[Top News] from [REUTERS}
[Green Business]
Solar mirror power firms cling to Spanish subsidy
Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:40am EDT
By Jonathan Gleave - Analysis
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain slashed subsidies for power from solar panels in 2008, after causing a bubble, and is almost bound to reduce support for bigger solar farms that use mirrors -- but this sector may have the clout to limit cuts.
A 2.6 gigawatt surge in solar panels connected to Spain's power grid last year made it second only to Germany in photovoltaic (PV) power generation.
This sharp growth then led to state cuts in tariffs and caps on qualifying plants that hit the worldwide PV industry, which had come to rely on the Spanish market.
Questions now surround prospects for the concentrated solar power (CSP) sector which, unlike PV panels that turn sunlight directly into electricity, uses mirrors to super-heat liquids to drive turbines.
"The caps and subsidy cuts for PV power in Spain came as a result of the development of a bubble in the sector, we cannot rule out the possibility of a bubble developing in CSP," Alex Toledo, Iberian energy team manager for BNP Paribas Fortis, said.
Spain slashed subsidies for PV generation and placed a 500 megawatt per year cap on the installations eligible for state aid in September 2008.
There are only 232 MW of CSP connected to Spain's grid, but 4.3 GW of plants at different stages of construction are waiting for the government to decide who gets included on a "renewables register" which will give them access to subsidies that pay about 27 eurocents per kilowatt/hour over wholesale power prices.
Although work has barely begun on many of these plants, there are enough nearing completion to make it likely that Spain will overshoot, by a long way, its target to have 500 MW of solar thermal capacity on stream by 2010.
Spain's 500 MW target was set in 2005 when power demand posted annual growth of over 4 percent. A fall of more than 5 percent in power demand in 2009 to date has reinforced views that Spain could face electricity oversupply.
Spain's economic crisis has not just affected power demand, the country's public deficit is expected to top 10 percent of GDP by year-end, which also supports a case for limiting state spending on expensive renewable technology.
CAP PROBABLE
"It is probable that in the future there will be a cap affecting solar thermal technology," said Luis Crespo, General Secretary for CSP lobby Protermosolar.
"In the long term, the subsidies for CSP will have to come down, but we are confident that our research will bring prices down too," Amando Sanchez Falcon Armando Sanchez Falcon, finance director of pioneering CSP company Abengoa said.
CSP is currently expensive even by renewable energy standards: 1 MW of generating capacity costs about 5 million euros ($7.31 million) to install, compared with about 4 million euros for PV and just 1.3 million euros for wind.
However, unlike wind and PV, CSP technology offers a potential for energy storage and economies of scale that few other renewables technologies can match.
[Green Business]
JPMorgan to buy EcoSecurities for $204 million
Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:22pm EDT
By Michael Szabo and Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to buy carbon offset aggregator EcoSecurities for 122.9 million pounds ($204 million) on Monday, trumping a bid from the firm's co-founder, to boost its carbon-credit trading business.
J.P.Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., a subsidiary of the bank, said its 100 pence-a-share bid, made through Carbon Acquisition Company, had the backing of shareholders representing 19.9 percent of the company.
It said EcoSecurities had successfully realized value from sourcing, developing and trading emission reductions, and it noted the firm had recorded its first period of profitability in the first half.
The offer represents a 120 percent premium to the group's share price before the start of the offer period on June 4.
"It looks like JPMorgan is backing the current management to take the business private," said Ken Rumph, an equity analyst at Nomura Code.
Ireland-based EcoSecurities Group Plc develops clean energy projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which allows companies to export cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to emerging countries like China and India, where such reductions are cheaper to make.
EcoSecurities shares were up 11.5 percent at 101.5 pence by 1411 GMT (10:11 a.m. EDT).
Carbon Acquisition Company said the acceptances included 13.6 million shares held by current and former directors and 9.9 million shares owned by Credit Suisse.
In the offer statement, Carbon Acquisition said the acceptances would remain binding in the event of a competing offer being made.
"It's a scorched earth, blocking tactic (and) it's a problem for Guanabara if these blocking minority figures are holding out," Rumph added.
EcoSecurities rebuffed on September 1 a revised 90 pence-a-share offer from Guanabara Holdings, set up by EcoSecurities co-founder and former president Pedro Moura Costa.
The board of Guanabara said Monday afternoon it noted Carbon Acquisition's offer and will make a further announcement following a review of its own position.
"It remains to be seen if Guanabara will improve its offer and bid something closer to our 'bare-bones' valuation of 114 pence per share," said Mirabaud's Agustin Hochschild.
