Renewables Roundup

From wind power in China and Spain, solar energy in India, geothermal developments in Indonesia and US biofuel production, the global renewable energy scene was busy today. No notable developments were reported in the UAE, however, which this week was preoccupied with

and

deals.

China's wind capacity is set to reach 20,000 megawatts by the end of this year (i.e., tomorrow), according to Shi Lishan, the deputy director of new energy at the country's National Energy Administration, which would fittingly make the world's third largest economy its

. Beijing also established a group to enact standards for its wind power industry.

The board of India's largest utility,

, approved the

by March 2014. That would be equivalent to just 1 per cent of the company's current installed generation capacity, which is mainly coal-fired. But it's a start for a country with so much air pollution that it advises travellers against wearing white clothes in major cities.

Indonesia said it would allow geothermal energy plants to operate in protected forests,

. The government said plant operators would have to compensate by setting aside twice as much land for forestation in other parts of the country as they would otherwise be required to do. Indonesia has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world, but also hopes to tap renewable energy resources to meet rising power demand and cut oil consumption.

The US ethanol industry is

over its low-carbon fuel standards, claiming the regulations will stunt the biofuel industry's growth by making the production of ethanol from feedstocks other than maize uneconomic. More than a dozen US ethanol companies have filed for bankruptcy in the past 18 months.

California, which accounts for 11 per cent of US petrol demand, will require a 10 per cent reduction in the carbon content of transportation fuels by 2020. Regulators will count emissions from the fuel's production and distribution as well as from its use in cars and trucks, and will also examine the effects of biofuel production on deforestation.

In Spain, it happened again: Thousands of wind turbines supplied a record amount of power in the wee hours. The grid operator

reported power output reaching a record 54.6 per cent of the country's electricity demand at 3:40 am local time on Wednesday. Ten minutes later at a slightly lower percentage of demand, power output topped 10,000 megawatts, about 1.1 per cent higher than the previous record set on November 9.

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