Posted by Greenbang on January 6th, 2008
Scottish and Southern Energy has agreed to buy Irish wind-power firm Airtricity in a £1.1bn deal.
Airtricity is one of the biggest developers of wind farms in the world. And this is a pretty big deal, to say the least. In fact, it’s f8%*ing massive.
This has got to be one of the biggest renewable energy deals to date - well for the UK anyway. We’re unsure about the rest of the world.
Ian Marchant, Chief Executive of SSE, said: “The combination of SSE’s and Airtricity’s interests in renewable energy will provide an excellent platform for future growth, which will be made much more achievable by combining SSE’s financial strength with Airtricity’s outstanding ability in project development. I am looking forward to working with the Airtricity team.
“Seven major public policy developments took place during 2007 alone, all of which point towards a material step-change in the amount of renewable energy that will be required in the future. The range of investment opportunities now available to SSE in renewables will become increasingly important as the world becomes more carbon constrained and the EU becomes more concerned about energy security. Demand for renewable energy is only going to go up.
“In one step this acquisition moves SSE forward in onshore wind, offshore wind, Ireland, Europe and China and gives added momentum to the increasing scale and broadening scope of SSE’s activities which has been achieved over the past few years.
Airtricity runs wind farms in the UK, Ireland, continental Europe and China.
The agreement is subject to clearance by the Irish Competition Authority and by the Irish and Northern Ireland energy regulators and the acquisition is expected to be completed in the first quarter of 2008.
Posted by Yan Yan on October 15th, 2007
Forget the big smelly petrol pumps, why not plug into a small trim electric charger?
To promote the use of electric vehicles (EVs), EDF Energy and Elektromotive are rolling out 250 recharging bays (like the one pictured here) across the UK, by the end of March next year. It’s something of a boost from the paltry 2 charging points currently available (in London).
Sheffield, Islington, Camden and Lambeth councils have all stuck their hands up, with presumably more to follow. More info here.
Posted by Greenbang on September 12th, 2007
Meet Jim Balcom.
<—–
His company, PolyFuel, is making serious headway in the development of fuel cell membranes. These are essentially the technology that enables hydrogen fuel cells to work properly, but in the past have been troublesome to make work.
PolyFuel says:
“These technologies have the potential to change the economics and performance of fuel cells for both the mobile and automotive markets.”
Jim joined PolyFuel in 2002 from Chrysalix, an energy-focused venture capital firm, where he was entrepreneur-in-residence.
Previously, Balcom spent four years with Ballard Power Systems in senior fuel cell development engineering and fuel cell manufacturing management positions.
He was one of five senior fuel cell development engineers responsible for the design and development of the record breaking Mk700 automotive fuel cell stacks delivered to Daimler Benz.
Jim also spent four years with a technology start-up in various VP positions developing and commercializing a flat panel speaker technology licensed from the University of British Columbia’s laboratories.
He has a Systems Design Engineering Degree from the University of Waterloo, and an MBA from Harvard.
Posted by Yan Yan on September 2nd, 2007
Non-hydrogen fuel cell makers are picking up attention from investors as their prospects start to look cheerier than their hydrogen-based siblings.
Non-hydrogen approaches, which are powered by natural gas or other fuels like ethanol tend to focus on power generation, rather than aiming to power tomorrow’s green cars–a daunting prospect.
As Reuters explains:
The key problem facing the hydrogen fuel cell companies was the prohibitive cost of the infrastructure to deliver the hydrogen. Shares of companies in that market segment went through a dot-com-style boom and bust.
“We are some time away from any significant revenue traction in the sector,” said Henwood of Camino Energy.
“The non-hydrogen crowd is a different story; they don’t have the technology challenges and are making progress, and once they get their products solidified they can get revenue traction.”
As firms developing hydrogen-based cells have suffered lately, non-hyrodogen ones are thriving.
“The shift from hydrogen to non-hydrogen fuel cells has been the trend in recent years. Now, the investment community has seen that and are voting with their dollars,” Gary Simon, chief executive of Acumentrics Corp., told Reuters.
“Non-hydrogen has solved some of the problems, and there’s a consensus from customers that they would prefer non-hydrogen fuel cells,” said Simon, whose Westwood, Massachusetts-based company develops 5,000-watt solid oxide fuel cells [pictured above].
Posted by Yan Yan on August 31st, 2007
The chap with the funny eyes pictured here is Jason Elliot, something of a serial entrepreneur in the eco-space.
He is the founder of Ethical Jobs (which Greenbang keeps an eye on for interesting job alerts), Ethical Directory, Ethical Guide, Ethical Product Review and Ethical Goodies.
And there’s more in the works. A wild, crazy guess is that it’s potentially something in the ethical line.
Posted by Greenbang on August 21st, 2007
Greenbang is frothing at the mouth over this one. It’s like the Great Wall of China all over again.
If you’ve not yet heard of architect William McDonough, you soon will have.
The Chinese government has him designing SEVEN new sustainable cities for them. He’s a genius .
While people are happy to lambast China with the world’s CO2 problems - it recently was labelled the world’s worst emitter of CO2 - Greenbang thinks the Chinese realise the problem and are quickly looking to solve it - perhaps faster than the West will be able to.
China is on a roll of change. Why not leapfrog a few more technologies while they’re at it?
Posted by Greenbang on August 20th, 2007
A very formal pose is struck by Kelly Smith, the managing director at Smartbunker - a data centre that claims it uses zero carbon energy.
Power used within the 30,000 square feet data centre is free from carbon emissions, being generated entirely from renewable resources.
If this is true, Greenbang wants to know more about this.
They say:
“Smartbunker’s zero carbon energy policy is a preferable alternative to ‘carbon offsetting’ in which carbon emitted by traditional energy supplies is theoretically neutralised by projects designed to extract carbon from the environment.
He says:
“All the elements of design guarantees that our customers have all the service and environmental benefits at no additional cost,”
Kelly has 20 years’ experience in IT. He co-founded Centrinet in 1995.
