China and Russia deepened their energy ties with a second major deal that further reduces Russia’s reliance on Europe as its main gas off-taker. The preliminary gas-supply agreement signed in Beijing by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping, would also secure 17 per cent of the gas supplies China needs by the end of the decade.
The UK Green Investment Bank (GIB), leading global investment firm KKR, and specialist investment manager Temporis Capital LLP have announced a new £200 million lending programme for community-scale renewable energy projects in the UK.
National Grid has warned that its capacity to supply electricity this winter will be at a seven-year low due to generator closures and breakdowns.
Rainer Baake, State Secretary at Germany’s Ministry of Economic Affairs , has said that the government will decide a programme on December 3, 2014 aimed at improving energy efficiency and possibly reducing the amount of electricity currently produced by coal fired plants.
The European Union’s environment agency says its greenhouse gas emissions fell by nearly two per cent last year, putting the bloc very close to reaching its emissions target for 2020.
French state-owned utility Eléctricité de France (EDF) is facing a major shake-up. According to Dow Jones newswire, the French government is likely to sell shares in as part of a broader objective to raise several billion euros of the French state’s asset portfolio in the coming year and a half.
The European Union has voted to back the UK’s plan to guarantee the price of power from Hinkley Point C, the country’s first new nuclear project in decades.
President Evo Morales has announced that Bolivia will launch its civilian nuclear energy programme this year with the construction of plants in the western province of La Paz and an investment outlay of more than $2 billion through 2025.
Daniel Benes, Chairman and Chief Executive of Czech utility CEZ AS, has said that Brussels’ approval of the contract for difference (CFD) at the planned Hinkley Point C nuclear power plant in the UK “without question” establishes a European-wide precedent that could make other envisaged nuclear power projects profitable.