Renewable Energy

Duke Energy Renewables announced today it has acquired three solar power projects from SunPower Corp. totaling 55 megawatts (MW).

The sites include the 20-MW Rio Bravo I, the 20-MW Rio Bravo II, and the 15-MW Wildwood Solar II solar power plants. They are located in Kern County, California, adjacent to two existing solar sites owned by Duke Energy Renewables.

The Ray and its partners have dedicated two newly installed state-of-the-art technologies that are both "firsts" in the U.S.; solar paved roads for cleaner energy and tire pressure and tread depth measurement for safety awareness.

More than 200 public electric vehicle (EV) charging stations will be installed soon under Duke Energy's "EV Charging Infrastructure Project."

DuPont Industrial Biosciences (DuPont) and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) have been honored with the Breakthrough Solution of the Year Award from Platts Global Energy for their platform technology to produce a revolutionary biobased monomer, furan dicarboxylic methyl ester(FDME). The award was announced at the 18th Platts Global Energy Awards, held in New York on Thursday, Dec. 8.

Germany-based solar energy provider Little Sun has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) by committing to provide clean and affordable solar lighting to 5 million people in Africa while bringing livelihood opportunities and training to at least 4,000 local micro-entrepreneur distributors until 2020.

Solar energy provider Nizam Bijli has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA) with a commitment to reach 1 million off-grid rural beneficiaries in Pakistan with affordable solar energy solutions, access to financial services and health insurance by 2020. In addition, the company commits to support 25,000 micro-entrepreneur distributors (including 2,500 women), and train 500 technical support staff.

SC Johnson, maker of trusted consumer brands like Glade®, Raid®, Scrubbing Bubbles® and Ziploc®, today released “Going Beyond,” its 2016 Sustainability Report. This issue marks the company’s 25th annual report on its environmental and social efforts.

The IKEA Group Sustainability Report for fiscal year (FY) 2016 shows strong progress towards its People & Planet Positive strategy and continued long-term investments in sustainability. A financial frame of EUR 1 billion, announced today, takes investments earmarked for sustainability to over EUR 3 billion.

Scientists tell us that earth is overshooting its planetary boundaries at a rate far quicker than the average person would believe. This situation becomes rapidly compounded by the significant challenges of population growth, urbanization, unemployment and rising socioeconomic inequality. To complicate things further, the most rapid change is occurring in those parts of the world with the least resources and capacity to manage these effects.

While the debate over the use of nuclear power continues, the renewable energy sector is quietly forging ahead and independent power producers are adding much-needed capacity to the grid. Since the Department of Energy (DoE) embarked on its alternative energy drive in 2012, capital investments in renewables have totalled almost R200 billion.

South Africa has some of the best natural resources available for solar and wind power. This, together with a reputationally strong and well-run independent power procurement programme, has created opportunities for institutional investors like Futuregrowth − who is now a leading funder of the programme.