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"Spanish energy company Iberdrola is to invest €365m to grow in Mexico's booming wind-power market at a time when other international firms are also rushing to muscle in Latin America's second-largest economy"

"This market insight provides an outlook of the growth opportunities for the rail industry in India. Ambitious government plans coupled with unprecedented levels of foreign investment are leading to a complete overhaul of the rail environment in India. Over 39 cities are planning to invest in expansive urban rail networks to address severe traffic congestion problems. High-speed rail and dedicated freight corridors are planned to separate passenger and freight traffic to increase operating efficiency."

Ural Metal and Mining Company (UMMC), a Russian vertically integrated producer of semi fabricated products, has said that it will continue its investment projects in semi-finished copper and copper alloy products despite a 6% y-o-y Jan-July decline in rolled demand this year. The company broke this figure down into its constituent segments: demand for copper pipes fell by 18% y-o-y and flat rolled products sales dropped 8% y-o-y in Jan-July. UMMC currently sells between 58,000-62,000t of rolled products per annum through its Kirov (flat rolled), Revda (flat rolled), Kolchugtsvetmet (tubes) and Majdanpek (tubes) operations. UMMC will complete its delayed 4-year investment strategy in 2013 with an upgrade of machinery at its Kolchugtsvetmet operation.

UK telecoms provider BT is to invest £1.5 billion ($3 billion) to roll out superfast broadband to up to 10 million UK homes by 2012. The system will enable services such as video conferencing, video on demand, and other high bandwidth activities. The programme is Britain's largest ever investment in superfast broadband, which will deliver speeds of up to 100 megabits per second. The fibre will be linked to a cabinet in the street and in some cases - such as the Olympic village for the 2012 Games - directly to the premises. Homes linked to a fibre-to-the-cabinet network will receive initial speeds of up to 40 Mbps, due to the copper cable that connects the house to the cabinet. However, BT expects this to increase to 60 Mbps with new technologies. Those on a fibre-to-the-premises network will see speeds of up to 100 Mbps.

Ireland's OpenHydro and Germany's RWE are spending millions to try to turn the power of waves into electricity With oil prices hitting almost daily record highs and global warming climbing up the public agenda, the need for alternative energy sources has never been more urgent. But while wind and solar have dominated the recent rush to invest in renewables, market watchers reckon it could now be marine energy's turn to shine. Ocean power-using the energy from waves or tidal flows to produce electricity-is quickly coming of age as a viable green resource that could help meet ambitious global targets to reduce greenhouse gases and dependency on fossil fuels. European and North American power companies such as Canada's Emera (EMA.TO) and Germany's RWE (RWEG.DE) are spending millions to fund wind and tidal projects. This investment has led to a new generation of more efficient technologies, with dozens of prototypes expected to be ready for commercial deployment within the next five years. "There's huge interest in both wave and tidal technology," says Thomas Boeckmann, clean tech analyst at market research firm StrategyEye in London. "It's gaining a lot of attention from energy companies, which will be able to offer financial backing and technical expertise to these startups."

Sony Corp will invest about 40 billion yen (US$372 million) to boost its output capacity of lithium-ion batteries amid growing global demand, the company said. On top of plans to increase production in Singapore and China, the Japanese consumer electronics firm said it will build new facilities and enhance existing lines in Japan, hoping to expand output capacity to 74 million cells per month in 2010 from the current 41 million cells. "This is the first phase of investment in lithium ion batteries Sony is undertaking as part of efforts to reinforce core areas of its component and semiconductor business over the next three years," the company said in a statement.

Mitsubishi Materials Corp. plans to invest in a copper mine in British Columbia by acquiring a 25% stake in Similco Mines Ltd, which owns rights to the mine. Production at the mine is planned to resume in 2011 after a break in operations since 1996, a result of the low copper prices prevailing at that time. With a view to redeveloping the mine, the overall investment is expected to reach Y30 billion. The annual capacity of the mine is estimated at about 150,000 tonnes and Mitsubishi Materials will have the right to the entire output. The investment project is based on the expected long-term demand growth in China and India.

FCC has acquired two solar photovoltaic (PV) plants in Cordoba, Spain with an installed capacity of 20 megawatts (MW), from Sky Global Solar. The investment amounted to EUR 140 million [US $195 million]. This is FCC's second investment in renewable energy in less than a month. It also bought 14 wind parks with an installed capacity of 420 MW from Australian company Babcock & Brown Wind Partners (BBW).

