Part 2 of 2




TotalEnergies last month announced the commencement of construction on its hybrid renewables project in Northern Cape province, South Africa. The project comprises a 216 MW solar plant and a 500 MWh battery storage system.

The project is being developed by a consortium of TotalEnergies (35%), Hydra Storage Holding (35%) and Reatile Renewables (30%) and is being deployed under the Risk Mitigation Independent Power Producer Procurement Programme (RMRPPPP).

In its statement, TotalEnergies noted that the project reached a financial close last December and is expected to commence operations in 2025. When completed “the plant will supply dispatchable renewable electricity to the South African national grid for twenty years, equivalent to over 400 GWh per year.”

Under the Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) TotalEnergies signed with Eskom last November, the project will supply 75 MW of dispatchable power to the national utility continuously from 5 a.m. to 9.30 p.m.

Vincent Stoquart, the Senior Vice President, Renewables at TotalEnergies stated that the company is “pleased to launch this major solar power generation and storage project in South Africa. Thanks to its innovative hybrid design, it will enable us to supply continuous green electricity over a longer period and beyond the hours of sunshine. This project will not only contribute to the country’s energy transition but also to strengthening the resilience of its power system.”

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Locally generated wind power meant Northern Ireland saved £243m in 2023.

The figures are from Wind Energy Ireland's annual report and a report by energy specialists Baringa.

They found that without wind energy, an additional £176m would have had to be spent on gas to generate power, with an additional almost £70m on carbon credits to burn it.

That reduced emissions by about 0.9m tonnes, equivalent to the amount of carbon produced by 200,000 homes.

Renewable energy, predominantly wind, accounts for about half of the power generated in Northern Ireland.

Specialists in the sector told a Commons committee this week that development was being hampered by a number of barriers.

The latest figures from Stormont's Department for the Economy show 47.4% of total electricity consumption in Northern Ireland was generated from renewable sources in the year to September 2023.

Of this, 83.8% was generated by wind.

The director of RenewableNI, Steven Agnew, said the reduction in reliance on fossil fuels was due to investment in the previous decade, but that that had stalled because of planning issues and grid development.

He called for a taskforce to be established urgently to get Northern Ireland back on track to meet its target of generating 80% electricity consumption from renewable energy by 2030.

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With more than 500 solar and wind projects globally, Amazon's portfolio is now big enough to power 7.2 million U.S. homes each year.

Amazon invested in more than 100 new solar and wind energy projects in 2023, becoming the world’s largest corporate purchaser of renewable energy for the fourth year in a row. Amazon’s investments include the company’s first brownfield project—which will repurpose a previously polluted Maryland coal mine site into a solar farm—as well as Amazon’s first renewable energy project in South Korea.

The company now has more than 500 wind and solar projects globally, and once operational, they are expected to generate more than 77,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of clean energy each year, or enough to power 7.2 million U.S. homes.

Since 2020, Amazon has purchased more renewable energy than any other company, according to BloombergNEF and publicly available sources. The projects are moving Amazon closer to having 100% of the electricity powering its operations be attributable to renewable energy sources by 2025. The projects are already helping power Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, Amazon fulfillment centers, physical stores, and corporate offices, while also providing new sources of clean power to local communities where the projects are located.

Amazon’s solar and wind farms have also helped generate more than $12 billion in estimated economic investment globally from 2014 through 2022, and supported 39,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs in 2022 alone, according to a new economic model developed by Amazon.

“Amazon’s investments in solar and wind projects are helping power our operations, while also providing new sources of clean energy to the grid, spurring economic growth, and supporting jobs in the communities where our customers live and work,” said Adam Selipsky, CEO of AWS. “More than 90% of our operations were powered by renewables last year, but we’re not done. We’re focused on continuing to find innovative ways to bring new projects online, address grid constraints, and work with policymakers to mitigate the impacts of climate change, all of which is helping Amazon move closer to achieving 100% renewable energy by 2025.”

