Page 10 - AsiaElec Week 47

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NEWS IN BRIEF
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the purchase of carbon credits,” the bank said in a statement.
“The commitment from Macquarie Group means that it now joins the ‘Big Four’ Australian banks in agreeing to source all of their electricity consumption from renewable sources under the RE100 initiative.”
The commitment will see the company power all of its operations, including office buildings and data centres with renewable electricity. The company says that it will seek to enter into power purchase agreements directly with new projects to supply the bank with renewable electricity.
The commitment from Macquarie bank sees it join other major Australian financial institutions, including Westpac, ANZ, NAB and the Commonwealth Bank in setting a 100 per cent renewables target.
Last week, Australian Coordinator of the RE100 John Dee initiative told an RE100 event hosted by Australian tech company Atlassian that renewable energy purchase commitments until the global RE100 initiatives had reached around 220TWh, which is comparable to
the total annual electricity consumption of Australia.
More than 200 of the world’s largest companies have made commitments under the initiative, including Apple, Google, Microsoft and Facebook.
The commitment by the Macquarie Group to the RE100 initiative follows substantial commitments by the investment bank to grow its portfolio of investments in the global renewable energy sector.
In September, the bank unveiled a
five-year plan to invest up to 20GW of new renewable energy capacity across the globe, including up to 4GW of generation capacity in emerging markets. Macquarie had flagged its commitment to the RE100 at the time.
In 2017, Macquarie acquired the Green Investment Group, established by the UK Government to finance new clean energy projects for A$4.2bn ($2.9bn), and the company will continue to grow the fund with the future investments in new projects.
China’s solar ‘wobble’
drags down global growth
– report
Slumping solar development in China is hobbling growth worldwide.
While worldwide installations are still forecast to rise this year, BloombergNEF lowered its global outlook 6% from its previous forecast as an anticipated building boom hasn’t materialized in China, the world’s
biggest clean-energy market, according to a report Monday. BNEF now expects 121 gigawatts of solar to be installed globally.
“China, the big gorilla, is slowing down,” Jenny Chase, an analyst at BNEF, said in an interview Monday. “It was never healthy for the solar market to be dependent on one or two countries.”
Efforts to streamline China’s solar sector have whipsawed the global industry. After
an abrupt cut to subsidies and halt to
some approvals last year, which sent new installations tumbling, regulators reversed course this year to again support construction with subsidies. However, a final decision on the issue announced in July has been seen
as coming too late to avoid a second year of declining installations.
China will install about 28 gigawatts of capacity this year, a drop of almost 37% from the previous year, according to the new BNEF estimate. The revised 2019 forecast is down from 39 gigawatts last quarter, which would have implied a year-on-year drop of only 11%.
Weak demand has added downward pressure on solar-panel prices in the fourth quarter, BNEF said. Almost all components, especially cells and panels, are facing a supply glut this year and next, according to the report, titled “A Market Wobble.”
China leads the way as
wind energy sees another
year of stable growth
The wind power energy industry installed 51.3 gigawatts (GW) of new capacity last year, a 3.6 percent fall when compared to 2017‘s growth, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) said on November 26.
Despite this reduction, the international trade association said that the growth of the worldwide wind energy market had “been stable” since 2014, with more than 50 GW of new capacity installed each year.
Total installed capacity stood at 591 GW at the end of 2018, which represents an increase of 9.6 percent compared to the end of 2017, the GWEC added. Installed capacity relates to how much energy can be produced at maximum output, not what is currently being generated.
GWEC CEO Ben Backwell said that China had led “both onshore and offshore growth,” adding that “huge growth” was expected
in Asia “through the coming decade and beyond.”
Breaking the figures down, the onshore sector was responsible for 46.8 GW of new capacity in 2018, while the offshore wind market added 4.49 GW.
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Week 47 27 •November•2019