FOTOTHERM

( http://www.fototherm.com/ ) When you think about humanity’s impact on the climate, images of airplane and car exhaust fumes may spring to mind. Yet aviation and cars only account for 2% and 6% of global carbon emissions, respectively. Another sector — which hardly anyone ever talks about — has higher emissions than both of these put together, accounting for 10% of our planet's greenhouse gases: industrial heat. The high temperatures that heavy industry requires to produce steel, aluminium, concrete, cement, glass and other important resources are mainly derived from burning fossil fuels — often carbon-rich coke or coal. And huge amounts of this heat energy — not to mention the heat generated from sources such as conventional power plants — are simply wasted on a daily basis. If this heat was captured, stored and re-used when required, it could massively improve energy efficiency, cutting both costs and emissions across a wide range of industries. Norwegian start-up EnergyNest has...

Solar park in Ontario. Source: BluEarth  Renewables (www.bluearthrenewables.com) Royal Bank of Canada (TSE:RY-G), or RBC, has signed a renewable power purchase agreement (PPA) that backs the construction of a couple of solar plants in southeast Alberta. Under the terms of the contract, RBC and its partner Bullfrog Power, owned by Spark Power Group Inc, will each buy 31,500 MWh of solar power annually. Scott Foster, global head of corporate real estate at RBC, said in a statement quoted by Bloomberg that RBC is now the first Canadian lender to sign a long-term PPA for renewable energy. The two solar parks that will generate the electricity are expected to be finalised in April 2021, when they will have the combined capacity to produce 80,000 MWh per year. RBC aims to cut greenhouse gas emissions from its operations by 70% and rely solely on renewable and non-emitting electricity by 2025. ( http://www.fototherm.com/ ) Source:  https://renewablesnow.com/news/rbc-bu...

Sasol plans to power its operations in the municipalities of Secunda and Sasolburg with two 10 MW solar projects. The successful bidders with sell power to the factories under power purchase agreements. South Africa-based chemicals producer Sasol has kicked off a  request for proposals (RFP)  process to seek independent power producers for two PV plants that will power its operations in Secunda, Mpumalanga province, and Sasolburg, Free State province. Interested independent power producers have until Oct. 2 to submit their proposals. “We are excited to launch the RFP, which forms part of our broader greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction aspiration and moves us forward on our journey to achieving our target of a 10% GHG emission reduction by 2030,” said the company’s chief sustainability officer, Hermann Wenhold. The winning IPPs will own and operate the plants. They will sell power to Sasol under long-term PPAs. In May, Sasol began to seek partners to potentially deploy rene...

Spanish renewables company Acciona has commissioned Spain’s first floating installation. Plus, Utility EDP has finalized the first, 1 MW phase of a 4 MW project at the Alqueva water reservoir in southern Portugal. Acciona has completed Spain’s first floating solar installation. Image: Acciona Acciona has commissioned Spain’s first grid-connected floating solar plant, in the southern region of Extremadura. The renewables company received authorization for the installation in February and completed commissioning on Monday. The 1.1 MW array is on the southern shore of the Sierra Brava reservoir in the municipality of Zorita, in the province of Cáceres, and spans ​​12,000m 2  – 0.07% of the 1,650ha reservoir. The pilot project features 3,000 solar modules of various types, orientation and inclination across five floating structures and will assess the performance and operations and maintenance costs associated with the different set-ups. Acciona said the plant was conceived “as a techn...

MIT’s vice president for research identifies three areas that show particular promise for climate action. Climate change is a very personal issue to Maria Zuber, MIT’s vice president for research. A native of eastern Pennsylvania, she watched her grandfathers, both coal miners, battle black-lung disease. “The burning of anthracite coal drove my community and was a central part of my childhood,” says Zuber. “Yet it’s been known since the 1800s that combustion of fossil fuels puts CO 2  into the atmosphere, and that the effects can be damaging.”  Today, the catastrophic effects of climate change are showing up even faster than models predicted, she observes. “If you just look at it that way, it’s easy to despair.”  Yet Zuber, also the E. A. Griswold Professor of Geophysics, remains optimistic. “People are looking at those effects based on what we know now, but I think about the actions that will be taken when we have technological breakthroughs and an improved unders...