Renewables-info.com

Norway is by far the largest producer of hydroelectricity in Europe, and also the sixth largest producer in the world.  This rich Scandinavian country is blessed with plentiful hydro resources and is certainly making the most of it. 

Norway has very long history of using hydropower resources, for instance Hammeren power station in Maridalen outside Oslo that become operational in 1900 is still delivering electricity, after more than a century.

According to the most recent reports 98% of country's electricity production is based on hydropower. At the end of 2016, Norway’s hydropower resources combined for over 31 GW installed capacity.

Many energy experts believe that hydrogen is one of future's top fuels. There are many ongoing researches with the purpose of finding the cleanest and the most efficient way to produce hydrogen. One of the most interesting techniques is water splitting by using the sunlight.

Water splitting by using sunlight is really a form of artificial photosynthesis where sunlight is used to produce hydrogen from water. How does this process work?

First we have water splitting devices that are made of light-absorbing materials. These materials are capable to absorb different parts of the solar spectrum ranging from infrared to ultraviolet light. Once the light is absorbed by these materials it builds an electrical voltage.

Wind power use is rapidly growing all over the world. In many corners of the world you can see wind turbines with gigantic rolling blades harnessing the clean power of the wind and converting it into electricity.

How to improve productivity of these wind farms? Many would likely say by adding more wind turbines but this isn't always the case, in fact it can even lead to decreased production. Just getting the numbers up, doesn't always result in getting the more power.

Why is that? We have to start with the premise that each wind turbine has been designed for use by themselves and in wind farm it is almost never used by themselves anymore. Wind turbines are now used in groups of hundreds and even thousands and in large installation with the group of thousand turbines each one may not fulfill its full potential.

Europe's renewable energy directive will aim to double Europe's renewable energy consumption by 2030. The downside to this directive is the fact that European officials will promote the use of wood as a renewable, low carbon fuel.

Under this directive wood should be treated as a low-carbon fuel, which could eventually lead to great harm to the world's forests because the magnitude of using wood as biofuel will likely be far greater than it is now.

Many researchers fear that this qualification will lead to massive new cutting of the world's forests. It has been calculated that the additional wood equal to all of Europe's existing wood harvests will be needed just to supply 5 percent of Europe's energy.

Some researchers estimate that using wood for energy will likely result in 10 to 15 percent in greenhouse gas emissions from Europe's energy use by 2050.

The Chinese government has recently cut solar incentives thus leading to suspension of many new solar projects. Nonetheless, China doesn't want to lose its leading position on global solar energy market and has established International Investment Alliance for Renewable Energy with the main emphasis on solar power.

This alliance will not solely focus on the shipment of new solar modules into new, merging markets but should also help address financing, investment, construction and operation of solar energy projects abroad.

China's energy market is experiencing overcapacity of PV modules which led to major falling of the prices. In this situation Chinese PV manufacturers are basically waiting to see how far prices will fall before deciding the scale of future production.