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Operating solar and wind capacity in Southeast Asia grew in 2023 by a fifth, reaching over 28 gigawatts (GW), accounting for 9% of the total electricity generation capacity, a new report by Global Energy Monitor said.

The ASEAN countries, which include Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Timor Leste, added 3 GW of solar capacity and 2 GW of wind power in 2023, according to GEM’s report.

However, it said that the slow pace in initiating new projects, combined with a difficult regulatory landscape for renewable energy and persistent dependence on fossil fuels, presents a significant challenge for achieving a transition to clean energy.

Despite having a substantial potential capacity of 220 GW in announced and various stages of construction projects, only a tiny fraction – 6 GW or 3% – is actively being constructed in Southeast Asia, according to the San Francisco-based think tank tracking global energy projects.

With the exception of China, which has the world’s largest and fastest renewables growth, the global average under construction is over twice that of ASEAN countries.

The ASEAN nations, known for their rapidly expanding economies, are experiencing a corresponding surge in energy demand, which has grown by a quarter between 2015 and 2021, much higher than the global average.

In November, the ASEAN Centre for Energy reported that the region has an installed power capacity of 310 GW, predominantly comprising coal, gas and hydropower, with capacities of 106.3 GW, 89.6 GW, and 61.2 GW, respectively.

The growth of renewable energy in 2022 was hindered by the prevalence of fossil fuel capacity, partly due to project delays caused by COVID-19 restrictions, resulting in a small shortfall from the ASEAN goal of a 35% renewable energy share in installed capacity by 2025.

This week’s report said ASEAN would have to build just 17 GW of utility-scale wind and solar capacity by 2025 to reach this goal, thanks to a large hydropower base.

In ASEAN, the potential for offshore wind power (124 GW) is nearly five times greater than that of onshore wind and almost double the global operating capacity for offshore wind (69 GW).

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A RECORD LEVEL of new offshore wind farm capacity was installed in Europe in 2023.

Wind industry association WindEurope has said that 4.2GW worth of new offshore wind farms were built last year, a 40% increase since 2022.

Additionally, €30 billion – another record figure – was invested in eight wind farms to finance 9GW of new offshore capacity in the years to come.

As global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise despite the threat posed by the climate crisis, renewable energy sources like wind power are a crucial component of plans to shift away from fossil fuels.

Ireland has onshore wind farms dotted across the country but only began the process of seriously developing offshore wind in recent years.

In 2023, without wind energy, Ireland would have spent an additional €918 million on gas for power generation, most of which would have been imported, as well as another €358 million on carbon credits for burning that gas, recent analysis found.

Wind farms in Ireland saved around 4.2 million tonnes of carbon last year – about the same as the amount of carbon produced by 1.9 million cars.

WindTrade has said today that the increased investment in offshore wind farms around Europe comes despite “legal uncertainty and unhelpful market intervention” that had previously “led to a drop in offshore wind investments, falling to an all-time low of €0.4bn in 2022″.

“It also means that projects which had to postpone their final investment decision in 2022 are now moving ahead – excellent news for Europe’s energy security and competitiveness.”

However, it noted that forecasts showing Europe will install 5 GW of offshore wind annually over the next three years is still “not enough to reach Europe’s climate and energy security targets”.

“It adds to the need to install more offshore wind towards the end of the decade. European countries will need to build 24 GW a year in the period 2027-2030 to reach the 2030 targets, but today’s offshore wind supply chain can only produce around 7 GW each year.”

The Netherlands, France and the UK were the European countries that installed the most new offshore wind capacity last year, including the 1.5 GW “Hollandse Kust Zuid” project in the Netherlands, which is now the world’s largest operational wind farm.

The Irish government has set a target of delivering 5GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030.

Speaking to The Journal last year, Minister for Climate Eamon Ryan said that wind is “increasingly the cheapest form of power, so it actually helps bring down the price of electricity and gives us much greater security because we won’t be relying on imported gas from other distant locations”.