France’s solar-panel imports surged last year as developers relied mostly on foreign manufacturers to supply a boom in renewable-energy projects, Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet said. French customs figures show the deficit in favor of solar panel imports widened to 1.5 billion euros ($2.1 billion) in 2010 compared with 800 million euros the previous year, she said at a conference in Paris.

Italy is one of the key producers of biodiesel in the EU. However the nation's output capacity has been hurt due to a rise in the importation of cheaper biodiesel. The biofuel is most commonly made from palm oil and rapeseed oil in Italy, however it is thought that the imported fuel can cost less than these feedstocks.

The European Summit dedicated to energy and innovation has emphasised the importance of energy savings for the climate, as well as for competitiveness, jobs and energy security. The cross-sectoral Coalition for Energy Savings welcomes European leaders’ focus on energy efficiency, but warns that there is not enough being done to get us on track to meet the 20% energy efficiency target by 2020.

Award winning Israeli company Solaris Synergy has designed solar energy grids that can float on water, reducing energy production costs, and preventing water loss. Generating energy from the sun would be more practical if not for two huge drawbacks: The expense of the silicon material that converts light to electricity, and the large tracts of land needed for solar farms.

National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded a one-year grant of $80,000 to Paul J. Dauenhauer who works as an assistant professor at the Amherst located University of Massachusetts. Being a chemical engineer, Dauenhauer will utilize the award to conduct basic research on the thermal degradation of woody biomass during pyrolysis.

The research overcomes a major obstacle to producing sustainable and low-cost biofuels. Current biofuel production relies on fermenting sugars found in sugar cane, beets, corn and similar food crops. This process threatens the food supply and is not an eco-friendly solution. To tackle these issues, researchers are exploring new techniques to change woody plants and grasses to liquid fuel, which will absorb both the atmospheric CO2 and the CO2 produced during its process.

The global economic recovery will fuel ever greater demand for oil this year, with higher fuel prices expected to add a 15 percent burden on advanced economies, the IEA warned on Thursday. "Under current assumptions for global GDP, oil price and oil demand, the global oil burden could rise to 4.7 percent in 2011, getting close to levels that have coincided in the past with a marked economic slowdown," the International Energy Agency said in its latest monthly Oil Market Report.

People were skeptical when the idea was first floated about a year ago, says Nick Getzen, spokesman for The Jobs Project, which is trying to create renewable energy job opportunities in West Virginia and Kentucky. In the southern coalfields, he says, people have only ever gotten electricity one way – from coal-fired power plants.

Germany, a pioneer in many renewable energy initiatives, is also at the forefront of creating environment-friendly toys aimed at making kids think about where energy comes from and how much of it they can use, raising awareness through play.

Energy commissioner considering infrastructure bonds and streamlining national schemes to reduce pressure on banks.EU sources told the newswire that a new type of infrastructure project bond, proposed by commission president Jose Manuel Barroso last year, is likely to be given precedence as a new funding source.

The site allows homeowners and property developers to work out the optimum size of any solar power system they wish to install, and provides users with links to local installers. The site is designed to encourage more uptake of renewable energy in the region and to fuel job growth, according to DRCOG executive director, Jennifer Schaufele.

Renewable energy experts have described Portland Port as perfectly positioned to become a future green energy hub at a conference. More than 80 representatives from companies which develop and build offshore renewable energy sites were welcomed to the Portland Heights Hotel for the industry insight.

The director of the Energy Intensive Users Group, Jeremy Nicholson has said that failure of wind how has very profound implications. This comes after new figures have shown that during the recent cold period, wind power produced less than two percent of the nation’s electricity. He says that because of this, the government will encourage companies to build back up stations in case of further failures.

Havana Energy Ltd – part of the Esencia Group of companies - has teamed up with Zerus SA, a company linked to the Ministry of Sugar, to develop a pilot 30MW power plant at Ciro Redondo Sugar Mill, about 400km from Havana, and as a second stage four further power plants. The business will be developed in a joint venture company.

You might dream of living off the grid someday, but for billions of people around the world, it's a reality and not a choice. The International Energy Agency estimates that when the Earth's population exeeds 8 billion around 2030, 1.3 billion will still live without electricity. Of those, 700 million will be in Africa.

Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) Group yesterday officially started construction on the second turbine of Song Tranh 2 hydropower plant with designed capacity of 95MW. The Song Tranh 2 hydropower plant project has been conducted by EVN Group as the main investor. It's the second hydropower plant to be built on Vu Gia-Thu Bon river system. It is expected that the hydropower plant will produce annual electricity output of 679.6 million KWh to join the national grid.

Researchers at the University of Leeds are developing a roasting process that would transform raw biomass from a bulky , water-saturated material into an energy-rich powder that is perfect for burning in coal-fired power plants. Called torrefaction, it is a relatively low-temperature process similar to that used in roasting coffee beans. If the researchers can overcome a few stumbling blocks, the process could lead to a new burst of coal-to-biomass power plant conversions, and consequently to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Both the private sector and government in Korea have increased spending on clean energy and green technology development in the past few years. Korea’s Ministry of Knowledge Economy has worked with private firms to find new improvements in battery technology, photovoltaics, geothermal power generation, and biofuels. And this year, the Korea government expects to inject 1 trillion won (US$900 million) into current and next generation clean energy sources.

UK regulator, the Renewable Fuels Agency (RFA), has issued the subsidiaries of two major oil companies with penalties for not meeting biofuel standards. Under the Renewable Transport Fuels Obligation (RTFO), companies supplying over 450,000 l of petrol or diesel to the UK market have to register with the RFA and match their supply with a percentage of biofuel, as well as providing information on its carbon intensity and sustainability.

This is the finding of a recent US study that was compiled by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory Department of Energy, the University of Maryland and NASA, which introduced a new assessment method to analyze interactions between solar thermal and electrical systems. The aim is to overcome one of the greatest difficulties of economic models that were used up to now for the energy evaluation of solar power, which practically did not take into account the source’s natural variability compared to network loads.