressing the National Assembly following the vote, energy minister 
Ségolène Royal said she "salutes the remarkable work done by the 
national representation and the quality of democratic debate in which, 
on every bench, the examination of this text gave rise."
She described the energy transition bill as "an ambitious and 
mobilizing law which will be the most advanced and complete in Europe 
(and indeed the world)."
Researched and writtenby World Nuclear News

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                 French energy transition bill adopted
            
                23 July 2015
            
                
	France's National Assembly yesterday gave final approval of 
the country's energy transition bill. Under the legislation, France's 
reliance on nuclear energy will be reduced to 50% of power generation by
 2025.






Energy minister Royal speaks to the National 
Assembly following adoption of the energy transition bill (Image: French
 energy ministry)



French president Francois Hollande's 2012 election pledge was to 
limit nuclear's share of French generation at 50% by 2025, and the 
closure of France's oldest nuclear power plant, Fessenheim, by the end 
of 2016. In June last year, following a national energy debate, his 
government announced that the country's nuclear generating capacity 
would be capped at the current level of 63.2 GWe. It will also be 
limited to 50% of France's total output by 2025. Nuclear currently 
accounts for almost 75% of the country's electricity production, making 
closures of power reactors appear inevitable.
Debate about France's Energy Transition for Green Growth bill began 
in the lower house of parliament - the National Assembly - last October,
 with deputies agreeing on the overall objectives of the bill. These 
include: a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 and a 75% 
reduction by 2050, compared with 1990 levels; halving overall energy 
consumption by 2050 compared with 2012; increasing renewable energy's 
share of final energy consumption to 32%; and cutting the share of 
nuclear in electricity generation to 50% by 2025.
Yesterday, following 150 hours of parliamentary debate - during which
 5034 amendments were discussed in open session and 970 amendments were 
passed - the National Assembly adopted the legislation.
While not calling for the closure of any currently operating power 
reactors, the new policy means that EDF would have to close older 
reactors in order to bring new ones online. The utility is constructing 
an EPR unit at Flamanville which is currently expected to start up in 
2017. EDF would therefore be forced to shut one of its reactors - most 
likely Fessenheim - by that time in order to begin operating the 
Flamanville unit.
The upper house of parliament - the Senate - has pushed for nuclear 
generating capacity to be capped at 64.85 GWe, which would have enabled 
Fessenheim to continue operating after the Flamanville EPR enters 
service. It had also called for no particular timeframe in which the 50%
 nuclear share should be achieved. However, both these were rejected.
The approved bill also sets long-term targets for France's carbon 
tax. Currently standing at €14.50 ($15.90) per tonne, this tax will 
increase to €22 ($24) in 2016, then to €56 ($62) in 2020, rising to €100
 ($110) in 2030.
Addressing the National Assembly following the vote, energy minister 
Ségolène Royal said she "salutes the remarkable work done by the 
national representation and the quality of democratic debate in which, 
on every bench, the examination of this text gave rise."
She described the energy transition bill as "an ambitious and 
mobilizing law which will be the most advanced and complete in Europe 
(and indeed the world)."
Researched and writtenby World Nuclear News

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Let's not invest in Fossils

# data[].attributes.body
SHELL regrets investments in shaleoil; wasted $ 2,1 billion

# data[].attributes.body
Banks still in fossils !!

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First, they found out they're getting giant wind turbines even though they didn't want them.

Now, residents of a Southwestern Ontario township are learning the support of six Ontario First Nations communities - more than 1,000 kilometres away, some not even in the same time zone - helped give a Chicago-based energy giant an edge in its winning bid to build the unwanted wind farm.

One of the native communities is along Hudson Bay, the others in the province's northwest near the Manitoba border.

It's another sign that for all the changes Ontario has made to ensure the controversial projects aren't imposed on areas that don't want them, as they have been in parts of Southwestern Ontario, problems - and surprises - persist.

It's ludicrous for them to do something like that

"It's ludicrous for them to do something like that," said Jamie Littlejohn, a spokesperson for Dutton/Dunwich Opponents of Wind Turbines.

Littlejohn heads a citizens' group opposed to the project in Dutton-Dunwich Township, southwest of London.
Progressive Conservative MPP Jeff Yurek said he was "shocked" that communities so far away could influence an energy project in his riding, and he wants the ruling Liberals to shelve the wind farm.

"I don't think it's fair to residents of the municipality - it's a huge loophole the government needs to close," said the Elgin-Middlesex-London MPP.

Residents in Dutton-Dunwich, in rural Elgin County, are vehemently opposed to Invenergy LLC's project.

Under Ontario's new bidding system for wind-energy contracts, participation by a First Nation gives companies an extra edge.

Invenergy, which won one of the coveted contracts for its proposed Strong Breeze Wind Farm in Dutton-Dunwich, found its First Nation support - and investment - in Ontario's northernmost community and remote reserves near the Manitoba boundary.

One of the First Nations communities participating in the project, McDowell Lake, has only 59 members.

Last year Dutton-Dunwich was the first municipality to hold a vote on wind farm development, rejecting it by 84 per cent.

Ontario's Independent Electricity Operator (IESO), which awarded the renewable energy contracts, released details Tuesday of what projects had the backing of local landowners, municipal councils and First Nations communities.

Three of the 16 contracts were awarded to companies despite no backing from landowners, municipalities and First Nations.

Eight contracts went to companies with the backing of all groups.

While community support helped companies, price and availability of connection points to the power grid were major considerations, the IESO said.

Under its old system for awarding wind farm contracts, Ontario's Liberal government was heavily criticized for signing long-term deals that often paid companies far more than consumers pay for the electricity, leaving the public to subsidize the difference.

In the case of the Strong Breeze Wind Farm, Invenergy was awarded points for gaining the support of 75 per cent of the leaseholders and landowners next to the project and the First Nations of Fort Severn, Poplar Hill, McDowell Lake, North Spirit Lake, Keewaywin and Deer Lake.

The small native communities share some services - including public works, education and health care - as the six members of the Keewaytinook Okimakinak, or Northern Chiefs Council.

James Murphy, vice president of business development for Invenergy, said the First Nations had joined together to form the NCC Development Corp.

I don't think it's fair to residents of the municipality - it's a huge loophole the government needs to close

NCC has a 10-per-cent interest in both the Strong Breeze Wind Project and the Lake Simcoe Regional Airport Solar project.

"Invenergy is proud to have an Ontario-wide partnership with the NCC for all of our projects that were submitted in to the large renewable procurement," Murphy said in an e-mail.

Invenergy had submitted bids for nine projects, winning two.

Murphy said the First Nations communities will invest the revenue generated from the projects into education, health care and environmental projects in their northern communities.

"These are communities that are most susceptible to the risk of climate change and face tremendous local challenges. We think they are excellent partners and we commend them for their leadership, vision and action," he said.

Officials at the First Nations couldn't be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.

An IESO spokesperson said the First Nations had to have at least a 10-per-cent financial stake in the renewable energy project in order for it to qualify for the extra points.

Both Littlejohn and Dutton-Dunwich Mayor Cameron McWilliam were shocked that First Nations that far away were part of the bid to build the wind farm.

"It is an indication of how flawed the system is, when they can do that and they ignore our own three bands locally," Littlejohn said.

The citizens group contacted the area First Nations communities and were told they weren't taking part in the Strong Breeze project, Littlejohn said.

McWilliam said he doesn't believe it's fair that wind farm companies can draw their support from First Nations that are not in the area.

Yurek said the case underlines how the Liberals have ignored rural Ontario for more than a decade in decisions about where to locate such projects.

"The project should be held."
London Free Press, with files from Dan Brown and Debora Van Brenk

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Ontario township learns support of six First Nations helped energy giant win bid to build unwanted wind farm

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First, they found out they're getting giant wind turbines even though they didn't want them. Now, residents of a Southwestern Ontario township are learning the support of six Ontario First Nations communities - more than 1,000 kilometres away, some not even in the same time zone - helped give a Chicago-based energy giant an edge in its winning bid to build the unwanted wind farm.

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One of the big steps to make is to change to all electric as the number one power cource.

14 april 2016 – Vandaag sluit een groot aantal organisaties de Green Deal Elektrisch Vervoer 2016-2020 met de overheid. Namens de overheid ondertekent minister Henk Kamp de Green Deal, Medy van der Laan namens Energie-Nederland. Ondertekening betekent een voortzetting van de eerder afgesloten Green Deal met vijf jaar onder leiding van het Formule E-Team (FET). De nieuwe Green Deal elektrisch rijden zet vooral in op groene groei.

Energie-Nederland zet zich in voor samenwerking met de netbeheerders en gemeenten; Eneco, Engie Services (voorheen Cofely) en Nuon zijn de grootste beheerders en exploitanten van laad-infrastructuur in de grote gemeenten. Ook zet Energie-Nederland zich samen in met Netbeheer Nederland voor het ontwikkelen van een flexibiliteitsmarkt, waar binnen de product- en dienstlening rond elektrisch rijden zich verder kan ontwikkelen.

Achttien partijen
Nederland behoort tot de koplopers op het gebied van elektrische mobiliteit en onderschrijft met deze Green Deal haar positie te behouden. Achttien partijen waaronder overheden, marktpartijen en maatschappelijke organisaties zetten zich in voor het stimuleren van elektrisch rijden en groene groei.

Living Labs
Naast de bekende voordelen omtrent milieu en leefbaarheid biedt elektrisch rijden kansen voor het Nederlandse bedrijfsleven. Zo zet de nieuwe werkgroep Internationalsering in op internationale kennisdeling en vinden er diverse innovatieve Living Labs plaats om ontwikkelingen in de sector te versnellen.

Formule E-Team
Ook wordt in deze coalitie de integratie van lichte elektrische voertuigen gestimuleerd en gaan de deelnemende partijen de elektrische auto voor de particuliere rijder aantrekkelijk maken. Daarbij hoort ook het uitbreiden van de (slimme) laadinfrastructuur. Kijk voor meer informatie over elektrisch rijden en het Formule E-Team op nederlandelektrisch.nl.

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http://www.rvo.nl/actueel/evenementen/kick-energiedialoog-2050

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BayWa r.e. CLENS - Energiehandel und Flexibilitätsmanagement: Power-to-hydrogen

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Today, we are already trying to make the use of power-to-hydrogen technology as economical as possible. In addition to low system expenses, the key to success is currently, of course, cheap electricity.

