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a reprint from ETH News , 2018-11-14 Die Schweiz wird trockener, heisser, schneeärmer und kämpft künftig mit heftigeren Niederschlägen – zu diesem Ergebnis kommen Klimaforschende von MeteoSchweiz und der ETH Zürich. Heute präsentierten sie die im Auftrag des Bundes erstellten Klimaszenarien CH2018. Sie bilden die Basis für die Anpassungsstrategie des Bundes an den Klimawandel. Gemüsebauern bewässern die trockenen Böden, Tropennächte rauben Menschen den Schlaf und Hausbesitzer kämpfen mit Überschwemmungen. Eine Zukunft, die gemäss den Resultaten der Klimaszenarien bei ungebremstem Klimawandel absehbar ist. Bereits heute ist es wärmer als früher in unserem Land. «Wir müssen uns auf die Klimaveränderungen einstellen und uns anpassen», weiss Andreas Fischer, Projektleiter der Klimaszenarien CH2018 bei MeteoSchweiz. Künftig noch höhere Temperaturen Die neuen Szenarien bestätigen und erweitern das bisher bekannte Bild des Klimawandels. Sie zeigen vier Hauptveränderunge...

a reprint from triplepundit , 2018-10-25 Renewable energy funds are on the rise, seeking to match profits with a commitment to sustainability. These funds invest not only in generators of solar and wind power and their suppliers, but also in manufacturers of LED light bulbs, electric cars and automobile batteries. Stock mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are jumping on the bandwagon—from big players like Fidelity Investments and its  Select Environment and Alternative Energy Portfolio to smaller ones that have been at it for decades, such as the  New Alternatives Fund . The fact that major companies like Facebook, with its pledge to power global operations with 100 percent renewable energy by 2020, are going in big for renewables sweetens the financial prospect for investors. Electricity sector leads the way in renewable energy investment According to the International Energy Agency’s latest market forecast , renewables will continue their ex...

a reprint from Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft , 2018-10-17 Seit 2008 hat sich der Strommarkt stark verändert. Getrieben wird diese Entwicklung vom technologischen Fortschritt bei der erneuerbaren Stromproduktion und den digitalen Technologien, der Preisentwicklung der fossilen Energien und des CO2 sowie von neuen energie- und klimapolitischen Zielen der Schweiz und ihrer europäischen Nachbarn. Der Bundesrat hat vor diesem Hintergrund entschieden, für den Schweizer Strommarkt neue Rahmenbedingungen zu schaffen. Er hat an seiner Sitzung vom 17. Oktober 2018 dazu die Revision des Stromversorgungsgesetzes (StromVG) in die Vernehmlassung gegeben. Im Zentrum stehen die Versorgungssicherheit, ein effizient funktionierender, offener Markt sowie neue Netzregulierungen, die den Ausbau der dezentralen, erneuerbaren Stromproduktion unterstützen sollen. Die Vernehmlassung dauert bis am 31. Januar 2019. D...

a reprint from Naturwissenschaften Schweiz , 2018-10-17 Ein Rückblick auf das erste schweizweite NCCS Forum, ein Ausblick auf die Lancierung der neuen Schweizer CH2018 Klimaszenarien und das NCCS als Film einfach erklärt. Das erste NCCS Forum: Ein Rückblick Am 5. Dezember 2017 stellte das National Centre for Climate Services (NCCS) – das Netzwerk des Bundes für Klimadienstleistungen – sich und seine Aufgaben und Aktivitäten in seinem ersten Forum in Bern vor. Ziel des schweizweiten Anlasses war es, eine Schnittstelle für den Dialog zwischen Produzentinnen und Produzenten und Nutzenden von Klimadienstleistungen zu schaffen, dadurch zu vernetzen sowie interaktiv Ideen und Bedürfnisse auszutauschen. Nach einem Einstieg in die Klimadienstleistungs-Thematik und einer Präsentation zum NCCS berichteten drei Nutzerinnen und Nutzer, warum und wofür sie für ihre Arbeit Klimadienstleistungen benötigen: Die Finanzexpertin Sabine Döbeli von Swiss Sustainable Finance ...

a reprint from phys.org , 2018-07-02 Greenhouse gases were the main driver of climate throughout the warmest period of the past 66 million years, providing insight into the drivers behind long-term climate change. Antarctica and Australia separated around the end of the Eocene (56 to 22.9 million years ago), creating a deep water passage between them and changing ocean circulation patterns. Some researchers believe these changes were the driver of cooling temperatures near the end of the Eocene 'hothouse' period, but some think declining levels of carbon dioxide were to blame. If the cooling had been caused by changes in ocean circulation, regions around the equator would have warmed as the polar regions cooled, shifting the distribution of heat on Earth. But changing the concentration of greenhouse gases would affect the total heat trapped in Earth's atmosphere, causing cooling everywhere (including in the tropics), which is what the researchers found. The findings ...

