14th of May

Electricity sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases

The Electricity sector involves the generation, transmission, and distribution of electricity. Carbon dioxide (CO₂) makes up the vast majority of greenhouse gas emissions from the sector, but smaller amounts of methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) are also emitted. These gases are released during the combustion of fossil fuels, such as coal, oil, and natural gas, to produce electricity. Less than 1% of greenhouse gas emissions from the sector come from sulfur hexafluoride (SF₆), an insulating chemical used in electricity transmission and distribution equipment.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Electricity Sector by Fuel Source

Coal combustion is generally more carbon intensive than burning natural gas or petroleum for electricity. Although coal accounts for about 77% of CO₂emissions from the sector, it represents about 39% of the electricity generated in the United States. About 27% of electricity generated in 2014 was generated using natural gas, an increase relative to 2013. Petroleum accounts for approximately 1% of electricity generation. The remaining generation comes from nuclear (about 19%) and renewable sources (about 13%), which includes hydroelectricity, biomass, wind, and solar.^[1] These other sources usually release fewer greenhouse gas emissions than fossil fuel combustion, if any emissions at all.

Emissions and Trends

In 2014, the electricity sector was the largest source of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for about 30% of the U.S. total. Greenhouse gas emissions from electricity have increased by about 12% since 1990 as electricity demand has grown and fossil fuels have remained the dominant source for generation.

Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Electricity End-Use

Electricity is consumed by other sectors–in homes, businesses, and factories. Therefore, it is possible to attribute the greenhouse gas emissions from electricity production to the sectors that use the electricity. Looking at greenhouse gas emissions by end-use sector can help us understand energy demand across sectors and changes in energy use over time.

When emissions from electricity are allocated to the end-use sector, industrial activities account for a much larger share of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. Emissions from commercial and residential buildings also increase substantially when emissions from electricity are included, due to their relatively large share of electricity consumption (e.g., lighting and appliances).

Reducing Emissions from Electricity

There are a variety of opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions associated with electricity generation, transmission, and distribution. The table shown below categorizes these opportunities and provides examples. For a more comprehensive list, see Chapter 7 of the Contribution of Working Group

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Electricity sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases

7th of May

Here Comes The Next Huge Wave Of Solar Panels

The solar industry is booming. The millionth set of solar panels in the United States was installed sometime in the last two months, and industry leaders expect the number of solar-powered systems to double within two years.

That’s a huge deal, experts say. While solar still only makes up 1 percent of the country’s energy mix, the swift rise in solar capacity portends a bright future for an energy source that, less than 10 years ago, a leading solar tech scientist dismissed as “green bling for the wealthy.”

Just 30,000 residential solar installations dotted the country a decade ago. Since then, the cost of generating power from solar has dropped by over 70 percent. Falling production costs, combined with improvements in electricity storage and a decline in the number of coal-fired power plants, has fueled the industry’s breakneck growth, according to Rhone Resch, president and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

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Here Comes The Next Huge Wave Of Solar Panels

2nd of May

Hundreds of UK churches set to go green, switch to renewable energy-charities

More than 400 churches in the United Kingdom plan to switch to clean energy providers for their light and heat, shifting spending of 1 million pounds ($1.4 million) to renewables from fossil fuels, two Christian charities said on Wednesday.

The move is part of the Big Church Switch, an initiative launched in February by charities Christian Aid and Tearfund, which urged UK churches and households to use clean sources of energy instead of carbon-emitting fossil fuels.

Their online platform connects those who sign up with energy experts, promising to find them the best renewable deal by negotiating with energy providers. Get a quote for a Solar rooftop system

Hundreds of UK churches set to go green, switch to renewable energy-charities

2nd of May

Community Solar Comes to New York

Call it one small shovelful of dirt for New York’s Capital District, one giant leap for solar power in New York State and nationwide.