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Australia's Answer to Climate Change - World's Biggest Coal Mine

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BayWa r.e. CLENS - Energiehandel und Flexibilitätsmanagement: Power-to-hydrogen

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Today, we are already trying to make the use of power-to-hydrogen technology as economical as possible. In addition to low system expenses, the key to success is currently, of course, cheap electricity.

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Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Neno District
Project Visit

 

Earlier this week Mavuto (Southern Region Development Officer) jolted
and bumped his 4x4 along the hilly and dusty road to Neno District with me
in the passenger seat. It was going to be the first time that Mavuto
had visited Chididi Community Based Organisation (CBO) since the
installation of a series of Solar Photovoltaic systems in the community funded
through the CEDP. 



 

Long and winding
road to Neno!

 

The installations included 4 solar PV systems in school teacher's
houses, solar PV in 1 school block and head teacher's office and finally 1
solar PV installation in the office of the CBO. It was so exciting to be able
to see one of the projects that I have been reading about on paper for so long!﻿

 



 

Installations on 2
of the 4 teacher's houses in Neno

 



 

Installation on
the Head teacher's office

 

All of the systems have only been installed for a matter of weeks so it
is quite early to be discussing impacts, however, when I asked the head
teacher, Maxwell, what difference it had made to him having a light in his
office, he said that it had made a huge impact on him being able to work late
into the night with good lighting.

 

Moses Gadama from the Energy Committee also said that “we are in the light, we no longer have to travel long distances to
charge phones or to get our hair cut, this can now be done in our community
thanks to the electricity from the solar, these new business opportunities are
exciting.”

﻿

 



 

Chididi CBO well
lit by the solar PV installation in the school block

 



 

 

The head teacher,
Maxwell, with his wife in their newly lit home. ﻿


What I found particularly interesting during this visit was the attitude of the
community. They were obviously all very interested to hear what I had to say in
terms of future "donations" to the community. Whilst Mavuto has
repeatedly made it clear to the community that these systems will not be
supported by further donations but instead by revenue generating ideas that
Mavuto has helped them to establish, since I was visiting the UK the community
thought they had better double check "straight from the horses mouth"
on any further funding! 

Mavuto further reinforced that no further funding was available at this time
and that the community should instead look to the revenue generating ideas that
Mavuto is supporting them to establish. In this community these ideas include
mobile phone charging and a barber shop, both of which will utilise electricity
from the newly installed solar PV systems. Profits from these enterprises will
go into a maintenance fund that is managed by the community Energy Committee to
fund the ongoing costs of all of the systems in the community. It is hoped that
any additional funds can be used to set up further revenue generating
activities in the community - we're all very excited to see how this will
develop! 

 

# data[].attributes.subject
Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Neno District
Project Visit

 

Earlier this week Mavuto (Southern Region Development Officer) jolted
and bumped his 4x4 along the hilly and dusty road to Neno District with me
in the passenger seat. It was going to be the first time that Mavuto
had visited Chididi Community Based Organisation (CBO) since the
installation of a series of Solar Photovoltaic systems in the community funded
through the CEDP. 



 

Long and winding
road to Neno!

 

The installations included 4 solar PV systems in school teacher's
houses, solar PV in 1 school block and head teacher's office and finally 1
solar PV installation in the office of the CBO. It was so exciting to be able
to see one of the projects that I have been reading about on paper for so long!﻿

 



 

Installations on 2
of the 4 teacher's houses in Neno

 



 

Installation on
the Head teacher's office

 

All of the systems have only been installed for a matter of weeks so it
is quite early to be discussing impacts, however, when I asked the head
teacher, Maxwell, what difference it had made to him having a light in his
office, he said that it had made a huge impact on him being able to work late
into the night with good lighting.

 

Moses Gadama from the Energy Committee also said that “we are in the light, we no longer have to travel long distances to
charge phones or to get our hair cut, this can now be done in our community
thanks to the electricity from the solar, these new business opportunities are
exciting.”

﻿

 



 

Chididi CBO well
lit by the solar PV installation in the school block

 



 

 

The head teacher,
Maxwell, with his wife in their newly lit home. ﻿


What I found particularly interesting during this visit was the attitude of the
community. They were obviously all very interested to hear what I had to say in
terms of future "donations" to the community. Whilst Mavuto has
repeatedly made it clear to the community that these systems will not be
supported by further donations but instead by revenue generating ideas that
Mavuto has helped them to establish, since I was visiting the UK the community
thought they had better double check "straight from the horses mouth"
on any further funding! 

Mavuto further reinforced that no further funding was available at this time
and that the community should instead look to the revenue generating ideas that
Mavuto is supporting them to establish. In this community these ideas include
mobile phone charging and a barber shop, both of which will utilise electricity
from the newly installed solar PV systems. Profits from these enterprises will
go into a maintenance fund that is managed by the community Energy Committee to
fund the ongoing costs of all of the systems in the community. It is hoped that
any additional funds can be used to set up further revenue generating
activities in the community - we're all very excited to see how this will
develop! 

 

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Malawi Energy blog by Strathclyde University

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Clean Energy Canada 2015 - Tracking the Energy Revolution | shared by: Joyleene Yu

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Here in Mexico, everything is almost exactly the same talking about producing energy, unfortunately we have not developed our  renewable energy production techniques as much as other countries. I only hope some day we won't need the oil anymore.

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This is big news in my hometown. A coal powered plant closes instead of converting to natural gas. 

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This is big news in my hometown. A coal powered plant closes instead of converting to natural gas. 

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Guus Löhlefink Energy-chart of the Netherlands

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Guus Löhlefink Energy-chart of the Netherlands

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http://www.compendiumvoordeleefomgeving.nl/indicatoren/nl0201-Energiebalans-Nederland-%28stroomdiagram%29.html?i=6-40   (Sorry, labels in Dutch)

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Guus Löhlefink,                      Power to Hydrogen

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Guus Löhlefink,                      Power to Hydrogen

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See attached link for the full article: http://www.clens.eu/en/energiewende/power-to-hydrogen/

Our pilot project: The hydrogen filling station in Hamburg

Together with a major international energy company, CLENS has developed the flexible operation of a hydrogen filling station in Hamburg. Here, the functionality of power-to-hydrogen is clearly visible: in times in which very cheap or surplus electricity is available, an electrolyser converts this power into hydrogen, using the electricity to split water into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2). This process — called electrolysis — enables a temporal decoupling of power generation from the time of consumption, as gases can be stored much more easily than electricity. The stored hydrogen can then be used as fuel for fuel cell automobiles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXt3EcbYEKY

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(Updated May 2018)

Ukraine is heavily dependent on nuclear energy - it has 15 reactors generating about half of its electricity.

Ukraine receives most of its nuclear services and nuclear fuel from Russia, but is reducing this dependence by buying fuel from Westinghouse.

In 2004 Ukraine commissioned two large new reactors. The government plans to maintain nuclear share in electricity production to 2030, which will involve substantial new build.

The government is looking to the West for both technology and investment in its nuclear plants.

A large share of primary energy supply in Ukraine comes from the country's uranium and substantial coal resources. The remainder is oil and gas, mostly imported from Russia, but increasingly from the EU*. In 1991, due to breakdown of the Soviet Union, the country's economy collapsed and its electricity consumption declined dramatically from 296 TWh in 1990 to 170 TWh in 2000, all the decrease being from coal and gas plants. In December 2005 Ukraine and the EU signed an energy cooperation agreement which links the country more strongly to western Europe in respect to both nuclear energy and electricity supply. Today Ukraine is developing shale gas deposits and hoping to export this to western Europe by 2020 through the established pipeline infrastructure crossing its territory from the east.
* In 2011-13, up to 92% of gas and 40% of oil came from Russia. In 2015, 63% of imported gas was from the EU, and Russia's share of oil imports was down to 20%.
Total electricity production in 2015 amounted to 164 TWh, with 1 TWh net exports to Europe. In 2015, 88 TWh (54%) was from nuclear, 56 TWh (34%) from coal, 10 TWh from gas, and 7 TWh from hydro. Electricity consumption was 124 TWh after transmission losses of 17 TWh due to an old grid. Peak demand is about 28 GWe. Total capacity is about 52 GWe, including 22 GWe coal-fired, 13.8 GWe nuclear, 5 GWe gas and 4.8 GWe hydro. Much of the coal-fired plant is old and with unconstrained emissions, and nearly half of it is due to close down. A new 750 kV link from Rovno to Kiev was commissioned in December 2015, and allowed Rovno and Khmelnitski plants to operate at full power (4,840 MWe gross) for the first time.

In mid-2012 the Ukraine energy strategy to 2030 was updated, and 5000 to 7000 MWe of new nuclear capacity was proposed by 2030, costing some $25 billion. A major increase in electricity demand to 307 TWh per year by 2020 and 420 TWh by 2030 is envisaged, and government policy was to continue supplying half of this from nuclear power. This would have required 29.5 GWe of nuclear capacity in 2030, up from 13.8 GWe (13.1 GWe net) now. The new government formed in 2014 has confirmed these targets, and said that Ukraine aimed to integrate with the European power grid and gas network to make the country part of the European energy market by 2017. A further update of energy strategy in August 2017 put the nuclear share of electricity at about 50% to 2035, with hydro 13% and other renewables 25%.

Nuclear generation is the responsibility of State Enterprise National Nuclear Energy Generating Company Energoatom (NNEGC Energoatom), established in October 1996.

In September 2014 the new government introduced a bill to parliament that allowed the sale of 40% of Energoatom to a foreign investor. This followed an announcement that the prime minister expected agreements for new nuclear reactor construction to be signed by the end of the year. However, refurbishment of older plants to extend operating lifetimes and bring them into conformity with EU standards seemed more probable, both economically and regarding timescale.

In November 2015 Energoatom signed an agreement with Areva "for safety upgrades of existing and future nuclear power plants in Ukraine, lifetime extension and performance optimization." It said that its "very strong modernization and reconstruction program .... is being funded by the European Community, Euratom and the EBRD" as part of a new phase in the development of EU-Ukraine contractual relations, aiming at political association and economic integration. A 2012 agreement for Rosatom to complete two Russian reactors had been revoked in September 2015.

