Denmark's Parliament has passed the most ambitious green economy plan in the world: it will generate 35% of its energy from renewable energy by 2020 and 100% by 2050.

While TFETs don’t yet have the energy efficiency of current transistors, papers released in December 2011 by Penn State and March 2012 by Notre Dame demonstrate record improvements in tunnel transistor drive current, and more advances are expected in the coming year.

Recent reports in the media suggest that India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan import anything between 75% and 100% of their respective domestic requirements for petroleum. The region is otherwise rich in other sources of energy which are not evenly distributed and to a large extent untapped. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have large reserves of gas and coal. The entire region has among the world's highest potential for hydro-electric power, with Nepal and Bhutan in the lead. There exists a high potential for renewable energy, with India showing the way in solar and wind energy. Sri Lanka is looking to leverage hydro-electricity and biomass resources for its energy needs.

The new center-right Spanish government decided to halt temporarily the award of new feed-in tariff contracts starting January 2013 amid rising fiscal challenges. This could affect negatively about 4,500 MW and 550 MW of wind and solar PV power projects respectively, as well as other energy classes’ projects.

PG&E provides funding, typically of up to a million dollars, to local government customers, including associations and quasi-government groups, to help them demonstrate and measure innovative ways to deliver energy savings.

“When we have looked at the deployment of energy at a world scale, it typically takes around 30 years when something has been a success, to go from a pilot plant to being 1% of the world’s total primary energy.

Research by Scotland’s consumer watchdog, Consumer Focus Scotland, is to be presented at the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations’ “renewables event” in Edinburgh today showing both landlords and tenants are finding renewable systems can provide warmer homes at lower costs than traditional alternatives.

The renewables energy industry has again called on the government to urgently clarify its plans for low-carbon energy development after 2020, following the release of a controversial submission to the EU, which argues the bloc should abandon specific renewable energy targets post-2020.

International Window Film Association (IWFA) — yeah, I didn’t realize that existed — reported last week that “a comprehensive analysis of window film found it to be the most cost-effective energy saving choice for Californians when used in retrofit applications on homes and buildings.” Interesting.

“Electricity companies are not the only solution to energy efficiency, but they are definitely part of the solution,” EURELECTRIC Secretary-General Hans ten Berge said at a EURELECTRIC workshop last week.

"The UK envisages multiple low-carbon technologies: renewables, nuclear and carbon capture and storage, all competing freely against each other in the years to come … For this reason, we cannot support a 2030 renewables target," it reads.

An old fuel-saving idea has been reinvented for the 21st century. In the developed world a 'Wonderbag' will save you money - elsewhere it helps save lives

The cost of electricity is difficult to unpick. That is why EWEA developed an online tool that instantly calculates electricity costs, including any fuel and carbon risks, for gas, coal, nuclear, onshore and offshore wind. Users can type in their own assumptions on, for example, coal and gas prices, future carbon costs, capital costs and availability.

Due to the prohibitive cost of storing electricity on a major scale, short-term power markets are relied on to balance generation and load on a 24/7 basis.  These markets typically take the form of a day-ahead market that provides a preliminary forecast of the next day’s power generation and consumption, and a real-time market, which is used to balance the actual generation to load.

The energy market in Germany will see dramatic changes during the next few years. With the nuclear energy capacity halved, the landscape to 2020 will look very different with renewable energy to account for 36 percent of electricity generated.