In July, Guanabara reached a deal with then rival bidder EDF Trading, a unit of French utility EDF, offering it the option to purchase a portion of EcoSecurities' pre-2012 offset portfolio if Guanabara's bid was successful.
($1=.6027 Pound)
[Green Business]
World Bank urges rich states to act now on climate
Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:16am EDT
By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's rich nations must act immediately and forcefully to cut greenhouse gas emissions or the steeply rising cost of climate change will fall disproportionately on poor countries, the World Bank said on Tuesday.
In a major report on the threat of climate change, the World Bank said developing countries will bear 75 to 80 percent of the costs of damage caused by climate change and rich countries, which caused the emissions in the past, should pay for them to adapt to global warming.
It said tackling climate change in developing countries need not compromise poverty-fighting measures and economic growth, but stressed that funding and technical support from rich countries is essential.
The report comes ahead of a meeting in Copenhagen in December where countries hope to agree on a new global climate accord to combat man-made climate change.
"The countries of the world must act now, act together and act differently on climate change," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.
"Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change -- a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important," he added.
The report said developing countries countries could permanently lose as much as 4 to 5 percent of their gross domestic product if the earth's temperatures increase 2 degrees Celsius as opposed to minimal losses in rich countries.
ESCALATING COSTS
The report said mitigation measures to deal with the effects of climate change in developing countries could cost around $400 billion a year by 2030. Currently, mitigation finance averages around $8 billion a year.
In addition, annual investments for measures to ward off or adapt to climate change could spiral to around $75 billion from less than $1 billion a year currently available, the Bank said in its annual World Development Report.
The World Bank said the global financial crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay action to address climate change because the future climate crisis is likely to be more damaging to the world economy.
"The economic downturn may delay the business-as-usual growth in emissions by a few years, but it is unlikely to fundamentally change that path over the long term," it said.
The Bank said developing nations must also do their part and keep down the overall costs of climate change by adopting policies that reduce emission or emissions growth.
"Unless developing countries also start transforming their energy system as they grow, limiting warming to close to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels will not be achievable," it said.
(Editing by James Dalgleish)
[Green Business]
Solar mirror power firms cling to Spanish subsidy
Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:40am EDT
By Jonathan Gleave - Analysis
MADRID (Reuters) - Spain slashed subsidies for power from solar panels in 2008, after causing a bubble, and is almost bound to reduce support for bigger solar farms that use mirrors -- but this sector may have the clout to limit cuts.
A 2.6 gigawatt surge in solar panels connected to Spain's power grid last year made it second only to Germany in photovoltaic (PV) power generation.
This sharp growth then led to state cuts in tariffs and caps on qualifying plants that hit the worldwide PV industry, which had come to rely on the Spanish market.
Questions now surround prospects for the concentrated solar power (CSP) sector which, unlike PV panels that turn sunlight directly into electricity, uses mirrors to super-heat liquids to drive turbines.
"The caps and subsidy cuts for PV power in Spain came as a result of the development of a bubble in the sector, we cannot rule out the possibility of a bubble developing in CSP," Alex Toledo, Iberian energy team manager for BNP Paribas Fortis, said.
Spain slashed subsidies for PV generation and placed a 500 megawatt per year cap on the installations eligible for state aid in September 2008.
There are only 232 MW of CSP connected to Spain's grid, but 4.3 GW of plants at different stages of construction are waiting for the government to decide who gets included on a "renewables register" which will give them access to subsidies that pay about 27 eurocents per kilowatt/hour over wholesale power prices.
Although work has barely begun on many of these plants, there are enough nearing completion to make it likely that Spain will overshoot, by a long way, its target to have 500 MW of solar thermal capacity on stream by 2010.
Spain's 500 MW target was set in 2005 when power demand posted annual growth of over 4 percent. A fall of more than 5 percent in power demand in 2009 to date has reinforced views that Spain could face electricity oversupply.
Spain's economic crisis has not just affected power demand, the country's public deficit is expected to top 10 percent of GDP by year-end, which also supports a case for limiting state spending on expensive renewable technology.
CAP PROBABLE
"It is probable that in the future there will be a cap affecting solar thermal technology," said Luis Crespo, General Secretary for CSP lobby Protermosolar.
"In the long term, the subsidies for CSP will have to come down, but we are confident that our research will bring prices down too," Amando Sanchez Falcon Armando Sanchez Falcon, finance director of pioneering CSP company Abengoa said.
CSP is currently expensive even by renewable energy standards: 1 MW of generating capacity costs about 5 million euros ($7.31 million) to install, compared with about 4 million euros for PV and just 1.3 million euros for wind.