In September 2017, Energoatom signed a contract with Westinghouse to supply monitoring instrumentation systems to the Zaporozhe plant as part of the ongoing Complex Consolidated Safety Upgrade Program of nuclear power plants in Ukraine.

Ukraine-EU 'energy bridge'

In March 2015 an agreement was signed by Ukraine's Ukrenergo distribution company and Polenergia, a Polish counterpart, to export electricity as part of the Ukraine-European Union 'energy bridge', and related to the Baltic Energy Market Interconnection Plan. This will enable greater use of Ukraine's nuclear capacity and is to generate funds to pay for increasing that capacity at Khmelnitski by completing units 3&4. A 750 kV, 2000 MW transmission connection from Khmelnistki 2 to Rzeszow in Poland is planned, taking in also Ukraine's Burshtyn coal-fired plant in the far west of the country, with Khmelnistki 2 then being disconnected from the Ukraine grid and synchronized with the EU grid, as Burshtyn already is*. Albertirsa in Hungary is also to be linked. In June 2015 the government approved the project, and in March 2017 Energoatom said that it would start to function in 2019 with 1550 MWe as the "first step on the way to fully integrated strategic synchronisation of the Ukrainian and European energy systems." It will be completed by 2025, with 2550 MWe.
* The 2300 MWe Burshtyn power station was disconnected from the national grid in 2002 to form the Burshtyn Energy Island, synchronized with the EU grid - ENTSO-E - and with a 400 kV connection to Hungary, Slovakia and Romania and a HVDC link proposed. Replacement of one-third of its old capacity with a new supercritical unit is proposed. However, Burshtyn partly relies on coal from eastern Ukraine mines now controlled by pro-Russian rebels. In 2017, 550 MWe effective capacity was reported.
In August 2016 Energoatom signed an agreement with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), one objective of which is to cooperate in the Ukraine-EU 'energy bridge' project, as well as completing Khmelnitski 3&4.

A 750 kV transmission link from Zaporozhe to the Kherson region southwest of it is expected to be commissioned late in 2017, enabling an extra 700 MWe output from Zaporozhe (to full capacity) and reducing dependence on coal from the Donetsk region.

Nuclear industry development

Nuclear energy development started in 1970 with construction of the Chernobyl power plant, the first unit being commissioned in 1977. Unit 4 came online in 1983 and was destroyed in 1986.

Though the Ukrainian nuclear industry was closely involved with Russia for many years, it remained relatively stable during the changes that occurred when the country became independent of the former Soviet Union. In fact, during that period and since, there have been continuing improvements in the operational safety and output levels of Ukraine's nuclear reactors.

Ukraine's 15 nuclear power units at four nuclear power plants are operated by NNEGC Energoatom, the country's nuclear power utility. Following the addition of two new VVER-1000 reactors in 2005, capacity increased to 13,107 which was 26.3% of the country's total installed capacity. Energoatom expects nuclear to retain its contribution of 50-52% of Ukraine's electricity in 2020.

All are Russian VVER types, two being upgraded 440 MWe V-312 models and the rest the larger 1000 MWe units - two early models and the rest V-320s.

Power reactors have operated in Ukraine since 1977, and over 300 reactor years of operating experience have been accumulated. Load factors have increased steadily and reached 81.4% in 2004. A decrease of the country's load factor after 2005 is related to restrictions imposed by the national electricity grid. Early in 2010 it was at 73%. "Operational disturbances" at nuclear plants dropped from 71 in 1999 to 21 in 2009.

At the end of 1995 Zaporozhe unit 6 was connected to the grid making Zaporozhe the largest nuclear power station in Europe, with a net capacity of 5718 MWe. (The second largest station operating is Gravelines, near Dunkerque in France, with a net capacity of 5460 MWe.)

In August and October 2004 Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4 respectively were connected to the grid, bringing their long and interrupted construction to an end and adding 1900 MWe to replace that lost by closure of Chernobyl 1&3 in 1996 and 2000 respectively. They were completed by Energoatom using a consortium of Framatome ANP and Atomstroyexport. See fuller account of K2-R4 in Appendix below.

In 1990 construction of three reactors (units 2-4) at Khmelnitski had been halted, though the site infrastructure for all four units was largely complete. Unit 3 was (and is) 75% complete, unit 4: 28% complete. These have been maintained to some extent since. See section on Building further nuclear power capacity below.

Other, single VVER-1000 reactors were under construction at Chyhyryn, Odessa, Kharkiv and in Crimea at Shcholkine, but work on all ceased in 1989-90.

In June 2014 the energy ministry said that a new concept for the development of nuclear power would include the technical and financial aspects of the construction of new power units, as well as advancing plans for a fuel fabrication plant and a waste repository. In July the cabinet reviewed the situation, affirmed the priority of nuclear power, and said that a western-design reactor might be built at South Ukraine, which had access from the sea for large equipment delivery.
Ukraine power reactors operating
Life extension and upgrades

Original design lifetime of the Russian reactors was 30 years. Energoatom initially planned to extend the lifetimes of Rovno 1&2 and South Ukraine 1 by 15 years and final checking of the pressure vessels (for embrittlement) and the internals of all three units was in 2008-9. In mid-2012 Energoatom announced that the 11 oldest 1000 MWe reactors were to have 20-year life extensions by 2030.

A 20-year extension of the operating licences for Rovno 1&2 was granted by the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRI or SNRC) in December 2010. Energoatom said that more than US$ 300 million had been invested in upgrading the two units since 2004, in collaboration with the IAEA. In 2006 Rovno was the first Russian-designed plant to host an IAEA OSART mission to review safety. Then in 2016 it hosted the first IAEA cross-regional joint-centre peer review, incorporating post-Fukushima aspects. Work has been underway at Rovno 3 to prepare for a licence extension application to SNRI at the end of 2016, following a long maintenance outage during the year.

In February 2013 the SNRI said that South Ukraine 1 could have life extension after a major upgrade during 2013, and in October it approved plans for a ten-year extension to 2023. In May 2015 South Ukraine 2 was shut for major upgrading over seven months costing $114 million to enable a ten-year life extension, which was confirmed by SNRI in December. In January 2016 the government approved a $38 million project over three years to increase the cooling water supply to the South Ukraine plant so as to achieve up to a 2.5 TWh increase in annual output.
Zaporozhe (Image: Energoatom)
In May 2015 Energoatom applied for a 15-year licence extension for Zaporozhe 1, and in September 2016 the licence was extended to December 2025 after an extended outage for upgrading. With a similar upgrade underway, in August 2016 Zaporozhe 2 was cleared for operation to 2026, and the licence was extended in October. Zaporozhe 3 shut down in February 2017 for a similar upgrade and ten-year licence extension, and will come back online when a new transmission link is commissioned late in 2017.

In March 2013 the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) announced a €300 million loan for comprehensive reactor safety upgrading, matching €300 million from Euratom. The €1.4 billion project will include up to 87 safety measures addressing design safety issues comprising the replacement of equipment in safety relevant systems, improvements of instrumentation and control for safety relevant systems and the introduction of organisational improvements for accident management. The programme began in 2011 and was to be completed by the end of 2017, but is delayed three years to 2020 due to delays in the loans following the 2014 change in government.

The life extension programme was challenged under the UN Convention on Environmental Impact Assessment in a Transboundary Context - informally known as the Espoo Convention - which has been ratified by 44 countries and the EU. The convention comes under the Economic Commission for Europe and the challenge was on the basis of inadequate environmental assessment.

In October 2015 Energoatom signed agreements with Tractabel Engineering from Belgium for safety upgrades and capacity uprates of reactors. Tractabel has offered technical and engineering assistance with completing Khmelnitski 3&4. In March 2016 Energoatom announced an agreement between Turboatom and Westinghouse to uprate the capacity of 13 VVER-1000 turbine generator sets by up to 10%.

In 2016 the government set an end-of-year target date for Energoatom to introduce load-following capability in all its VVER reactors, though the company said it would take at least two years to achieve this. Trials have been in the range 100% to 75% of power.

In October 2016 Energoatom signed an agreement with GE Power Sp. Zo. - formerly Alstom's Polish subsidiary - to upgrade nuclear power plant turbine hall equipment and to expand cooperation in the long-term service of such equipment.

Ukraine's best-known nuclear power plant was Chernobyl (Chornobyl in Ukrainian). This had the only RBMK type reactors in the country. Unit 4 was destroyed in the 1986 accident, unit 2 was shut down after a turbine hall fire in 1991, unit 1 was closed in 1997 and unit 3 closed at the end of 2000 due to international pressure.

Building further nuclear power capacity

Interruptions in natural gas supply from Russia in January 2006 sharply focused attention on the need for greater energy security and the role of nuclear power in achieving this. A nuclear power strategy involving building and commissioning 11 new reactors with total capacity of 16.5 GWe (and 9 replacement units totaling 10.5 GWe) to more than double nuclear capacity by 2030 was approved by the government in 2006 to enhance Ukraine's energy independence. See Table below.

Ukraine's 2006 strategy envisaged completing Khmelnitski 3&4,which were respectively 75% and 28% complete when work stopped in 1990.

Initially it was expected that an international tender would open up the choice of technology and in March 2008 Areva, Westinghouse and South Korean suppliers were invited to bid on completing or replacing them, along with Atomstroyexport and Skoda - all involving pressurized water (PWR) types. In the event only Atomstroyexport and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power submitted bids, with the former being chosen to complete the partially-built units. KHNP renewed its interest in the project in 2016 (see below).

The government announced in September 2008 that construction of Khmelnitski 3&4 would resume in 2010 for completion in 2016 and 2017, these completion dates being reaffirmed in the mid-2011 energy policy update. An intergovernmental agreement with Russia on completing the two units was signed in June 2010, and in February 2011 a framework contract was signed for Atomstroyexport to complete them as AES-92 plants with V-392B reactors similar to those already on the site. Under the intergovernmental agreement, some 85% of the estimated UAH 40 billion (€3.7 billion) project would be financed through a Russian loan, with 15% funding coming from Ukraine. The loan would be repaid within five years after the reactors went into service. In July 2012 the government confirmed the feasibility, costings and timing of the project - then $4.9 billion total. The loan agreement was expected to be finalized by the end of 2012. At the end of 2013 the energy minister said that construction might resume in 2015.

