In doing so, it will launch the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), to take decisions on cross border energy supply. ACER will draft framework guidelines for the operation of cross border electricity networks, establishing rules that are consistent with these guidelines, the Commission said. Its role will be to monitor the newly managed internal European electricity market, including retail prices, available network access for electricity produced from renewable sources.

Solar Junction is a 4-year-old company spun out of Stanford University that designs high-efficiency, multi-junction solar cells for concentrating photovoltaic (CPV) solar collectors. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory recently certified that its solar cells can operate at 40.9% efficiency, a significantly higher efficiency than typical silicon solar cells that convert sunlight to electricity at an efficiency of about 15-20%.

Scientists are reporting development of an advanced lithium-ion battery that is ideal for powering the electric vehicles now making their way into dealer showrooms. The new battery can store large amounts of energy in a small space and has a high rate capacity, meaning it can provide current even in extreme temperatures.

Wind turbine prices last year fell below 1 million euros ($1.4 million) a megawatt for the first time since 2005, Bloomberg New Energy Finance said. Global turbine contracts signed in the last six months of 2010 for delivery this year averaged 980,000 euros a megawatt, the London-based analyst said today in a statement. That’s down from 1.06 million euros for contracts signed in 2009 and a peak of 1.21 million euros in 2007 and 2008, the group said.

Theo Công ty tư vấn và phân tích tài chính quốc tế Bloomberg New Energy Finance, năm ngoái - lần đầu tiên kể từ năm 2005 - giá của tuabin gió giảm xuống còn dưới 1 triệu euro/megawatt (khoảng 1.4 triệu đôla Mỹ). Theo chuyên gia phân tích tại London ngày 7 tháng 2 cho biết, các hợp đồng vận chuyển tuabin trên thế giới trong 6 tháng cuối năm 2010 ở mức trung bình 980 euro/megawatt. Con số này đạt mức cao nhất đạt đỉnh là 1.21 triệu euro năm 2007 và 2008, và năm 2009 là 1.06 triệu euro.

Advocates of coal power argue that it is among the cheapest sources of energy in the United States and allows for lower-cost power. But a new Harvard study found that whatever money is saved in operation costs is completely negated by the cost coal plants inadvertently pass on to the American public: $345 billion.

Gaining new insight into how efficiently the microbes in large bioreactors produce methane from brewery waste, Cornell scientists hope to use their new knowledge to shape these microbial communities to produce liquid biofuels and other useful products.

The demand for renewable energy is expected to triple over the next decades according to U.N.E.P.’s Year Book 2011. United Nations Environment Program’s 2011 Year Book predicts this year to be the first where low-carbon energy capacity exceeds that of fossil-fuel.

The global market for LED light fixtures, which already stood at $3.8bn in 2010, is expected to grow to $8.3bn within the next three years, according to new research. The heightened awareness of energy efficiency together and global fiscal stimulus has created suitable conditions for the adoption of white light application of LED technology, which would otherwise have faced high costs.

Automobiles, military vehicles, even large-scale power generating facilities may someday operate far more efficiently thanks to a new alloy developed at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory. A team of researchers at the Lab that is jointly funded by the DOE Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, achieved a 25 percent improvement in the ability of a key material to convert heat into electrical energy.

India was taking serious steps to promote alternative technologies that used bio-fuels and solar and wind energy, a senior official said Saturday. India also has plans to produce more bio-fuels and electric vehicles to save petrol for other vital needs, Sohail Akhtar, director in the ministry of new and renewable energy, said.

The UK government has formally announced that it intends to set up a new independent statutory body to regulate nuclear power in the UK, taking over regulatory functions currently performed under the auspices of two different bodies.

Asia leads the growth in global wind power, which grew 35.8 GW in 2010 bringing total global capacity to 194.4 GW – up 22.5% from 2009, the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC) says. Wind power installations in 2010 represented investments worth €47.3 billion, but the global wind power market was nonetheless down for the first time in 20 years. New installations fell 7% compared to 2009, mainly due to a disappointing year in the US, as well as a slowdown in Europe.

France’s solar-panel imports surged last year as developers relied mostly on foreign manufacturers to supply a boom in renewable-energy projects, Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said. French customs figures show the deficit in favor of solar panel imports widened to 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in 2010 compared with 800 million euros the previous year, she said at a conference in Paris.

The research overcomes a major obstacle to producing sustainable and low-cost biofuels. Current biofuel production relies on fermenting sugars found in sugar cane, beets, corn and similar food crops. This process threatens the food supply and is not an eco-friendly solution. To tackle these issues, researchers are exploring new techniques to change woody plants and grasses to liquid fuel, which will absorb both the atmospheric CO2 and the CO2 produced during its process.

Đó là kết luận trong Chỉ số thành phố xanh châu Á – một cuộc nghiên cứu do Đơn vị tình báo kinh tế (EIU) thực hiện dựa trên xếp hạng từ 22 thành phố lớn của châu Á. Theo Channel News Asia, Singapore được đánh giá rất cao trong việc đề ra các mục tiêu đầy tham vọng có lợi cho môi trường cũng như các chiến lược hữu hiệu để đạt được chúng. Đặc biệt, trong chiến lược tiết kiệm năng lượng, Singapore đạt được điểm tối đa.

People were skeptical when the idea was first floated about a year ago, says Nick Getzen, spokesman for The Jobs Project, which is trying to create renewable energy job opportunities in West Virginia and Kentucky. In the southern coalfields, he says, people have only ever gotten electricity one way – from coal-fired power plants.

Germany, a pioneer in many renewable energy initiatives, is also at the forefront of creating environment-friendly toys aimed at making kids think about where energy comes from and how much of it they can use, raising awareness through play.

Energy commissioner considering infrastructure bonds and streamlining national schemes to reduce pressure on banks.EU sources told the newswire that a new type of infrastructure project bond, proposed by commission president Jose Manuel Barroso last year, is likely to be given precedence as a new funding source.

The site allows homeowners and property developers to work out the optimum size of any solar power system they wish to install, and provides users with links to local installers. The site is designed to encourage more uptake of renewable energy in the region and to fuel job growth, according to DRCOG executive director, Jennifer Schaufele.