The Chilean Ministry of Energy has recently released the results of a tender for awarding 20 geothermal development concessions. Five of these concessions have been awarded to Ormat Technologies. The awarded concession areas are Aroma, Quinohuen, Marimar, San Jose II and Sollipulli.
The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced the appointments of members of the country's Offshore Wind Cost Reduction Task Force (OWCRTF), which is to deal with the problem of finding ways to reduce the cost of offshore wind power installations, in order to improve the industry's growth capability. The task force is part of the UK government's Renewable Energy Roadmap, which was announced in July this year. The members of the task force include high level officers from various top wind industry players, as well as financial and government institutions.
The US Department of Energy has finalized a USD 132 million loan guarantee for Abengoa's bioenergy project, the commercial-scale celluslosic ethanol plant. Abengoa Bioenergy is building the facility in Hugoton, Kansas.
Panama's national power utility, Empresa de Transmisión Eléctrica, S.A. (ETESA), has issued a tender calling for proposals for wind power generation. The proposals are to be based on an equivalent energy amount, for a 14 year period, from 2014-2028.
Guatemala has completed the evaluation of a number of locations where there is potential for wind energy development. Of the sixteen spots in total covered by the evaluation survey, ten have qualified as the top spots with high development potential. All the data has been collected using measurement towers which collected data for wind speed and direction, temperature and solar radiation.
Abengoa has finalized the USD 1.2 billion loan from the US Department of Energy for the Mojave Solar Project. The company is now ready to start construction of the 280 MW CSP paraboli trough solar project.
Ethiopia seems to be planning two more major hydropower projects on the Nile River. The country is aiming for 20 GW of power production within the next 10 years, a goal that requires major power capacity development. Ethiopia is planning to spend about USD 12 billion over the next 25 years in order to install more power capacity in the country.
The US Deparment of Energy has allocated up to USD 38 million for advanced geothermal energy technology research. Over the next three years, 32 innovative projects in 14 states will be developing and testing new geothermal resource location methods, including resoure characterization, drilling, reservoir engineering techniques, all with the goal to advance the geothermal energy sector in the US.
The National Authority of Public Service in Panama has given final approval for the exploration, development and exploitation of wind energy resources under the El Potrero project, located in the Pajonal and Penonomé Penonomé districts and Cocle province. The license was issued to InnoVent Central America, subsidiary of InnoVent (Germany, 100% owned by VWind AG).
The US Department of Energy announced it has finalized the partial guarantee for the USD 852 million loan for the Genesis Solar Project, which is to be developed in Riverside County, California. The project is to have 250 MW of installed capacity featuring CSP technology. It is being developed by NextEra Energy Resources.