After the annexation of Crimea by Russia in March 2014, in July 2014 the cabinet reviewed the political situation with Russia, affirmed the priority of nuclear power, and said that a Western-design reactor might be built at South Ukraine, which had access from the sea for large equipment delivery. In December 2014 the prime minister reaffirmed the priority of completing the Khmelnitski 3&4 units by 2018 to meet anticipated demand, although Energoatom said that the government was in the process of revoking the intergovernmental agreement with Russia and amending the corresponding domestic legislation for Khmelnitski 3&4 construction by Atomstroyexport (now NIAEP-ASE). The energy ministry was reported to want Skoda JS to take over the contract from Atomstroyexport. However the foreign ministry initially opposed this due to Skoda JS being owned by Russia's OMZ, and Energoatom appealed to the president to resolve the matter. The cost for completing the two units had been put at €3.7 billion including the first fuel load at €296 million. Energoatom's later estimate is €4 billion. A Polish investor has offered finance of €1.48 billion in return for electricity supply to Poland.

In September 2015 parliament voted to repeal the 2012 law on construction of the two units on the basis of non-performance by Atomstroyexport. The government wanted Skoda JS to take over the project, and Skoda was keen to do so. Energoatom has signed an agreement with Barclays bank to finance completion of the Khmelnitski 3&4 units, and stresses that Skoda JS "operates by European laws in spite of the fact that the Russian company is its shareholder." Energoatom has dismissed Chinese expressions of interest. Then in August 2016 Energoatom signed an agreement with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP), one objective of which is to cooperate on the completion of Khmelnitski 3&4. An associated objective is to cooperate on the Ukraine-EU 'energy bridge' project, exporting power from Khmelnitski 2 to Poland. In July 2017 Energoatom said that Skoda JS had modified the design and would supply both engineering services as well as many of the components for the two units, with overall 70% Ukrainian content. They are now expected online in 2023 and 2025, using Westinghouse fuel.

The two oldest units in Ukraine, Rovno 1&2, were to be replaced as part of the 2006 nuclear power strategy. In 2018, however, Energoatom signed an agreement with Holtec International to replace them by 2030 with multiple SMR-160 units. It is intended that this will be a pilot project, and will set up a manufacturing hub for these reactors.

A high-voltage transmission line connecting the Rostov nuclear power plant in Russia to Crimea was to be put into operation in 2018.
Ukraine power reactors planned In the WNA reactor table, K3&4 are "planned". A further 11 units are listed as "proposed".
The mid-2011 energy policy revision proposed 2300 MWe of new capacity with decision on technology to be after 2015. Following this there will be a need for replacing plants which are decommissioned in the 2030s. Energoatom proposes to select a standard PWR (or possibly Candu) design from among leading vendors for the remaining planned units after Khmelnitski 3&4. This will involve consideration of local content in the plants. While Russian VVER technology was the most obvious fit until 2014, Energoatom's Atomproektengineering division had provided a feasibility study recommending making provision for use of CANDU EC-6 reactors to the Ministry in October 2010.

Chigirin/Chyhyryn on the Tyasmyn River in the Cherkassy Oblast in the centre of the country is proposed as one site for a new nuclear plant.

In connection with the South Ukraine nuclear power plant, the South Ukraine Power Complex also consists of the 11.5 MWe Olexandrivka Hydro Power Plant on the river Pivdenny Buh, generating annually over 25 million kWh; and the 2 x 151 MWe Tashlyk Hydro Pumped Storage Power Plant commissioned in 2006-07, with total annual production of 175 million kWh. Four further units are planned to take capacity to 900 MWe, and in mid-2016 the third unit was under construction. The 2x11.5 MWe Alexandrovka Hydro Power Plant on the river Pivdenny Buh river, generating annually over 35 million kWh, is part of the complex. The hydro units of the South Ukraine Power Complex including Tashlyk PSP belong to the country's nuclear utility Energoatom, and they serve as an important regulation of the peak capacity for load-following.

Energoatom has been planning to raise its electricity tariff in order to finance reorganization of the nuclear fuel cycle complex and to implement safety modernizations at all plants, as well as to enable funding of life extensions and construction of new plants. A 2013 EBRD report related to a €300 million loan for reactor safety upgrading forecast a wholesale price doubling from 27 kopek/kWh in 2012 to 54 kopek/kWh in 2020.

Nuclear supply chain

Atomenergomash's Energomashspetsstal ( EMSS), a castings and forgings manufacturer, is at Kramatorsk in the Donetsk region. Major upgrading of EMSS was completed in 2012, enabling it to make the forged components of large reactor pressure vessels such as those for VVER-TOI units. As well as power engineering, it has metallurgy, mechanical engineering and shipbuilding divisions, and earlier (to 1989) provided steam generators and reactor pressure vessels for Atommash at Volgodonsk in Russia. It is part of Rosatom's AEM-Technology and provides forgings to be finished at AEM's Petrozavodskmash and Atommash plants in Russia.

JSC Turboatom at Kharkov in the northeast, established in 1934 and now 75.2% government-owned (but with this share being reduced), is among the leading world turbine-building companies. It specializes in steam turbines for thermal and nuclear power plants, and has the capacity to produce 8000 MWe of such per year, with individual units up to 1100 MWe. It has supplied 110 turbines totalling 50 GWe for 24 nuclear power plants, and in 2015 supplied its 20 th 1000 MWe unit. Ukrainian power plants employ 47 Turboatom-made turbines and 43 Russian ones, for which Turboatom is now making spare parts. It also has a contract to modernize the turbines at Hungary's Paks nuclear power plant. From 2014 it is offering also a 1250 MWe low-speed turbine for VVER-TOI reactors. In March 2016 it signed an agreement with Westinghouse to uprate the capacity of VVER-1000 turbine generator sets by up to 10%.

Turboatom is also building Holtec's Hi-Storm 190 casks for Ukraine's Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF) for VVER fuel, celebrated as "the dawn of a new chapter in US-Ukraine cooperation." As noted above, Westinghouse is working with Turboatom to uprate the capacity of 13 VVER-1000 turbine generator sets by up to 10%. The company is developing export markets in Europe, to replace Russia.

In February 2010 Energoatom signed a cooperation agreement with China Guangdong Nuclear Power Co (CGN) relating to nuclear power plant design, construction, operation and maintenance.

Uranium resources and mining

Ukraine has modest recoverable resources of uranium - 221,000 tU according to the IAEA 'Red Book' 2016, 59,000 tU of these recoverable at under $80/kgU. Reasonably assured resources are 139,400 tU, nearly all in metasomatite deposits in the Kirovograd block of the Ukrainian Shield and requiring underground mining. A few sandstone deposits in the Dnieper-Bug area are amenable to ISL.

Uranium mining began in 1946 underground at Pervomayskoye and Zheltorechenskoye, and in 1951 the government set up the Vostochny Gorno-Obogatitel'niy Kombinat (VostGOK), Eastern Mining and Processing Enterprise or Skhidniy Gorno-Zdobychuval'nyi Kombinat (SkhidGZK in Ukrainian, or Skhidniy HZK) at Zheltiye Vody or Zhovti Vody (Ukr) in the Dnepropetrovsk oblast, close to the border of Kirovograd, to process the ore. In 1959 a second plant was built here. A total of about 130,000 tU had been produced to the end of 2014. VostGOK expects increased annual production to 1500 tU in 2018, due to contribution from Novokonstantinovskoye.
Uranium mine production, tonnes U Novokonstantinovskoye is not separately reported.
VostGOK had been producing up to 830 tonnes of uranium per year - around 30% of the country's requirements. The central mill is at Zheltye Vody, close to the border of Kirovograd. Mine production is from several sources - notably Ingulskaya and Smolinskaya mines in the Kirovograd region, with about 66,000 tU and 5000 tU resources respectively. At Ingulskaya block leaching in the Centralniy and Michurinskoye deposits is undertaken, and at Smolinskaya, mining the Vatutinskoye deposit, beneficiated ore from radiometric sorting at site is railed to the central mill. VostGOK plans to start mining the Severinskiy deposit in 2020. The mineralization occurs in metasomatite deposits up to 1300 metres deep, with typical grade of 0.1%U.

The Novokonstantinovskoye uranium project in the Kirovograd region (40 km west of Kirovograd) is claimed to be the largest uranium deposit in Europe, and about 90,000 tU resources at 0.14% are quoted in the 2016 Red Book. It is also a metasomatite deposit. Ceremonial first production was in August 2008, but development then languished. Three underground levels have been opened up at 680 to 1090 metres depth. Russia's Rosatom had said it was keen to invest in developing the project, but agreement on equity was not reached. The government was seeking partners to help fund the $820 million development cost, but after becoming impatient with disputes, it legislated to put the project under VostGOK from December 2009.*

* This edict was cancelled in February 2010, and the regional Public Utility Company Nedra Kirovogradshchiny was then to take over responsibility. However, this was reversed in September, and the project reverted to VostGOK. Earlier, the project was being developed independently of VostGOK by the Novokonstantinov uranium development company, to produce up to 1500 t/yr by 2013, and 2500 t/yr eventually.

In October 2010 VostGOK announced that production would commence in 2011, ramping up towards 1050 tU/yr. Russian overtures were again rejected. First production was in June 2011, with 99 tU projected to end of year. Production in 2012 was expected to be 180-190 tU, and then 424 tU in 2013, 760 tU in 2014, 1270 tU in 2015, and 2100 tU in 2017. VostGOK is aiming to invest over UAH 6 billion ($736 million) to develop the Novokonstantinovskoye mine, but financing this depends on securing long-term sales contracts with NAEC Energoatom. In May 2013 financing seemed to be stalled though some stope development was proceeding.

Heap leaching occurs at Smolinskaya, and also Novokonstantinovskoye to treat one-third of its ore. Higher-grade ore is railed 100 km east from the Ingulskiy mine, 150 km east from Smolinskaya and 130 km east from Novokonstantinovskoye to the central mill and hydrometallurgical plant at Zheltye Vody in Dnipropetrovsk oblast, southeast of Kiev. After crushing and radiometric sorting there, the ore is acid leached in autoclaves at high temperature and pressure.

In 2016 Kazatomprom agreed with Ukraine's minister for coal and energy to establish a uranium mining joint venture, presumably for ISL mining.