a reprint from the economist , 2018-06-25 A LITTLE over a decade ago, when JinkoSolar, a Shanghai-based company, entered the solar business, it was such a novice that when it visited international trade fairs, all it had was a bare table and a board with its name scribbled on it. But it also had luck, a technological edge and lots of public money on its side. The industry globally was riding high on subsidies. Generous feed-in-tariffs (FITs), financial incentives for installing solar, made Germany the world’s largest solar market by around 2010. Germans turned to China for cheap sources of crystalline silicon solar panels, not least because subsidised land and loans enabled China’s fledgling manufacturers to undercut European and American competitors. When European solar subsidies slumped during the euro crisis, the Chinese government once again stepped in to support its renewable-energy champions. It offered FITs to slather the remote west of China with solar farms. By 2013 C...

a reprint from IEA , 2018-06-16 Fossil fuels currently play a critical role in industry, not only as sources of energy, but also of feedstocks and process agents. Clean electricity could provide a sustainable alternative , but hurdles remain – particularly in terms of costs. In Northern Europe, offshore wind is showing potential to provide significant amounts of clean power to industry, with generation costs possibly falling to the range of €55 to € 70/MWh. This increasingly affordable renewable electricity strengthens the potential for cost-effective replacement of fossil fuels by electricity in industry. However, the continuing cost gap with the direct use of gas or coal to generate heat limits this potential to those electric technologies that are at least twice as efficient as fossil fuel uses. For now, a complete shift would require carbon prices at levels up to € 150 per tonne, a level even higher than projected for 2040 in the World Energy Outlook Sustai...

a reprint from The Guardian , 2018-06-16 The world is on track to exceed 1.5C of warming unless countries rapidly implement “far-reaching” actions to reduce carbon emissions, according to a draft UN report leaked to Reuters . The final draft report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC) was due for publication in October. It is the guiding scientific document for what countries must do to combat climate change. Human-induced warming would exceed 1.5C by about 2040 if emissions continued at their present rate, the report found, but countries could keep warming below that level if they made “rapid and far-reaching” changes. Under the 2015 Paris climate agreement, almost 200 countries signed up to limit global temperature rises to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C. Climate scientist and Climate Analytics director Bill Hare said the draft report showed with greater clarity ...

a reprint from ee-news Sowohl Batteriespeicher wie moderne Pumpspeicherwerke können innerhalt von 30 Sekunden Primärregelenergie liefern. Engie Deutschland beide Speichertypen kombiniert und auf dem Gelände der Kraftwerksgruppe Pfreimd in der deutschen Oberpfalz einen 12.5 MW Lithium-Ionen-Speicher in Betrieb genommen. Der Anteil der erneuerbaren Energien an der Bruttostromerzeugung liegt mit 43 Prozent in Bayern weit über dem Bundesdurchschnitt. Neue Technologien wie der Grossbatteriespeicher mit kurzen Reaktionszeiten ergänzen die bewährten Technologien und sind ein wichtiger Baustein für das Stromsystem der Zukunft. Der dezentrale Batteriespeicher ergänzt die bestehende Anlage des Pumpspeicherkraftwerks, das bereits heute rund fünf Prozent der Regelenergie für das deutsche Netz bzw. ein Prozent für das westeuropäische Übertragungsnetz liefert. Über ein Pooling beider Anlagen sorgt Engie für die nötige Besicherung der Regelene...

Per 01.06.2018 ersetzt Energie Zürich die bisherige Plattform 2000 Watt Regionen CH: https://www.xing.com/communities/groups/energie-zuerich-863b-1084155 . Primäres Ziel ist und bleibt die Vernetzung von Akteuren im Bereich Nachhaltigen Energiemanagements sowie die zeitnahe Publizierung energierelevanter Themen. Desweiteren wird diese Plattform auch genutzt um die Erfolge des Teams Energiemanagement Immobilien Stadt Zürich der breiteren Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen: https://www.stadt-zuerich.ch/hbd/de/index/immobilien-bewirtschaftung/eigentuemervertretung/betriebsoptimierung.html .

a reprint from pv magazine While we’ve seen prices for solar power installations globally fall well below one U.S. dollar per watt, it was only relatively recently (later in 2016, early 2017) that those prices were seen in the United States. And with the effects of tariffs on imported solar panels under Section 201, there are some projects that might have been under that number that won’t come to be – yet. GTM Research did the math as part of a presentation by Research Manager Scott Moskowitz at GTM’s Solar Summit,  Trends in Solar Technology and System Prices,  which projects that utility scale fixed-tilt systems could reach 70 U.S. cents per watt by 2022. It should be noted that the Section 201 tariff is scheduled to end in early 2022, and that to qualify for the 22% Solar Investment Tax Credit (the last year before it goes to 10% indefinitely) you must break ground in 2021 and complete the project before the end of 2023. GTM Research projects savings from a range...

