New findings from Dr Anthony Patt of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Africa shows that the proposed supergrid that could power all of Europe with renewable energy only would need around £50 billion of government funded money to become a reality.

The £50 billion government investment would, according to Patt, convince private companies that the supergrid idea is both “feasible” and “attractive”, the Guardian reports.

“In the long term, such a plan, combined with strings of windfarms along the north Africa coast, could “supply Europe with all the energy it needs”.

He said technological advances combined with falling costs have made it realistic to consider north Africa as Europe’s main source of imported energy.

“The sun is very strong there and it’s very reliable. There is starting to be a growing number of cost estimates of both wind and concentrated solar power for North Africa….that start to compare favourably with alternative technologies. The cost of moving [electricity] long distances has really come down.”

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Photo credit: jesse.millan

Sweden might be the host for Europe’s largest wind farm if the Swedish government approves the proposed plans. The wind farm will be located in Markbygden near Piteå in northern Sweden and will have a total of 1,101 wind turbines.

“This would be Europe’s, if not the world’s, biggest wind farm,” Caj Noren, a spokesman for the board, told AFP. Construction could begin in two-and-a-half years and would be completed after about a decade, Noren said.

Once constructed the wind farm will produce between 8 to 12 terawatt hours per year and would alone meet Sweden’s national wind power target to reach 10 terawatt hours by 2015. The wind farm is expected to cost about 55 billion Swedish Kronor (around $6.9 billion or €4.5 billion) to construct.

The Swedish right-wing government recently announced that they will reverse a nearly 30-year-old ban on building nuclear power plants. Its madness when we can get cheap, clean renewable energy and at the same time create thousands of new jobs from wind farms like this one.

Photo credit: Blyzz

New research from the Helsinki University of Technology’s Advanced Energy Systems in Espoo, Finland, shows that with the help from global cooperation and investment renewable energy will “exceed all previous estimates.”

According to the new findings renewable energy technologies like wind and photovoltaics could supply 40% of the world’s electricity by 2050. But this could only become a reality if the renewable technology is backed up by adequate financial and political support. If not, the renewable share is likely to hover somewhere below 15 percent.

“Our findings demonstrate that with global political support and financial investment, previous notions that the potential for renewables was in some way limited to a negligible fraction of world demand were wrong,” Peter Lund from the Helsinki University of Technology’s Advanced Energy Systems said. “If we prioritize and recognize the value of renewable energy technologies, their potential to supply us with the energy we need is tremendous.”

Previous projections have put the renewable share at only 12% by 2030.

Also read: 10% of U.S. Energy Now Comes From Renewable Energy Sources

Photo credit: phault

Sölvesborg, a small village near the coast located in southern Sweden, was first in the world with sea-based wind power. And now it might become the place for Sweden’s and northern Europe’s largest offshore wind farm.

The renewable energy companies Vingkraft AB and Eolus Vind AB wants to construct 500 wind turbines in the sea outside of Sölvesborg by 2014-2019. Once completed the wind farm will supply 5-7 TWh of electricity every year. That is equal to the amount of electricity the now decommissioned Swedish nuclear plant Barsebäck generated every year.

Although the proposed wind farm have a long way to go and many different instances to pass, such as the military, before getting approved the local politicians and people in the region are excited. The politicians believe the wind farm will create thousands of new jobs in the region and even act as a way to attract more tourists.

The wind farm is expected to cost 50 billion Swedish kronor, equal to around €4.5 billion.

Five French wind farm projects, totalling 77MW capacity came online in February 2008. Project France phase-2 was a €115 million project constructing a total of 42 turbines. This challenge was undertaken as a joint venture by EOLE-RES S.A, a French wind park developer, and Renewable Energy Systems of the UK.

Mott MacDonald Ltd, a well renowned Global engineering consultancy, was appointed as Lenders and Owners Engineer for the project, which spanned three regions of France. In charge of due diligence as well as Owners’ engineer work for the project, Mott MacDonald was also present throughout the construction phase. Ron Donnelly of Mott MacDonald explained the increase in wind farm developments recently was “due to high oil prices there is more motivation for people to try to meet the low carbon agenda…investments in wind farms are becoming much more popular.”

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It seems that as for every day that passes more and more jobs in USA gets outsourced and shipped overseas to countries with cheaper labour. That’s why it must be great news for the people of Colorado in USA that Vestas, the world’s leading supplier of wind energy, has announced that they will “outsource” 1350 new green tech jobs to Colorado.

Besides one factory already being built in Colorado at a total cost of $200 the Danish company Vestas will invest $120 million in a new blade factory and a nacelle assembly factory in Brighton. Thanks to these investments a total of 2450 people will be on Vestas payroll in Colorado.

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The statistics are in for the first half of 2008 and they show that USA, for the first time, generated more wind energy than Germany. This “milestone” wasn’t expected to be reached until late 2009.

Germany still has more wind turbines than USA and is able to generate 22,000 – 23,000 megawatts of power compared to USA’s capacity of about 18,000 megawatts.

But Randall Swisher, the executive director of the American Wind Energy Association, said that “the difference is that because the winds are so much stronger here in the U.S. we are actually providing more wind-generated electricity than Germany.” He also said that the US “wind energy capacity is growing faster than anyplace else.”

This is great news but USA is still far behind everyone else in terms of green renewable energy, especially wind energy.

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It’s a brand new year for Europe, and for the European Union member states is has started with “tough” greenhouse gas emission targets being set. The new targets require that a certain amount of renewable energy will be installed in every member state. It’s different amounts depending on the size and ability of each and every country.

So how well are the different European countries doing? Well, that’s too early to say right now, but here is a list on the ten countries who have built the most wind plants in Europe last year:

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A Greenpeace campaigner from Spain has reported that wind power have broken all previous records in Spain.

A total of 13908 MW in wind capacity have been built in Spain. And because of good wind conditions wind energy in Spain reached 9563 MW of generated power. “Wind power met 25% of demand at that hour, well above coal (15%) and nuclear (16%). A new record may be expected today.”

As more investments is being re-directed from the fossil market to the renewable market and new technologies and improvements sprung up we will surely see more records and improvements in the efficiency of for example wind energy.

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