In June 2009 VostGOK announced that it planned to develop the Safonovskoye deposit in Kazankovsky District of Nikolaev Region, northwest Ukraine, using in situ leaching (ISL) to produce 100-150 tU/yr in a sandstone deposit 80 m deep. The 2016 Red Book puts the start date at 2017 and recoverable resources at 2250 tU. This deposit had been mined with acid leaching from 1982 to 1993, but mining was discontinued for environmental reasons.

In 2013 VostGOK finished re-treatment of about 3 million tonnes of tailings at Smolinskaya mine, and a mobile ore-sorting complex was commissioned at Ingulskaya mine in 2011 to enable the same there, both for uranium recovery and to enable proper rehabilitation of the sites.

Ukraine is giving priority and investing heavily to boost uranium production and this involves opening the way for foreign investment. It hopes to fully satisfy its domestic demand of up to 1880 tU/yr by 2015. Projections to 2020 showed fairly steady production from existing mines at about 800 tU/yr, about 2500 tU/yr from Novokonstantinovskoye, and about 1500 tU/yr from new mines. A further target is 6400 tU/yr by 2030.

In November 2015 China Nuclear Energy Industry Corporation (CNEIC) expressed some interest in development of Novokonstantinovskoye. VostGOK commented on the possibility of uranium exports to China.

The 2016 Red Book says that foreign or private companies do not carry out any uranium exploration activities in Ukraine.*
* Australian-based Uran Ltd had agreed with Ukraine's Ministry of Fuel & Energy and VostGOK to carry out a feasibility study for ISL mining of the small Surskoye and Novogurevskoye uranium deposits in the east of the country, near VostGOK's existing operations. In mid-2008 Safonovskoye was added to the project. However, Uran then abandoned the prospect. The agreements had set out terms under which Uran might enter into a joint venture over the two sedimentary deposits in the Dnipropetrovsky region. However, in September 2009 the company said that "Following on the repeated failure of the Ukrainian uranium mining enterprise VostGOK to honour a number of agreements with Uran, a decision was made in 2008 to abandon our activities in Ukraine, at least until a more settled and effective political process is established."
Ukraine also has zirconium resources, and supplies zirconium to Russia.

There are legacy issues with former uranium mining and processing, particularly at the Pridniprovsky Chemical Plant (PHZ) at Dniprodzerzhinsk, not far from the Dnipro River. Nine tailings dams containing 42 million tonnes of mine tailings and 4 PBq of activity and derelict production facilities from operations over 1948-91 are the subject of a large-scale remediation program. PHZ processed ores from the Michurinskoye deposit (near Kirovograd), phosphate ores of the Melovoye deposit (near Shevchenko, now Aktau, Kazakhstan) and raw concentrate from GDR, Hungary and Bulgaria.

Fuel cycle beyond mining

Ukrainian uranium concentrate and zirconium alloy are sent to Russia for fuel fabrication. The nuclear fuel produced from these Ukrainian components by TVEL in Russia then returns to Ukrainian NPPs.

The country depends primarily on Russia to provide other nuclear fuel cycle services also, notably enrichment. In June 2007 Ukraine agreed to investigate joining the new International Uranium Enrichment Centre ( IUEC) at Angarsk, in Siberia, and to explore other areas of cooperation in the nuclear fuel cycle and building power reactors in other countries. Late in 2008 it signed an agreement for Ukraine's State Concern Nuclear Fuel to take a 10% stake in the IUEC based at Angarsk, and in October 2010 this came into effect. Ukraine's State Concern Nuclear Fuel apparently sells natural uranium to IUEC, which enriches it at Russian plants. Then IUEC sells the enriched uranium to the Fuel Company TVEL, which fabricates fuel assemblies and supplies them to NAEC Energoatom. The first commercial supply from IUEC was in November 2012. The contracted volume is 60,000 SWU/yr, proportional to the Ukrainian shareholding. Ukraine requires about 1.96 million SWU/yr overall.

In July 2015 State Concern Nuclear Fuel signed an agreement with Converdyn in USA to investigate building a conversion plant to supply Ukraine's needs.

In April 2015 Enegoatom signed an agreement with Areva for supply of enriched uranium, as "a real step towards diversifying the supply of nuclear materials to Ukrainian nuclear power plants." Deliveries would begin in 2015 or when Ukraine's new fuel fabrication plant being built by TVEL at Smolino was operational. This is now aborted, and it is uncertain where fuel fabrication from Areva sources might occur.

Fabricated fuel imports

In order to diversify nuclear fuel supplies, Energoatom started implementation of the Ukraine Nuclear Fuel Qualification Project (UNFQP) for VVER-1000 fuel. The Project assumed the use of Western-manufactured fuel in the VVER-1000 following the selection of Westinghouse as a vendor on a tender basis. In 2005, South Ukraine's third unit was the country's first to use the six lead test assemblies supplied by Westinghouse, which were placed into the reactor core together with Russian fuel for a period of pilot operation. A reload batch of 42 fuel assemblies was provided by Westinghouse in mid-2009 for a three-year period of commercial operation at the unit with regular monitoring and reporting. In addition to the initial supply of fuel from Westinghouse, other aims of the project included the transfer of technology for the design of nuclear fuel.

Under a 2008 contract, Westinghouse supplied a total of 630 fuel assemblies for South Ukraine 2&3. However, these trials to 2011 were contentious, with Energoatom claiming manufacturing defects in the fuel and Westinghouse asserting errors in fuel loading. Each reactor has 163 fuel assemblies.

In June 2010, Energoatom signed a long-term fuel supply contract with Russia's TVEL for all 15 reactors. Earlier, Rosatom had offered a substantial discount to Ukraine if it signed up with TVEL for 20 years. In 2010, TVEL sold Ukraine nuclear fuel for $608 million (€449 million). Ukraine is TVEL's biggest foreign client, totalling 55% of its exports. Ukraine continues to depend on TVEL for VVER-440 fuel for Rovno 1&2. In 2013 all fuel came from TVEL, valued at $601 million. In 2014 Ukraine bought $588 million of fuel services from TVEL and $39 million from Westinghouse Sweden. In 2015 the figures were $611 million and $33 million respectively.

Following the annexation of Crimea by Russia, in April 2014 Ukraine extended its 2008 contract with Westinghouse for fuel supply through to 2020. In 2015 Energoatom ordered Westinghouse fuel for unit 5 of the Zaporozhe plant, as well as for South Ukraine. It plans to use Westinghouse fuel in Zaporozhe 1, 3, 4 and 5, and has loaded this fuel into unit 5. This fuel is fabricated at the Westinghouse plant at Vasteras in Sweden. Westinghouse commented: "This new agreement for Westinghouse VVER fuel design testifies to the quality of our fuel design and demonstrates that it has, in fact, operated without issue at the South Ukraine nuclear power plant, as confirmed by extensive and recent joint Energoatom and Westinghouse inspections. This contract extension .... will allow Energoatom to continue diversification of its fuel supply. We expect that ... Westinghouse will grow its share of the Ukrainian nuclear fuel market." Russian sources have since suggested that the Westinghouse VVER fuel is unlicensed and dangerous. In 2015 Energoatom bought 5% of its fuel from Westinghouse, worth $32 million, out of a total of $644 million. In 2016 Energoatom imported $549 million of fuel, with $387 million (70.5%) of this from TVEL and $162 million (29.5%) from Westinghouse - less than the expected 40%. In 2017 Energoatom bought $368.9 million worth of nuclear fuel from TVEL and $164.4 million of Westinghouse fuel from Sweden.

In June 2014 the energy minister said: "We will work with those [suppliers] who provide the best conditions for Ukraine to ensure reliability, operational safety and economic conditions" with its nuclear fuel. In September 2014 the energy ministry said that it was in negotiation with Rosatom regarding sending used fuel to Russia (though see CSFSF in Radioactive waste management section below).

While Ukraine is not imminently a part of the EU, it is germane to note that in May 2014 the EC said that as a condition of investment, any non-EU reactor design built in the EU must have more than one source of fuel.

Ukraine fuel fabrication plans

In 2016 the government was talking with Kazatomprom about joint venture fuel fabrication for Ukraine being undertaken in Kazakhstan, previous plans for a plant in Ukraine having failed.

About 2009 TVEL and Westinghouse both bid to build a fuel fabrication plant in Ukraine, and in September 2010 the Ministry of Fuels & Energy selected TVEL. The State Concern Nuclear Fuel signed an agreement with TVEL for a 50-50 joint venture to build a plant to manufacture VVER-1000 fuel assemblies. Preparatory work was undertaken for the US$ 460 million (€355 million) plant at Smolino, Kirovograd region, 300 km southeast of Kiev, to produce about 400 fuel assemblies (200 tU) per year, but with eventual capacity of 800 per year. The site is near Smolinskaya uranium mine.

One condition was that Ukraine held a controlling stake in the joint venture company that was to be established to manage the plant, despite relying on TVEL to provide 70% of the loan funds to construct it. Another condition was that TVEL transfer the technology for the manufacture of fuel assemblies under a non-exclusive licence by 2020, for reactors both in Ukraine and abroad. Russia agreed to transfer fuel fabrication technology by 2020. Ukraine's prime minister called it "the most substantial project towards energy independence in the history of independent Ukraine." In December 2011 the private joint-stock company Nuclear Fuel Production Plant (NFPP) was set up to run it.

Site works started in 2012 and full construction was due to start in mid-2014, with the first phase to 2015 setting up capacity for fabrication of fuel rods and assemblies (using pellets from Ulba in Kazakhstan, 34% TVEL-owned), the second phase to 2020 involving production of fuel pellets. It was expected to start supplying fuel in 2016, and that it would cater all nuclear fuel needs of Ukraine's nuclear power plants, while surplus products could be exported under separate arrangements with TVEL, mainly to Eastern Europe. In July 2014 construction was delayed due to disagreement on terms and conditions of the contract, and the Ukraine deputy minister said that Westinghouse or Areva might be called upon. In August 2014 TVEL said it was ready to supply the equipment for the plant as soon as contract disagreements and financing were resolved, and Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant (NCCP) said it had manufactured the process lines and was putting them into storage. In October 2015 the energy minister said that the government planned to terminate the agreement with TVEL.