Daye Nonferrous Metals Company, China's fifth-biggest copper producer, is likely to expand copper mine resources after a 1 billion yuan ($145.92 million) cash investment from Yangtze Power Co Ltd.

Shell will no longer invest in renewable technologies such as wind, solar and hydro power because they are not economic, the Anglo-Dutch oil company said today. It plans to invest more in biofuels which environmental groups blame for driving up food prices and deforestation

Investment in network infrastructure can boost long-term economic growth in OECD countries. Moreover, infrastructure investment can have a positive effect on growth that goes beyond the effect of the capital stock because of economies of scale, the existence of network externalities and competition enhancing effects.

Zhejiang Hailiang Co. Ltd., a Chinese copper processor, will construct a copper tube project in Vietnam. The investment will amount to US$47.2 million and will have production capacity if 71,000 tonnes per year, as a new 36,000-tonne facility will be added to the existing 35,000-tonne that has been relocated. It is anticipated that the project will be operational in 2010. The new project will benefit from the Vietnamese favourable investment policies as well as lower production costs.

The benefits for the market are obvious. Regional, ownership unbundled transmission/ infrastructure companies have a natural incentive to maximise the offering of capacity to the market, as this is the sole mechanism through which they achieve their revenues. They will be happy to invest to meet market demand. With their large scale and regional approach they can pass through the benefits of synergies and eliminate unnecessary interfaces. Finally, as they do not have any potential conflict of interest with supply or production interests, regulation can be lighter, decreasing the regulatory and administrative burden and increasing efficiency even further. Time will tell, but it seems that the ITO option has its greatest potential for those companies that can not afford to sell their transmission networks under the current economic conditions or that are opportunity constrained and have no suitable investment potential. In any event, the conclusion must be that, whereas full ownership unbundling has not been directly achieved through the Third Package, it would appear that the scene has been set for a market structure that will move gradually but inevitably into the direction originally envisaged in the Commission proposals. So was it worth it? For you to judge.

Solar power will not be able to compete with conventional energy until there is a breakthrough in the technology, BP's chief executive has said, in a further sign of the company's move away from renewables towards oil and gas. BP has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in making solar cells and components, but in the past six months it has been closing factories around the world, and announced a sharp cut in its investment in alternative energies, such as solar, from $1.4bn last year to $1bn (£658m) this year. Tony Hayward, chief executive, yesterday told a conference in California: "I think solar is probably the most challenged of all of BP's alternative energy interests." He added: "It is not going to make the transition to be competitive with more conventional power, the gap is too big."

* Globally, more than half (54%) of the organizations installing new copper cabling would invest in Category 6A 10Gb/s solutions - its high-performance and reliability are key for virtualization and consolidation, which are the main drivers of green and cost-reduction strategies and are highly dependent on reliability. Airports (86%) and healthcare (71%) are the business sectors leading the drive toward investment in Category 6A 10G copper solutions.

Tianjin Chuangxinyuan Investment Co. Ltd. has announced plans to invest RMB613M in the development of a high-precision copper strip and foil project in Tianjin. Upon completion, the project will have a production capacity of 10,000t/y of high precision copper foil and strip. The project is expected to generate a turnover of RMB600M/y. Trial production will take place in October of this year, following the installation of two production lines with a combined capacity of 2400t/y. Tianjin Chuangxinyuan Investment will become China's biggest producer of copper strip and foil upon the project's completion.

"Investor-owned electric utilities and stand-alone transmission companies invested a record $37.7 billion in transmission and distribution infrastructure in 2013, according to new survey results released this month by the Edison Electric Institute (EEI)."

"Geographic regions will vary significantly in their rates of investment. Emerging markets will represent the largest growth in T&D spending, with Africa and Southeast Asia the fastest growing regions as they build out new infrastructure to boost their electrification rates. However, North America and Europe will see lackluster growth in traditional T&D infrastructure spending of around 1%, but will account for the majority of smart grid spending. The individual country with the largest amount of traditional T&D spending will be India, which will outpace China by 2024. Smart grid annual spending on distribution automation will be concentrated in Europe ($11.5bn per year), followed by North America ($7.5bn) and East Asia ($6.1bn), as these regions modernize their existing electric infrastructure."