This week, project developers and state energy officials broke ground on the Empire State’s first shared solar project, an offsite solar array that will allow tenants, businesses, and others who don’t have good roof access to get all the benefits of solar without putting panels on their own roofs. The policies that have enabled this first project, and the many more shared renewables projects now in the pipeline across New York State, were created last summer by the New York State Public Service Commission as part of Governor Cuomo’s NY-Sun Initiative, which aims to bring 3 gigawatts of solar power online by 2023. (That’s enough to power 400,000 homes.) They’ll play a crucial part in New York’s plan to get 50 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030 and in the state’s Reforming the Energy Vision effort to make New York’s electric system cleaner, more resilient, and more affordable for all New Yorkers.

Programs that promote clean energy in New York are helping state residents and businesses save money on energy, for sure. And not only that: They’re enabling all of us to breathe cleaner air. They’re limiting carbon pollution; they’re creating good local jobs; and, they’re helping make New York’s electric grid more resilient in the face of the increasingly extreme weather that results from climate change. No wonder more and more advocates across the country are pushing states to design and implement policies that allow for shared solar and other shared renewables. (To date, there are just 106 megawatts of the stuff installed nationwide, but the market is poised to boom.)

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Community Solar Comes to New York

29th of April

These States Don’t Want You to Get Solar Power

A lot has been said already about the success of the states that are leading the adoption of solar energy. There’s plenty to celebrate, as solar installationssmash records and as the industry grows 12 times faster than the U.S. economy. At the same time, it’s important to recognize that many people live in places where the government is either not facilitating a solar market or is actively smothering it.

Solar obstructionism takes center stage in a report, aptly titled “Throwing Shade,” out Tuesday from Greer Ryan at the Center for Biological Diversity. The organization advocates for an energy system that’s clean, equitable, and wildlife friendly, so Ryan set out to rank the states based on how well their policies encourage rooftop solar panels. Then she analyzed the 10 worst-scoring states with the highest solar potential in order to better understand how the absence of state-level policies—or the presence of antagonistic ones—hampers the growth of solar markets.

In theory, those 10 states could produce up to 35 percent of the nation’s energy supply from rooftop solar installations. Instead, they only account for 6 percent. If we imagine a world where men and women could install solar panels wherever they provided the most benefits, we would expect the regions with the most potential to have the most installations. State policies and regulations intervene, though. Texas and Florida, for example, rank second and third for potential in the U.S., but rank 12^th and 14^th in terms of how much distributed solar power they actually produce. Here are some key actions these states (which also include Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Virginia, and Wisconsin) take that prevent solar growth.

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These States Don’t Want You to Get Solar Power

20th of April

San Francisco becomes first major US city to mandate rooftop solar on new buildings

In which the City requires new buildings to go from ‘solar ready’ rooftops to solar actual.

The City by the Bay just took a big step toward its goal of powering the city with 100% renewable electricity by 2025 with the passage of a bill that will require new residential and commercial buildings to include rooftop solar, either solar electric or solar water heating. This ordinance, which was unanimously passed by the city’s Board of Supervisors, is essentially the extension of an existing regulation that required new building projects to designate 15% of a building’s roof as being “solar ready,” which means unshaded and clear of obstructions and reserved for solar.

With the new ordinance, this 15% solar ready area will not only be reserved for solar, but will also be required to actually have solar on it, which is a big missing piece of the original. The regulation will only apply to new construction of buildings of less than 10 floors (which is also the case with the original), and in an already highly developed metropolis such as San Francisco, the demand for new buildings with less than 10 floors to them isn’t nearly as high as in a smaller, less dense city, so it’s not exactly a massive solar plan for the city, by any means. And as Fortune points out, it can be a particularly difficult city to for building development, so this solar addition may just add to the potential challenges for builders.

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San Francisco becomes first major US city to mandate rooftop solar on new buildings

19th of April

Shedding light on the cost of going solar

When you say you want to help the environment, few steps could signal it any louder than putting solar panels on the roof of your house.