In the 1990s an attempt had been made to set up a complete suite of fuel cycle facilities other than enrichment, but this failed for political and financial reasons. The December 2006 decision to form Ukratomprom revived intentions to build a fuel fabrication plant.

In May 2008 Ukraine's Ministry of Fuels and Energy signed an agreement with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) to develop CANDU technology. This could provide synergies with the existing Ukrainian VVER reactors by burning uranium recovered from the VVERs' used fuel. However, no developments have eventuated in Ukraine.

Radioactive waste management

There is no intention to close the fuel cycle in Ukraine, though the possibility remains under consideration. In 2008 the National Target Environmental Program of Radioactive Waste Management was approved. Storage of used fuel for at least 50 years before disposal remains the policy. The new program meets the requirements of European legislation and recommendations of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Its implementation will create an integrated system of radioactive waste of all types and categories for 50 years. In 2014 Energoatom commenced a study on having used fuel of both TVEL and Westinghouse origin reprocessed by Areva at La Hague in France.

Used fuel is mostly stored on site though some VVER-440 fuel continued to be sent to Russia for reprocessing under a 1993 arrangement, with a shipment delivered in November 2015. At Zaporozhe a long-term dry storage facility for spent fuel has operated since 2001, but other VVER-1000 spent fuel has been sent to Russia for storage, at a cost to Ukraine of over $100 million per year. A centralised dry storage facility for spent fuel (CSFSF) was proposed for construction in the government's 2006 energy strategy.

Preliminary investigations have shortlisted sites for a deep geological repository for high- and intermediate-level wastes including all those arising from Chernobyl decommissioning and clean-up.

A new facility for treatment solid radioactive waste is at the site of Zaporozhe nuclear power plant, commissioned in 2015. It will be fitted with a state-of-the-art incinerator of Danish design.

In 2013, a four-year Ukraine-NATO project began to clean up low-level radioactive waste at nine military facilities in the country. €25 million was budgeted. The wastes will be buried in the Chernobyl exclusion zone.

CSFSF near Chernobyl

In December 2005, Energoatom signed a US$ 150 million agreement with the US-based Holtec International to implement the Central Spent Fuel Storage Facility (CSFSF) project for Ukraine's VVER reactors. Holtec's work involves design, licensing, construction, commissioning of the facility, and the supply of transport and vertical ventilated dry storage systems for used VVER nuclear fuel, initially 2500 VVER-1000 and 1100 VVER-440 assemblies. This was projected for completion in 2008, but was held up pending legislation. Then in October 2011 parliament passed a bill on management of spent nuclear fuel, and this was approved in the upper house in February 2012. It provides for construction of the dry storage facility within the Chernobyl exclusion area, between the resettled villages Staraya Krasnitsa, Buryakovka, Chistogalovka and Stechanka in Kiev Region, southeast of Chernobyl. Ukraine requires all spent fuel to be stored in double wall multi-purpose canisters (DWC).

The new storage facility will become a part of the common spent nuclear fuel management complex of the state-owned company Chernobyl NPP, though it will not take any Chernobyl fuel. In April 2014 the government approved the 45 hectare site for the facility, to take fuel from Rovno, South Ukraine and Khmelnitski. The total storage capacity of the facility will be 16,530 used fuel assemblies, including 12,010 VVER-1000 assemblies and 4520 VVER-440 assemblies. Some of these have high-burnup fuel and are hot, with up to 38 kW heat load. It is expected to cost $460 million, including 'start-up complex' $160 million. Holtec quoted three years for construction from mid-2014, when the project was reactivated under a new government with a new contract. The contract was amended in January 2015 so that the civil design and construction of CSFSF will be the responsibility of NNEGC Energoatom (Ukraine). The project was to span six years, with the first stage for 3600 fuel assemblies complete in 2018, and the fourth in January 2021.

At the same time, Holtec International (USA) is responsible for the supply of specific dry spent nuclear fuel storage and transport canisters and casks which will be used at the three nuclear power plant sites, and during the used nuclear fuel transport from them to the CSFSF, as well as at the facility itself. Holtec HI-STAR 190 transport casks will be used for transporting canisters to the site where they will be loaded into Holtec's HI-STORM 190 ventilated vertical storage system, to provide physical protection, radiation shielding and allow passive heat removal. The double-wall canisters (DWC) were approved by the State Nuclear Inspectorate (SNRI) early in 2015. In October 2015 Holtec agreed with Turboatom in Ukraine to manufacture the HI-STORM 190 casks, initially 94 of them.

The cost of the project is equivalent to a few years of payments to Russia for storing Ukraine's fuel from the three plants (about $200 million per year). Construction of the CSFSF commenced in August 2014, with Holtec acting as the general contractor of the project, while two Ukrainian companies, YUTEM Engineering Ltd and Ukrtransbud Inc, started to build it. In August 2015 Holtec said that site construction (of stage 1?) was 57% complete and due to be finished in July 2016. Then in October 2016 Energoatom subsidiary AtomProjectEngineering said that the active phase of construction was due to start in March 2017. In July 2017 SNRI issued a licence for the project, which is expected to start accepting fuel in 2019.

Holtec earlier said that hostilities in the east had set back the schedule. Commissioning is now anticipated at the end of 2018.

Vitrified high-level wastes from reprocessing Ukrainian fuel will be returned from Russia to Ukraine from 2018, and go to the CSFSF.

Chernobyl ISF-2

Used fuel from decommissioned RBMK reactors at Chernobyl nuclear power plant will be stored in a new dry storage facility being built a few kilometres from the plant, and not far from CSFSF. In September 2007 Holtec International and the Ukrainian government signed a contract to complete the placement of Chernobyl's used nuclear fuel in dry storage systems at the Chernobyl Interim Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage Facility (ISF-2). Removing the radioactive fuel from the three undamaged Chernobyl reactors is essential to the start of demolishing them. Holtec will complete the dry storage project, begun in 1999 by the French company Framatome (subsequently Areva and then Orano), and is utilising as much of the previous work on the project as possible, with the protection of public health and safety as the overriding criteria. Areva's €80 million contract was suspended in October 2005, after donor countries rejected its proposal to correct problems with its endeavours. Areva was required to pay €45 million to Ukraine in compensation for the botched project.

Transfer of most used fuel to the site from Chernobyl units 1-3 was completed in 2013, with the last damaged fuel removed in June 2016. Initially this is stored in ISF-1, a wet storage facility which was commissioned in 1986. The Chernobyl Dry Storage (ISF-2) project requires dividing over 21,000 fuel assemblies into 42,000 fuel bundles in a custom-engineered hot cell, and drying them - a step overlooked in the Areva era. The bundles will be put into steel canisters which are then filled with inert gas and welded shut. Each metal canister is placed horizontally in a NUHOMS concrete storage module where it will be enclosed for up to 100 years. Once all the used fuel has been transferred, ISF-1 will be decommissioned. The first Holtec canisters for the Areva-designed NUHOMS dry storage system were delivered from the USA in November 2015, and about 85 of these will be involved in stage 1. The balance of 231 will be delivered over 2017-19. They will store the fuel long-term in an inert gas environment.

ISF-2 has a fixed price of $411 million and is due to be completed in 2018, though Holtec said that hostilities in the east have set back the schedule. Nevertheless, in August 2017 SNRI approved an integrated systems test of the facility, which is expected to lead to fuel loading from March 2018. There is full endorsement from the Assembly of Donors, who provide funding for Chernobyl remediation and decommissioning through the EBRD's Nuclear Safety Account. The works are being carried out by Ukrainian companies UTEM-Engineering (principal contractor) and Ukrtransbud.

Chernobyl: other wastes

Also at Chernobyl, Nukem has constructed an Industrial Complex for Solid Radwaste Management (ICSRM) which was handed over in April 2009. In this, solid low- and intermediate-level wastes accumulated from the power plant operations and the decommissioning of reactor blocks 1 to 3 is conditioned by incineration, high-force compaction, and cementation, as required and then packaged for disposal. In addition, highly radioactive and long-lived solid waste is sorted out for temporary separate storage. A low-level waste repository has also been built at the Vektor complex 17 km away.

The Liquid Radioactive Waste Treatment Plant (LRTP) at Chernobyl retrieves some 35,000 cubic metres of low- and intermediate-level liquid wastes at the site from their current tanks, processes them into a solid state and moves them to containers for long-term storage. Construction of the plant has been completed and the start of operations was due late in 2015. LRTP is also funded through EBRD's Nuclear Safety Account.

Decommissioning Chernobyl

Four Chernobyl RBMK-1000 reactors, plus two almost-completed ones, are being decommissioned. Unit 4, which was destroyed in the 1986 accident, is enclosed in a large shelter and a new, more durable containment structure is being built, for completion in 2016. The last of the other three shut down in December 2000. In mid-2001 a new enterprise, SSE ChNPP was set up to take over management of the site and decommissioning from Energoatom. Its remit includes eventual decommissioning of all Ukraine nuclear plants.

This New Safe Confinement (NSC) project is expected to cost about €1.5 billion. In September 2007 a €430 million contract was signed with a French-led consortium Novarka to build this new shelter, to enclose both the destroyed Chernobyl 4 reactor and the hastily-built 1986 structure over it. It is a metal arch 110 metres high and spanning 257 m, which is being built adjacent and will then be moved into place.

The International Chernobyl Shelter Fund facilitated by the EBRD was set up in 1997. In May 2005, international donors made pledges worth approximately €150 million towards the new safe confinement. The largest contribution came from the G8 and the EU. Russia contributed to the fund for the first time and other fund members, which include the USA, increased their contributions, with the Ukrainian government pledging some €15 million. The European Commission has committed €239.5 million since 1997, making it the main donor.

In November 2014 the EBRD said the overall €2.15 billion Shelter Implementation Plan including the NSC had a funding shortfall of €615 million. It proposed an additional contribution of €350 million by the EBRD in anticipation of a €165 million contribution by the G7/European Commission and the balance of €100 million by non-G7 donors. "The G7 leads the effort to mobilize the additional funds and will organize a pledging event in the spring of 2015," the EBRD said. "Should pledging efforts fall short of the amount allocated to non-G7 donors, the EBRD would step in."

Units 1-3 are undergoing decommissioning conventionally - the first RBMK units to do so - and work will accelerate when the new ISF-2 dry storage facility for fuel is built (see above).

