Author: Anela Dokso

The Covid-19 pandemic has set in motion the largest drop in global energy investment in history, with spending expected to plunge in every major sector this year – from fossil fuels to renewables and efficiency – the International Energy Agency has shown in a new report. The unparalleled decline is staggering in both its scale and swiftness, with serious potential implications for energy security and clean energy transitions. At the start of 2020, global energy investment was on track for growth of around 2%, which would have been the largest annual rise in spending in six years. But after the…

Roll Group is supporting Jan de Nul with the provision of its BigRoll vessels for the offshore wind farm project located off the coast of Virginia Beach. With the operational kick-off of the construction of the offshore wind farm, Jan De Nul formally entered the American offshore renewables market for the first time. The wind farm will be located 27 miles off the coast of Virginia Beach, generating a combined total of 12MW, a cooperation between Dominion and Ørsted Wind Power North America, with Jan De Nul as subcontractor. The first foundation components for two windmills were loaded onto the BigRoll…

DEME has completed the installation of inter-array cables at Belgium’s largest offshore wind farm, SeaMade, utilizing Living Stone vessel. The work on the installation of the inter array cables started in April and was finalized on Tuesday, May 26, 2020. Living Stone operated at peak production levels, laying up to three cables per day, DEME said on its social media. The vessel laid 64 cables with a total length of 71.2 km at the wind farm site in the Belgian North Sea. “Everyone on board and onshore made exceptional efforts to ensure the project remained firmly on track, maintaining safe…

Sunrun has introduced its Brightbox rechargeable solar battery system to Colorado and Nevada.  “Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, America’s energy system was not keeping up with our evolving needs. Now with Americans at home across the country, people need to know that their power will be there when they need it most. Our Brightbox rechargeable solar battery system helps households keep the lights on and better manage energy costs. We’re excited to bring Brightbox to Colorado and Nevada to help even more households take control of their home energy.”Lynn Jurich, Sunrun’s co-founder and CEO.  Clean energy produced from rooftop solar…

Inovateus Solar and En-Trust are joining forces on a portfolio of solar and energy efficiency projects for six Ohio school districts. When completed in 2020, the initial ten solar and energy efficiency improvements will provide an average of 25% annual utility savings for each school with escalated additional savings over 30 years. Collectively, the schools will offset an average of 6432 tons of carbon emissions annually. Inovateus is now in the process of completing the 10 solar installations at the Ayersville, Elida, Holgate, Liberty, Wauseon, and Millcreek-West Unity school districts. Because every district’s energy usage varies, Inovateus has designed the…

Three tidal developers, SABELLA, Orbital Marine Power and Sustainable Marine Energy (SME) have formed a Tidal Alliance to present at OEE2020. The Tidal Alliance is the result of industry players believing in the potential of the sector to be both a climate-friendly solution and an economic opportunity. Ocean Energy Europe CEO Rémi Gruet highlighted the significance of these three companies coming together to support the sector and its annual event. “Tidal continues to make enormous strides both in innovation and in its exponential power production, generating 50% more in 2019 than the year before. Investing in ocean energy today will…

Fugro IOVTEC has secured its third offshore geotechnical site investigation project in Taiwan for the Hai Long 2 and Hai Long 3 offshore wind farms, following two previous geotechnical data acquisition awards in Taiwan during 2020. The project will follow Fugro’s ‘Triple A’ approach of acquiring, analyzing and advising on geo-data, and the contract will take around 10 months to complete. The Hai Long offshore wind farms are being co-developed by Northland Power, Yushan Energy and Mitsui. Fugro IOVTEC will acquire geo-data at 32 wind turbine locations and the site investigation will be carried out in two phases: seabed and…

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has released a study showing how used electric vehicle batteries could provide a backup storage for grid-scale solar photovoltaic installations. The study was carried out by six current and former MIT researchers, including postdoc Ian Mathews and professor of mechanical engineering Tonio Buonassisi, who is head of the Photovoltaics Research Laboratory. As a test case, the researchers examined in detail a hypothetical grid-scale solar farm in California. They studied the economics of several scenarios: building a 2.5-megawatt solar farm alone; building the same array along with a new lithium-ion battery storage system; and building it…

Inovateus Solar has completed three solar projects for Northern Indiana Public Service Company (NIPSCO). The projects, which are the utility’s first solar installations, include a ground-mount solar array at NIPSCO’s Merrillville headquarters. A 120 kilowatt, alternating current (kWac) array with 432 solar panels will generate 216,958 kilowatt-hours (kWh) of clean power annually. Another 100 kWac system with 360 panels was installed at the energy company’s LaPorte local operating office, and a similar-sized system was installed at its Valparaiso local operating office. Each of those projects will produce 181,841 kWh of solar power per year. In total, the three installations will…

Vineyard Wind has partnered with Geoquip Marine to begin geotechnical surveys of the 501 North Federal Lease Area. The site will be the eventual location of Vineyard Wind 1, an 804 megawatt (MW) project that will power roughly 400,000 homes in Massachusetts.   Using two separate vessels, Geoquip Marine’s geotechnical team will gather information on the ground conditions for prospective turbine and substation locations, providing necessary data to the project design.  “Getting to this step would have been a milestone under normal circumstances but to do so now in light of the current pandemic makes reaching this point all the more significant and rewarding. We look forward…