It is easier than ever for Americans to tap the sun’s energy with costs coming down and the number of providers going up. In 2015, residential solar use jumped by more 135,000 installations in the United States, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association, bringing the total up to 748,000 homes. At the same time, the SEIA says initial costs dropped 73 percent since 2006, and ongoing costs fell 45 percent since 2010.

For Tom Moser, a homeowner in Tucson, Arizona, the decision to go solar was not a hard one. Moser spends his days helping people invest their retirement portfolios in green ways, as head of the Impact Investing Division of Portfolio Resources Advisor Group, so it was all part of putting his money where his mouth is.

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Shedding light on the cost of going solar

19th of April

Habitat house saves energy costs with solar power

A family of five in Gaithersburg is now enjoying life in a recently renovated home, provided by Habitat For Humanity. And Monday morning, they flipped the switch on their newly installed solar panels.

Abebe Woldesenbet and Amsale Demeke emigrated from Ethiopia in 2001.

He drives a taxi. She works at a local grocery store. With three children, they’ve struggled financially, moving from apartment to apartment.

This year, they became proud homeowners. Renovated by Habitat For Humanity Metro Maryland, the family moved into a house in a quiet Gaithersburg neighborhood in December.

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Habitat house saves energy costs with solar power

16th of April

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14th of April

Development banks urged to put more energy into power for poor

The World Bank and other major development banks are investing far too little in getting electric power to poor people around the globe, and should allocate at least half their energy budgets to such projects, environmental groups said on Thursday. Some 1.1 billion people, one in seven of the world’s population, still lack access to electricity. New global goals agreed this year set a target for everybody to have access to “affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy” by 2030. In a report issued as the World Bank spring meetings began in Washington DC, the Sierra Club and Oil Change International said top development banks had made little progress in their overall contribution to achieving that goal in the past two years. “For far too long, massive centralized power plants and expanding the grid have been the default approach in addressing energy poverty – a strategy which has clearly failed to reach the world’s poorest,” said Alex Doukas of Oil Change International. The African Development Bank and the Asian Development Bank dedicated the highest proportion of their energy portfolios to energy access, at just over a quarter each in the three fiscal years 2012 to 2014, according to the report. The World Bank allocated 10 percent of its energy investment to access over that period, while the Inter-American Development Bank’s share was just under 6 percent, the report showed. “There’s still time to reach the world’s goal of eliminating energy poverty by 2030 if these institutions act fast to rebalance their budgets toward what’s needed,” said Vrinda Manglik of the Sierra Club’s International Climate and Energy Campaign.

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Electricity sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases

Electricity sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases

Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the Electricity Sector by Fuel Source

Emissions and Trends

Greenhouse Gas Emissions by Electricity End-Use

Reducing Emissions from Electricity

Electricity sector is the largest contributor of greenhouse gases

Here Comes The Next Huge Wave Of Solar Panels

Here Comes The Next Huge Wave Of Solar Panels

Here Comes The Next Huge Wave Of Solar Panels

Hundreds of UK churches set to go green, switch to renewable energy-charities

Hundreds of UK churches set to go green, switch to renewable energy-charities

Hundreds of UK churches set to go green, switch to renewable energy-charities

Community Solar Comes to New York

Community Solar Comes to New York

Community Solar Comes to New York

These States Don’t Want You to Get Solar Power

These States Don’t Want You to Get Solar Power

These States Don’t Want You to Get Solar Power

San Francisco becomes first major US city to mandate rooftop solar on new buildings

San Francisco becomes first major US city to mandate rooftop solar on new buildings

San Francisco becomes first major US city to mandate rooftop solar on new buildings

Shedding light on the cost of going solar

Shedding light on the cost of going solar

Shedding light on the cost of going solar

Habitat house saves energy costs with solar power

Habitat house saves energy costs with solar power

Habitat house saves energy costs with solar power

VideoHindi

सौर ऊर्जा हिंदी विडियो

Development banks urged to put more energy into power for poor

Development banks urged to put more energy into power for poor

Development banks urged to put more energy into power for poor