News Archives - Page 24 of 25

Solar 350 News: 2015 shaping up to be a huge year

24 April 2015 admin 0

Hot on the heels of bringing on our new CFO, Justin Passfield, Solar 350 can announce we’ve signed agreements with 3 major independent power producers, all of which are exchange-listed entities and of Chinese origin. Obviously we can’t say too much at this point, but we are pleased to confirm we have signed NDNCNS (that’s non-disclosure, non-circumvent, non-solicitation) agreements with a view to developing, building, financing and refinancing utility-scale solar energy projects in Chile and various prime solar locations round the globe. This news means we’re now able to action our Solar 350 staged development & value creation model: Stage 1 [...]

Living the good life: off-grid home tech… and pigs.

1 April 2015 admin 0

Last week we wrote about the emerging home battery scene, and how Nissan and Tesla have been developing interoperability between EVs and domestic home systems. A great way to go off-grid and devised (originally) by enterprising DIY energy geeks with a salvaged Nissan LEAF. But away from the big corporate spotlights on cutting edge tech, did you know some German energy companies are providing battery kits now? This started when the German Government reduced the Feed In Tariff it provides to domestic solar when dispatching electricity to Germany’s grid. And it tells us something about the chaos [...]

Solar 350 at the British Chinese Energy Association

30 March 2015 admin 0

Last week it was great to be a speaker at the British Chinese Energy Association event "Away from the coal face and towards the light - renewables from a practitioner's point of view" in London. In a packed day with great hospitality from the hosts (Smith & Williamson Financial Services in Moorgate) I enjoyed presenting to an audience of energy professionals and renewables tech experts, focusing on our Chilean project progress, experiences in the Chilean energy market and the wider opportunities presented by renewable power projects in South America. The BCEA is a non-profit organisation that connects [...]

Renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market?

19 March 2015 admin 0

A couple of days ago, The Centre for Policy Studies released a report titled: Central Planning with Market Features: how renewable subsidies destroyed the UK electricity market. (You can read the report here). The UK press jumped onto this story and it's fair to say I agree with the findings of the report. I have known the root cause of the problem with renewable subsidies for a while: How can solar power really work in the UK market? We don’t get much sun anyway (when it’s not cloudy) and you never really know when it’s not going to be cloudy, which [...]

Electricity markets and politics appear complicated?

17 March 2015 admin 0

You’d be forgiven for thinking that green energy, electricity markets and politics appear complicated. A couple of weeks back we saw Greenpeace criticising the UK Government’s UK Export Finance scheme’s decision to loan $1bn in funding packages to a deal including Pemex (the Mexican oil group) calling the coalition government's green credentials into doubt. Last week German electricity giant (and UK ‘big six’ energy supplier) E.ON posted record annual losses blaming subsidised wind and solar for the downward trend in wholesale electricity prices. But we also know the EIS / SEIS tax breaks for investors that [...]

Building renewable energy in Colombia and Panama

5 March 2015 admin 0

Good news from Solar 350 this week as NASDAQ listed Chinese renewables investors gave the "green light" for two of our 100MW solar development projects in the S. Atacama desert, Chile. (You can learn more about this project in detail in our EIS Investors section here). Never satisfied, Solar 350's MD Nick Dimmock set off on a mini trade mission to explore further opportunities for building renewable energy in Colombia and Panama. His visit was hot on the heels of Ken Clarke (former UK Chancellor and Justice Minister) who is very keen to help UK companies take advantage of these [...]

CfD auction results: a ROC and a hard place

3 March 2015 admin 0

Last week the UK Government announced the winners (and losers) in the UK’s first Green Energy CfD (Contracts for Difference) auction. This will be remembered as a turning point in green energy policy, the landmark beginning-of-the-end of indirect subsidies. In total, around £4bn has been awarded to 27 green energy projects (compared to £16bn spent in the old indirect subsidy schemes last year). It is being presented as a win for the consumer and the taxpayer by the coalition government, a fudge by critics and a failure by the UK solar power industry. So which is [...]

UK Green Energy tax breaks pt 2: Towards a carbon tax?

30 January 2015 admin 0

In part one of this post we considered the crunch that changing tax legislation will bring to the UK renewable energy sector in 2015. Green investment tax breaks for many renewable electricity generators have already been cut, and this year even more are going to disappear. In this part, we'll ask what's next? After all, the requirement to reduce CO2 emissions isn't going to go away, so without green investment tax breaks for renewable energy generators, what will drive emissions reduction incentives? To recap, the old ‘double dip’ benefit of EIS/SEIS reliefs for investments in companies receiving indirect subsidies [...]

UK green energy tax breaks: The clock is ticking…part 1

28 January 2015 admin 0

As this current tax year comes to an end in the UK, one of the biggest changes to the way we invest in renewable energy is due to fully kick in. The green energy tax breaks clock is ticking down over the next couple of months. From April 6 2015, the tax incentives to invest in solar, wind, hydro and bio-fuel projects - that have proven so effective at driving development in the UK renewables sector - are going to disappear. In fact (for solar and wind) many stopped last July, but more are on the way. Taken in [...]

Are renewable subsidy cuts good for carbon emissions?

21 January 2015 admin 1

(Image credit: Images_of_Money via Flickr Creative Commons) It might seem counter intuitive, but there's an argument to be made that cutting renewable energy subsidies might not be a bad thing for the industry, and rising CO2 levels as well. On the surface, renewable subsidies have worked as a financial incentive to build more solar, wind and hydro projects, but it's also led to projects that (despite adding power to the local grid) haven't driven a proportional decline in carbon emissions or caused coal and gas power to scale down significantly. Maybe a rethink of the big picture for renewable [...]

Category: News