2017-11-25 The next step in the development of ener MET ( http://enerMET-data.ch ) included the preparation of multi window handling. You can now open several windows (e.g. empty ener MET windows, weather sheets or tabs for energy demand calculation - here results of the main jENERGY.js function will be provided - remark : jENERGY.js is the sister function of jWEATHER.js ).  By clicking on the respective top window bar the corresponding window will be put in front and the others placed in the background. That window being in the front is also the active window, easily recognisable with the powerful bar color. As previously, the windows are also draggable and separately removable. For further information join either the newly launched E nergy . M onitoring . M anagement group on LinkedIN: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/13564220 , follow via twitter: https://twitter.com/_kt75 or get directly in touch: wolfram.scharnhorst@protonmail.ch .

2017-11-14 In order to further improve the functionality of the application ener MET (current version 1.3.7beta, release 20171031, http://enerMET.ch ) the j-application geoLoc has been implemented. Depending upon the approval by the user, the current position of the user is detected and its location is used as home location. Currently, the estimation of the present residential energy demand, based upon environmental data is on the way. You may visit http://wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.ch in order to get a first impression. In case you want to support the further development, get in touch: wolfram.scharnhorst@protonmail.ch .

2017-10-24 The rss feed of the ener MET homepage http://enerMET.blogspot.ch has been added. You can now subscribe and stay tuned about the further development of the ener MET application.

  reprint Japan anticipates that by 2030 clean energy such as solar and hydro will generate slightly more of the nation’s electricity than nuclear power plants . _progress | M replaces _kt75 | mirror. visit: http://progress-m.blogspot.com . ready: 01.07.2015. close ✕ Clean energy sources will supply as much as 24 percent of Japan’s electricity in 15 years, while atomic power will account for as much as 22 percent, according to a draft report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on what Japan’s electricity mix should look like by 2030. Though the eagerly-awaited report — the result of months of study by a ministry panel debating the electricity mix — continues to see a need for nuclear , the draft proposes a diminished role compared with before the Fukushima disaster of March 2011. Nuclear power accounted for more than a quarter of Japan’s electricity generation before the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors. Even the 22 percent level is doubtful for a n...

  reprint Japan anticipates that by 2030 clean energy such as solar and hydro will generate slightly more of the nation’s electricity than nuclear power plants . Clean energy sources will supply as much as 24 percent of Japan’s electricity in 15 years, while atomic power will account for as much as 22 percent, according to a draft report from the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry on what Japan’s electricity mix should look like by 2030. Though the eagerly-awaited report — the result of months of study by a ministry panel debating the electricity mix — continues to see a need for nuclear , the draft proposes a diminished role compared with before the Fukushima disaster of March 2011. Nuclear power accounted for more than a quarter of Japan’s electricity generation before the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi reactors. Even the 22 percent level is doubtful for a nation with one of the world’s oldest nuclear fleets and where the majority of the public has opposed atomic genera...

reprint UPDATE -- The debate about the future use of coal to generate power gathered steam in Germany after the country recently saw greenhouse gas emissions rise. The government’s Climate Action Programme foresees additional emission cuts from the power sector and the federal grid planning agency now assumes there will be one third less coal in the power mix in the future. By summer 2015, the Ministry for Energy wants to present legislation that specifies how and when coal power generation has to be limited. Power generation from coal has long served German industry, and despite Germany’s reputation as an ecological role model, the cheap, carbon-intensive, fossil fuel has recently seen a revival. After many scientists, activists and politicians, including the Environment Minister, warned that Germany would miss its target of cutting CO2 by 40 percent by 2020 (over 1990), the government adopted a plan to cut the share of coal in the mix . The Climate Action Programme stipulates that ...

reprint A major new Deutsche Bank report has predicted that energy storage – the “missing link of solar adoption” – will be cheap enough – and technologically ready – to be deployed on a large-scale within the next five years. The solar industry report, published on Friday, said that while costs for the greater majority of available battery technologies remained prohibitive, economically competitive batteries were the “killer app” and the “holy grail” of solar penetration. But with many costs already lower than published literature would suggest, Deutsche Bank believes this ultimate solar and renewable energy goal might not be far out of reach. “Using conservative assumptions and no incentives, our model indicates that the incremental cost of storage will decrease from ~14c/kWh today to ~2c/kWh within the next five years,” the report says. “When overall system cost decreases are considered, we believe solar + batteries will be a clear financial choice in mature solar ma...

_NEW: follow the development of the new web-presence wolframscharnhorst.blogspot.com ▶ TOP NEWS : Alpiq starts new business: Dismantling of Nuclear Power PLants. reprint Existing nuclear power plants are extremely valuable societal assets. Shutting them down in the absence of compelling economic or technical reasons is folly. It sometimes feels like this statement is so obvious that it shouldn’t need to be made and yet you don’t have to look far to see governments which appear not to care. subscription : rss-reader index : all reprints here In Europe, Germany and Belgium have implemented arbitrary caps on reactor lifespans as part of their phase-out policies. Green party pressure in Sweden may yet result in tax hikes which make the ongoing operation of nuclear plants there next to impossible. In Spain the Garoña plant closed due to the impact of a new tax law (the government is now in fact seeking to resurrect the plant). Even in France, that champion of nuclear technol...