The last winter month – now out chasing spring

We have just put the last winter month behind us, and here at Renewable Energy Focus, we are rolling up our sleeves to meet the spring.

At the moment, we are busy booking tickets for shows starting with EWEA 2011 next week in Brussels. It is a busy calendar looking ahead, and we look forward to seeing you all at various events.

To greet the new year, we decided to have a redesign of our two magazines, Renewable Energy Focus and Renewable Energy Focus US. They should have arrived in your mailboxes by now, and we hope you like the lay-out and the colour schemes. Most importantly, we now have a slightly larger font. I for one, can now park my magnifying glass and stop squinting!

Looking back at February, the ‘regular’ news picture has been dominated by natural disasters in Australia and New Zealand, and the unrest in the Middle East seeing ordinary citizens taking on long-term dictators.

In the renewable energy news sector, things have thankfully been more peaceful and generally positive as companies and markets recover from the financial crisis.

A quick news review

RenewableUK says that wind employment has risen 91% and later in the month, the industry unveiled windfalls for communities. At the same time, however, the UK Government has announced a review of the feed-in tariff, which according to the Renewable Energy Association (REA), could be “bad news for PV”.

In the rest of Europe, Spanish researchers have developed a 20.5% efficiency solar cell, and a large wind turbine test site has opened in the Netherlands. Finland has granted permission for its first Finnish offshore wind farm, and Denmark’s energy strategy for 2050 focuses on wind and bioenergy.

The MENA region has featured in the news with GL developing a wind map of Lebanon, and Dutch researchers cooperating with the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) on solar PV.

Renewable Energy Focus USA has reported a whole load of Department of Energy (DoE) funding for early-stage solar and the SunShot solar cost cutting programme. The US is also looking to speed up offshore wind development.

At the same time, however, the DoE budget for the year ending in 2012 signals a wide range of cuts across the whole energy spectrum.

Chasing spring

As this first spring month is now well on its way, we wish you all green weeks ahead (double pun intended)!

I would also like to take this opportunity to let you all know that one of our contributors, Isabella Kaminski, is doing a cycle from one end of the UK to the other Chasing Spring, so if you are in the UK and have an exciting renewable energy project on the go that is on her route, let us know (press_releases@renewableenergyfocus.com).

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