Research & development

Ukraine has had two research reactors, a 10 MW tank type one - VVR-M - which was commissioned in 1960 at the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kiev. This was converted to LEU fuel in 2008 under the US Global Threat Reduction Program, but was due to close in 2015. Plans for a $250 million replacement were announced in 2008.

In 2012 the government approved construction of KIPT Experimental Neutron Source at the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, using LEU. It is basically an accelerator system, subcritical. The USA is providing technical assistance and $25 million towards it, the total contribution being $73 million. Construction was nearly complete in March 2016, and there is cooperation with Oak Ridge and Idaho National Laboratory in the USA. It is intended for research in nuclear physics as well as isotope production, particularly for nuclear medicine.

There is also a very small IR-100 training reactor (200 kW) at the Naval Engineering school in the Sevastopol National University of Nuclear Energy and Industry in Crimea. This was taken over in the Russian annexation of Crimea, and Ukraine has raised with IAEA the safeguards implication. Russia's national radioactive waste management company, NO RAO, will receive data for the accounting and control of radioactive materials and waste from Crimea.

Organisation

In 1996 the former nuclear operating entity Goskomatom set up a new corporate nuclear utility, National Nuclear Energy Generating Company (NNEGC) Energoatom. NNEGC Energoatom is responsible for the safety of all Ukrainian NPPs under the law on Nuclear Power Use and Radiation Safety. Its main task is construction of new power capacities and life extension for the existing plants, procurement of new fuel and transportation of used fuel, establishment of the national infrastructure for management of irradiated fuel, ensuring physical security of nuclear power facilities, and professional training and development of personnel. Energoatom's initial priorities were to increase safety, bring load factors up to 83-85%, and extend the working lives of the reactors by 10-15 years (at about US$ 150 million per VVER-1000 reactor).

Goskomatom was replaced by two Departments within the Fuel & Energy Ministry: a Department for Nuclear Energy, responsible for civil nuclear power plants operation, and a Department for Atomic Industry, responsible for the development of nuclear fuel cycle.

The regulator is the State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate of Ukraine (SNRI or SNRC), now an independent authority (it was until 2001 under the Ministry of Environment Protection & Nuclear Safety). In March 2015 SNRI was accepted as a full member of the Western European Nuclear Regulators' Association (WENRA).

The 1995 law on Nuclear Energy Use and Radiation Safety establishes the legal basis of the industry and included a provision for the operating plant to have full legal responsibility for the consequences of any accident. The 1995 law on Radioactive Waste Management complements this, and the consequent state program was approved in 2002.

Nuclear industry structure and the Russian connection

Late in 2006 the government moved to set up a new national nuclear industry entity - Ukratomprom, as a vertically-integrated nuclear holding company reporting to Energy Ministry and cabinet. Ukratomprom was to consist of six state-owned enterprises including Energoatom, the VostGOK uranium mining company, and the Novokonstantinov uranium development company, with assets of some US$ 10 billion, including $6.35 billion for Energoatom. Three major projects were to be launched in 2007, including a $1875 million uranium production venture comprising refurbishment of VostGOK's hydrometallurgical plant and construction of a uranium mill at Novokonstantinov. Then it was announced that Energoatom would not be included in Ukratomprom, and soon afterwards plans were abandoned.

Russia has made strenuous efforts to regain its influence in Ukraine, and early in 2010 various proposals for civil nuclear joint ventures were put forward. In April the Russian president suggested "full-scale cooperation of our nuclear industries," and that the two countries establish a large holding company that would include power generation, heavy engineering and fuel cycle facilities. As a first stage, he suggested a merger involving Ukrainian uranium mining with Russia's Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant in Siberia, which produces VVER fuel. Also he noted that Ukraine's Turboatom was producing large steam turbines solely for Russia. Furthermore, all Ukrainian reactors need modernization which, he said, could be most effective with close cooperation of Russian enterprises, at the same time as opening access for Ukrainian partners to the Russian market as it greatly expands nuclear capacity. In addition, Russia and Ukraine could collaborate in foreign markets on the basis of financing provided by the Russian government and leading financial institutions. Ukraine's president agreed in principle that some of these particular suggestions might have merit.

Rosatom followed up with the suggestion that if Ukraine signed long-term (25-year) fuel supply contracts with Russia it would enjoy a discount of more than US$ 1 billion. Furthermore, Rosatom was ready to transfer up to 50% of the shares in the Novosibirsk Chemical Concentrates Plant to Ukrainian partners and establish domestic fuel production, either "either [as] a branch of the combine where we can be shareholders together, or a new plant in the Ukrainian territory." Rosatom reiterated its long-standing desire to take a share of Ukraine's Novokonstantinov uranium project, and also proposed a joint venture bringing together the heavy engineering assets of Russia's Atomenergomash and Ukraine's Turboatom at Kharkov.

Energoatom has set up Atomproektengineering to handle new nuclear power projects, including investment, design, and construction. It has already been involved with Khmelnitski 3&4 (see below). In October 2010 Atomenergomash announced that it and NAEC Energoatom would set up a strategic consortium to localize nuclear equipment manufacture in Ukraine, particularly in relation to Khmelnitski 3&4.

Ukraine's plans for fuel cycle developments are to develop uranium mining and fuel fabrication, but not conversion, enrichment or reprocessing - these being done in Russia, albeit with some Ukraine equity in IUEC (see above).

Ukraine's JSC Turboatom at Kharkov, established in 1934 and now 75.2% government-owned, is among the leading world turbine-building companies. It specializes in steam turbines for thermal and nuclear power plants, and has the capacity to produce 8000 MWe of such per year, with individual units up to 1100 MWe. It has supplied 110 turbines totaling 50 GWe for 24 nuclear power plants. Ukrainian power plants employ 47 Turboatom-made turbines plus 43 Russian ones. Turboatom's major competitors are the Power Machines Co in Russia and Germany's Siemens. Much of its production in 2010 was for Russia.

Non-proliferation

After the break-up of the Soviet Union, Ukraine negotiated to repatriate nuclear warheads and missiles to Russia in return for nuclear fuel supplies. Ukraine then joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a non-nuclear weapons state. Its safeguards agreement under the NPT came into force in 1998, and in 2005 the Additional Protocol to this agreement was ratified.

Notes & references

References

Perera, Judith 2003, Nuclear Power in the Former USSR, McCloskey, UK.
Ukrainian Ministry of Fuel & Energy http://mpe.kmu.gov.ua
National Energy Regulatory Commission http://www.snrc.gov.ua/nuclear/en/index
National Nuclear Energy Generating Company ENERGOATOM http://www.energoatom.kiev.ua/
IAEA 1999: http://www.iaea.org/NewsCenter/Features/Chernobyl-15/shelter-fund.pdf
SSE ChNPP update of ISF-2, The first batch of canisters for ISF-2 has been delivered to ChNPP, 26 November 2015
Areva's Incredible Fiasco in Chernobyl, le Journal de l'Energie, 17 February 2016
Karel Beckman, Energy Post, Ukrainian crisis can be solved - with an Energiewende, 22 August 2016

Appendix: The K2-R4 saga

In the 1990s both the government and Energoatom were determined to bring two new reactors - Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4 (K2-R4) - into operation as soon as possible. Both reactors were 80% complete when a halt was imposed in 1990.

In 1995 a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the Governments of the G7 countries, the EC and the Ukrainian government which required closure of the operating Chernobyl reactors. Thus, Chernobyl reactors were shut down - the last in December 2000.

The Memorandum stipulated the agreement on international financial aid to Ukraine to support Chernobyl decommissioning, power sector restructuring, completion of K2-R4 nuclear reactors, thermal and hydro plant rehabilitation, construction of a pumped storage plant, and to support energy efficiency projects in accordance with Ukraine's energy sector strategy.

In 2000 the European Bank for Reconstruction & Development (EBRD) approved (by an 89% vote apart from abstentions) a US$ 215 million loan towards completion of K2-R4. This EBRD funding, though a modest part of the US$ 1480 million estimated to be required, was a key factor in plans for their completion to western safety standards. Conditions on the loan included safety enhancement of all 13 Ukraine nuclear power reactors, independence for the country's nuclear regulator, and electricity market reform.

Following approval of the EBRD loan, the European Commission (EC) approved a US$ 585 million loan to Energoatom. The EC said that approval of this Euratom funding "a few days before the permanent closure of Chernobyl gives a clear sign of the Commission's commitment to nuclear safety ... as well as to the deepening of [EU] relations with Ukraine." It "will finance the completion, modernisation and commissioning of two third-generation nuclear units". The EC pointed out that it and the EBRD had concluded that the project met all safety, environmental, economic and financial criteria.

Russia earlier provided US$ 225 million credit for K2/R4 equipment and fuel, then in 2002 a Russian loan of US$ 44 million for completion of the units was approved. The arrangement covered goods and services from Russia. It followed signing of a US$ 144 million agreement in June, including about US$ 100 million of fuel.

However the promised loans of US$ 215 million and the Euratom's US$ 585 million were deferred late in 2001 because the government had baulked at doubling the wholesale price of power to USD 2.5 cent/kWh as required by EBRD. Ukraine also rejected almost all approved Russian loans. The Ukrainian government then approved estimates for the completion, site works and upgrades for the K2 - R4 nuclear power reactors, at US$ 621 million and US$ 642 million respectively. With local finance and a bond issue, Energoatom proceeded with work on both units.

In July 2004, prior to start-up of the two units, the EBRD finally approved a scaled-down loan of US$ 42 million. This sum was matched by US$ 83 million from Euratom, approved by the EC. The project finances the post-start-up component of a safety and modernisation program developed for K2 and R4.

The loan was approved on condition that revised tariffs are implemented in order to fund upgrading of all 13 operating power reactors in Ukraine to K2-R4 standards, that a decommissioning fund is set up and "an internationally agreed level of nuclear liability insurance" is reached.

The program on modernisation and safety improvement of K2-R4 was established taking into account IAEA's recommendations. It consists of 147 "pre-commissioning", as well as "post-commissioning" and "before and after commissioning" measures. In 2003-2004, Framatome ANP, an independent expert of the EBRD, together with the local Riskaudit Company, reviewed the implementation status and sufficiency of the program. They assessed positively the result of this program's implementation to date. The post-commissioning modernization measures were completed in November 2010, under the US$ 125 million budget from EBRD and Euratom.

