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Until November it was virtually impossible for a private developer of renewable energy power plants to become an independent power producer (IPP) in Mexico. Article 27 of the Mexican Constitution precluded private investment stating that electricity generation for public use is an activity to be undertaken exclusively by the Government. Mexico's enactment of a new law for the use of Renewable Energy and the Financing of the Energy Transition ( Ley para el Aprovechamiento de Energías Renovables y el Financiamiento de la Transición Energética ) substantially improves the legal framework for private investment in renewable energy projects. The law regulates renewable energy electricity generation for purposes other than providing public electricity services. The law states that the use of renewable energy for electricity generation is possible for private use and any excess energy can be sold, but only based on regulations and approvals by Mexico's energy regulatory body, CRE .

(Washington, DC) Some of the most influential and competitive organizations in the renewable energy industry have now joined together to create the first trade association for organizations that market renewable energy. The Renewable Energy Marketers Association (REMA) has formed to vigorously promote the economic and national security benefits of domestic renewable energy.

Jeff Vail has started a series looking at what I've long called the "EROEI hole" problem - making sure we don't leave the transition to renewables too late and find ourselves stuck in a situation where we have shrinking production of fossil fuels which are produced at ever lower EROEI values, thereby making constructing an alternative energy infrastructure a lot more problematic than it would be today - The Renewables Hump: Digging Out of a Hole. In the first post in this series, I introduced the general notion that renewable energy requires an up-front investment of energy, and that this may dramatically impact our ability to transition to a renewable-energy economy because the transition effort will initially exacerbate the very energy scarcity that is its impetus. Beyond this general notion that the transition to renewables first requires exacerbating our current energy scarcity, the time that it takes a renewable source of energy to return the up-front energy invested in it becomes especially critical. Here's a quick example (for the simplicity of these examples, I'm assuming that 100% of energy requirement is up-front with no maintenance requirement):

Most people tend to think of renewable energy as a clear break with our energy history, jettisoning all of the trappings associated with a dirty industry. It thus may come as a surprise to discover that, in fact, certain conventional technologies and infrastructure, including those associated with fossil fuel production, increasingly are being adapted to facilitate renewable energy production.

So that's a 7.1% growth in renewables' share. Growth in energy consumption of a few percent must a minor yet contributing factor. Question is whether drought/hydro tempered this growth, and whether this level of growth is the start of the S-curve or not. And do we have something new in the pipeline?

Each year, things seem to get more exciting for the renewable energy industries, and 2007 was no exception. Although there was much disappointment about the exclusion of important provisions for renewables in the recent U.S. energy bill, the overall global picture was positive. With 31 gigawatts of renewable energy developed around the world, 17 billion dollars in global market transactions and 21 billion dollars in global venture capital invested in new companies in 2007, clean energy can no longer be considered an "alternative" -- it is simply the natural evolution of energy.

During a recent speech, Obama spoke of the key role renewable energy will play in his economic recovery plan. He emphasized the need to "transform our economy…and save our planet from the ravages of climate change" by developing renewable energy. In March, the U.S. Interior Department secretary Ken Salazar, recently issued an order to create a special task force to encourage the development of renewable energy projects on federal lands.

The development of renewables in an oil state - worth an article on Leonardo ENERGY? Or a story already told too many times?

"Decentralised renewable energy solutions linked to livelihoods is an important step in maximising the benefits of energy access for socio-economic development. Renewables offer the opportunity to translate investments in electricity connections and kilowatt-hours into higher incomes for communities and enterprises, local jobs, greater adaptive capacity and overall well-being. "

We've been hearing that renewable energy is a fast-growing sector, and now it's official: The Energy Information Administration's (EIA) latest report found that renewable energy made up the biggest share in the U.S.'s electricity capacity increase in 2007. The huge wind power industry, not surprisingly, accounts for most of this increase. According to the EIA's Electrical Power Annual report:

This story is now repeated annually. And of course it is correct in capacity terms, but fails to recognise the relatively modest energy contribution for all this capacity. If one were to make the comparison in terms of GWh instead of GW, the picture would be totally different. If this goes on for a while, baseload electricity users, today's utilities' best friends, may become a sheer nuisance in the future.

Application of multi-criteria decision making to sustainable energy planning-A review S. D. Pohekar , and M. Ramachandran Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani 333 031, India Received 1 December 2003;  accepted 19 December 2003.  Available online 31 January 2004. Abstract Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) techniques are gaining popularity in sustainable energy management. The techniques provide solutions to the problems involving conflicting and multiple objectives. Several methods based on weighted averages, priority setting, outranking, fuzzy principles and their combinations are employed for energy planning decisions. A review of more than 90 published papers is presented here to analyze the applicability of various methods discussed. A classification on application areas and the year of application is presented to highlight the trends. It is observed that Analytical Hierarchy Process is the most popular technique followed by outranking techniques PROMETHEE and ELECTRE. Validation of results with multiple methods, development of interactive decision support systems and application of fuzzy methods to tackle uncertainties in the data is observed in the published literature. Author Keywords: Author Keywords: Multi-objective optimization; Multi-criteria decision making; Decision support systems; Sustainable energy planning Article Outline 1. Introduction 2. Overview of multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) methods 2.1. Weighted sum method (WSM) 2.2. Weighted product method (WPM) 2.3. Analytical hierarchy process (AHP) 2.4. Preference ranking organization method for enrichment evaluation (PROMETHEE) 2.5. The elimination and choice translating reality (ELECTRE) 2.6. The technique for order preference by similarity to ideal solutions (TOPSIS) 2.7. Compromise programming (CP) 2.8. Multi-attribute utility theory (MAUT) 3. Multi-criteria decision making applications in energy planning 3.1. Multi-objective optimization 3.2. Decision Suppor

"DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility, and federal incentives and policies that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Established in 1995 and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, DSIRE is an ongoing project of the N.C. Solar Center and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council."

DSIRE is a comprehensive source of information on state, local, utility and federal incentives and policies that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. Established in 1995 and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, DSIRE is an ongoing project of the N.C. Solar Center and the Interstate Renewable Energy Council.

Launched today, the 2012 Corporate Renewable Energy Index (CREX) ranked over 300 companies globally according to their voluntary renewable energy procurement, as well as how and why they do it. The report found that CREX companies tend to fall in...

This report seems to be the most comprehensive worldwide review of renewable energy (all types) installed capacity and renewable energy trends. The report charts the rise of renewables by updating information in the series and with up to date commentary on individual regions.

The best prospects for large-scale renewable energy production and net-energy performance remain wind and certain forms of solar, according to a study released by two California-based think tanks. "It is reasonable to conclude ... that a full replacement of energy currently derived from fossil fuels with energy from alternative sources is probably impossible over the short term; it may be unrealistic to expect it even over longer time frames," explains Searching for a Miracle: Net Energy Limits & the Fate of Industrial Society. The report was published by the International Forum on Globalization with content provided by the Post Carbon Institute.