However, unlike wind and PV, CSP technology offers a potential for energy storage and economies of scale that few other renewables technologies can match.
[Green Business]
JPMorgan to buy EcoSecurities for $204 million
Mon Sep 14, 2009 1:22pm EDT
By Michael Szabo and Paul Sandle
LONDON (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co agreed to buy carbon offset aggregator EcoSecurities for 122.9 million pounds ($204 million) on Monday, trumping a bid from the firm's co-founder, to boost its carbon-credit trading business.
J.P.Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., a subsidiary of the bank, said its 100 pence-a-share bid, made through Carbon Acquisition Company, had the backing of shareholders representing 19.9 percent of the company.
It said EcoSecurities had successfully realized value from sourcing, developing and trading emission reductions, and it noted the firm had recorded its first period of profitability in the first half.
The offer represents a 120 percent premium to the group's share price before the start of the offer period on June 4.
"It looks like JPMorgan is backing the current management to take the business private," said Ken Rumph, an equity analyst at Nomura Code.
Ireland-based EcoSecurities Group Plc develops clean energy projects under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism, which allows companies to export cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to emerging countries like China and India, where such reductions are cheaper to make.
EcoSecurities shares were up 11.5 percent at 101.5 pence by 1411 GMT (10:11 a.m. EDT).
Carbon Acquisition Company said the acceptances included 13.6 million shares held by current and former directors and 9.9 million shares owned by Credit Suisse.
In the offer statement, Carbon Acquisition said the acceptances would remain binding in the event of a competing offer being made.
"It's a scorched earth, blocking tactic (and) it's a problem for Guanabara if these blocking minority figures are holding out," Rumph added.
EcoSecurities rebuffed on September 1 a revised 90 pence-a-share offer from Guanabara Holdings, set up by EcoSecurities co-founder and former president Pedro Moura Costa.
The board of Guanabara said Monday afternoon it noted Carbon Acquisition's offer and will make a further announcement following a review of its own position.
"It remains to be seen if Guanabara will improve its offer and bid something closer to our 'bare-bones' valuation of 114 pence per share," said Mirabaud's Agustin Hochschild.
In July, Guanabara reached a deal with then rival bidder EDF Trading, a unit of French utility EDF, offering it the option to purchase a portion of EcoSecurities' pre-2012 offset portfolio if Guanabara's bid was successful.
($1=.6027 Pound)
[Green Business]
World Bank urges rich states to act now on climate
Tue Sep 15, 2009 10:16am EDT
By Lesley Wroughton
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's rich nations must act immediately and forcefully to cut greenhouse gas emissions or the steeply rising cost of climate change will fall disproportionately on poor countries, the World Bank said on Tuesday.
In a major report on the threat of climate change, the World Bank said developing countries will bear 75 to 80 percent of the costs of damage caused by climate change and rich countries, which caused the emissions in the past, should pay for them to adapt to global warming.
It said tackling climate change in developing countries need not compromise poverty-fighting measures and economic growth, but stressed that funding and technical support from rich countries is essential.
The report comes ahead of a meeting in Copenhagen in December where countries hope to agree on a new global climate accord to combat man-made climate change.
"The countries of the world must act now, act together and act differently on climate change," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said.
"Developing countries are disproportionately affected by climate change -- a crisis that is not of their making and for which they are the least prepared. For that reason, an equitable deal in Copenhagen is vitally important," he added.
The report said developing countries countries could permanently lose as much as 4 to 5 percent of their gross domestic product if the earth's temperatures increase 2 degrees Celsius as opposed to minimal losses in rich countries.
ESCALATING COSTS
The report said mitigation measures to deal with the effects of climate change in developing countries could cost around $400 billion a year by 2030. Currently, mitigation finance averages around $8 billion a year.
In addition, annual investments for measures to ward off or adapt to climate change could spiral to around $75 billion from less than $1 billion a year currently available, the Bank said in its annual World Development Report.
The World Bank said the global financial crisis should not be used as an excuse to delay action to address climate change because the future climate crisis is likely to be more damaging to the world economy.
"The economic downturn may delay the business-as-usual growth in emissions by a few years, but it is unlikely to fundamentally change that path over the long term," it said.
The Bank said developing nations must also do their part and keep down the overall costs of climate change by adopting policies that reduce emission or emissions growth.
"Unless developing countries also start transforming their energy system as they grow, limiting warming to close to 2 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial levels will not be achievable," it said.
(Editing by James Dalgleish)
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