In August 2004 the Ukrainian President said that Western governments had failed to honour their 1995 undertakings to assist his country in exchange for closing the Chernobyl plant, particularly in relation to the Khmelnitski 2 and Rovno 4 completion, grid infrastructure and a pumped storage hydro plant.

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Nuclear Power in Ukraine, Ukrainian nuclear energy. Ukraine is heavily dependent on nuclear energy - it has 15 reactors generating about half of its electricity. Reactors at Khmelnitski-1 Khmelnitski-2 Rovno-1 Rovno-2 Rovno-3 Rovno-4 South Ukraine-1 South Ukraine-2 South Ukraine-3, Zaporozhe-1, Zaporozhe-2, Zaporozhe-3, Zaporozhe-4, Zaporozhe-5, Zaporozhe-6.

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solar roofs, insulated walls, double glazing, new heating and ventilation systems

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Store the power from your PV solar panels and use it in the evening! John Payne

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Store the power from your PV solar panels and use it in the evening! John Payne

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I am visiting this project tomorrow with friends from Transition Monmouth https://www.facebook.com/Transition-Monmouth-474533825912818/

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Energy efficient design means more energy for the national grid

Experts from the Welsh School of Architecture have designed and built the UK's first purpose-built, low-cost energy smart house, capable of exporting more energy to the national electricity grid than it uses.

The house, designed by Professor Phil Jones and his team based at the Welsh School of Architecture, has been built as a prototype to meet tough new targets for zero carbon housing set by UK Government.

Designed and constructed as part of the Wales Low Carbon Research Institute's (LCRI) SOLCER project, and supported by SPECIFIC at Swansea University, its unique design combines for the first time reduced energy demand, renewable energy supply and energy storage to create an energy positive house.

Economy Minister Edwina Hart said: "I am delighted to see Wales leading the UK with the launch of this unique property which has the distinction of being the first building of its kind in the UK. It is a great showcase for the technologies being developed in Wales, with the potential to be adopted and replicated in future housing developments across the UK creating wide ranging long term benefits for the economy, the environment and occupiers."

"The Welsh and UK Governments - and governments across the EU - have set targets for very low 'nearly zero' energy buildings by 2020, and zero carbon new housing can deliver this and more. This means that as an academic community we have to rise to that challenge and come-up with innovative new ways to build houses of the future," according to Professor Jones, who heads the SOLCER House project.

"Through this project we have risen to this challenge and used the latest design and technology to build the UK's first smart energy positive house," he added.

Zero carbon energy performance involves a combination of reduced energy demand and renewable energy supply, using the electricity grid to import and export energy.

Electrical and thermal storage have also been used to allow energy generated at the house to be used directly by the occupiers.

The design of the SOLCER House is based on the 'Buildings as Power Stations' concept developed by the SPECIFIC Innovation and Knowledge Centre, and is unique in that it uses a number of technologies and design approaches developed by the LCRI's Low Carbon Buildings Research Programme.

Kevin Bygate, Chief Executive of SPECIFIC, said: "Buildings that can generate, store and release their own renewable energy could be a game-changer. The SOLCER House is intentionally built with the best off-the-shelf, affordable technologies, so it proves what's possible even now - and there's plenty more technology in the pipeline."

In order to drastically reduce the energy demand, the house was built with high levels of thermal insulation reducing air leakage and uses an innovative energy efficient design which includes low carbon cement, structural insulated panels (SIPS), external insulated render, transpired solar collectors and low emissivity double glazed aluminium clad timber frame windows and doors.

The south facing roof comprises of glazed solar photovoltaic panels, fully integrated into the design of the building, allowing the roof space below to be naturally lit. This has been designed to reduce the cost of bolting on solar panels to a standard roof.

The house's energy systems combine solar generation and battery storage to power both its combined heating, ventilation, hot water system and its electrical power systems which includes appliances, LED lighting and heat pump. The TSC solar air system preheats the ventilation air which is topped up from a thermal water store.

Professor Jones adds: "Now the house has been built our key task is to ensure that all of the measures that we have put in place are monitored to ensure the most energy efficient use.

"We will use this information to inform future projects with the aim of ensuring that Wales remains at the heart of the development of a zero carbon housing future.

"The building demonstrates our leading edge low carbon supply, storage and demand technologies at a domestic scale which we hope will be replicated in other areas of Wales and the UK in the future."

The SOLCER House took a total of 16 weeks to construct and was completed in February, 2015.

The house is situated on the site of Cenin Renewables Ltd in Pyle, near Bridgend.

The project has been part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Wales European Funding Office.

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Energy efficient design means more energy for the national grid Experts from the Welsh School of Architecture have designed and built the UK's first purpose-built, low-cost energy smart house, capable of exporting more energy to the national electricity grid than it uses.

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Five years after Fukushima: S-E Asia's nuclear dilemma

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Five years after Fukushima: S-E Asia's nuclear dilemma

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http://str.sg/4k6h

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Gonzalo Paredes / 2014 Chilean electric generation mix.

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Dutch cabinet to close to more coal plants

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Dutch cabinet to close to more coal plants

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The Dutch government is considering closing another two coal fired power plants in the Netherlands, on top of the already agreed upon closure of the five oldest coal plants in the country. The final decision on this will be made in the autumn, ANP reports.

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By Janene Pieters on April 11, 2016 - 10:57

The Dutch government is considering closing another two coal fired power plants in the Netherlands, on top of the already agreed upon closure of the five oldest coal plants in the country. The final decision on this will be made in the autumn, ANP reports.

The two coal plants to be added to the closure list are Amer power plant 9 in Geertruidenberg and Hemweg 8 near Amsterdam. If these two plants close, the Netherlands will have three coal fired power plants still in operation.

Minister Henk Kamp of Economic Affairs and State Secretary Sharon Dijksma of Infrastructure and Environment hope that the closure of these two plants will further reduce the emissions of carbon dioxide, according to a letter they sent to Parliament on Saturday. In the coming period they will investigate the exact reduction of emissions, what effect the closure will have on the electricity supply and what it will cost the State.

With this Kamp and Dijksma are responding to the climate agreement made in Paris last year, the majority vote in Parliament to systematically close all coal plants in the country and the court ruling in the Urgenda case that the Netherlands should do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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Dutch cabinet to close two more coal plants

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The Dutch government is considering closing another two coal fired power plants in the Netherlands, on top of the already agreed upon closure of the five oldest coal plants in the country. The final decision on this will be made in the autumn

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Infrastructure: Madagascar, l'île aux réserves d'énergie

Madagascar offre des potentialités énergétiques renouvelables intéressantes mais qui restent sous exploitées. Le très faible niveau d’accès à l’électricité de la population (19%) démontre que le marché local est fortement demandeur.
660 sites hydroélectriques pouvant fournir jusqu’à 7.800 MW sont répertoriés. Les plus intéressants se concentrent dans les versants Est et Nord-Ouest de l’Ile ainsi que sur les hauts plateaux centraux. Actuellement, la production d’énergie hydroélectrique se limite à 115 MW répartie sur les 3 réseaux interconnectés d’Antananarivo, Toamasina et Fianarantsoa.

Par ailleurs, Madagascar bénéficie de par sa position géographique unensoleillement de 2.800 h/an fournissant en moyenne 2.000 kWh/m2/an. A 50 m de hauteur, un vent de force suffisante atteint une vitesse de 6 à 8 m/sdans le Nord, 6 à 6,5 m/s au centre et 8 à 9 m/s dans l’extrême Sud. Les températures souterraines relevées sur 8 zones, pouvant atteindre 250°C, présentent de forts potentiels géothermiques.
La Loi N° 98-032 du 20 janvier 1999 portant réforme du secteur de l’électricité garantit une concurrence libre et saine. Pour pouvoir produire, transporter et distribuer de l’électricité, les nouveaux opérateurs publicsou privés, nationaux ou étrangers devront avoir une autorisation, une concession ou une déclaration selon l’utilité des services et la capacité à produire.

En resumé:

UtilitéProductionDocument nécessaire
Service public | ≤500 kW | Autorisation
|  >500 kW | Concession
Autoproduction Thermique |  ≤1MW | Déclaration
|  > 1MW | Autorisation
Autoproduction Hydraulique |  ≤500 kW | Déclaration
|  > 500 kW | Autorisation

Cadre juridique

Loi N° 98-032 du 20 janvier 1999 portant réforme du secteur de l'électricité.

Loi N° 034-2008 du 13 novembre 2008 portant modification et ajustement de certaines dispositions de la Loi N° 98-032 du 20 janvier 1999

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Indonesian govt to develop renewable energy for rural electricity

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Indonesian govt to develop renewable energy for rural electricity

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The Indonesian government is planning to build power generators using new and renewable energies (EBT) to provide electricity for the countries' rural areas or villages.

Currently, 12,659 of 74,754 villages in Indonesia are still without electricity and 65 percent of them are in six provinces in eastern Indonesia.

The electricity infrastructure in these regions will have to be built through different approaches, such as decentralization and island-based infrastructure as well as by harnessing the renewable energy potential there.

Indonesia is believed to have a huge potential of EBT energies that could be exploited. It is believed to have about 950 MW of wind energy, 11 gigawatts (GW) of solar energy, 75 GW of hydro energy, 32 MW of biomass energy, 32 MW of biofuel, 60 GW of marine energy and 29 GW of geothermal energy.

http://www.antaranews.com/en/news/104349/indonesian-govt-to-develop-renewable-energy-for-rural-electricity

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AWS Truepowe
American energy is at a crossroads.

Low natural gas prices have been a boon for consumers, but have put a crimp in producers' bottom lines and ripped up parts of the coal industry.

Meanwhile, hydrofracking for the gas itself remains as controversial as ever. It' s an economic windfall for some residents and an out-of-control hazard for others.

We wanted to try to capture these issues visually, so we turned to our favorite graphic aid: maps.

They show where we are now and where we're likely to be in the future.

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American energy is at a crossroads. Low natural gas prices have been a boon for consumers, but have put a crimp in producers' bottom lines and ripped up parts of the coal industry. Meanwhile, hydrofracking for the gas itself remains as controversial as ever.

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Joanne Redfern

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UK energy statistics: statistical press release - March 2016

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Energy Trends and Energy Prices published.