Day: May 5, 2020

A meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Energy was held in Islamabad with Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar in the chair. The meeting was apprised about the progress on the formulation and approval of the Renewable Energy Policy and the introduction of competitive bidding process for the entry of new producers in the renewable energy sector of Pakistan. The CCOE directed the Power Division to expedite the process and report back to the committee. The committee also approved the proposals of the Ministry of Power regarding…

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Last week, the city of Los Angeles inked a deal for a solar-plus-storage system at a record-low price. The 400-MW Eland solar power project will be capable of storing 1,200 megawatt-hours of energy in lithium-ion batteries to meet demand at night. The project is a part of the city’s climate commitment to reach 100 percent renewable energy by 2045. Electricity and heat production are the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Carbon-free electricity will be critical for keeping the average global temperature rise to within the United…

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French supermajor Total proved more resilient than some peers in the first quarter, remaining profitable despite a 35-percent decline in net income to $1.8 billion. The company said it would continue to distribute dividends, unchanged from last year’s first quarter. Total also declared a goal of becoming net neutral in terms of carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 despite the challenging oil price environment. Noting that this was in line with European Union emissions goals, the French supermajor said it is already working to reduce its carbon footprint by expanding its…

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The executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), Fatih Birol, said that the turmoil in the oil sector caused by the covid-19 pandemic gives governments the perfect opportunity to embrace green energy as a source of jobs that also serves climate goals. In an interview with Reuters, Birol said that not only well-established technologies, such as those behind solar and wind generation should receive a boost, but also lithium-ion batteries and the use of electrolysis to produce hydrogen from water should be candidates for subsidies and policy support. Besides being the backbone…

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Bank of China has told its clients that it would pick up the tab for part of the $1.4-billion total loss that its retail customers amassed from investing in a crude oil futures-linked product, several Chinese retail investors told Bloomberg on Tuesday. Bank of China, one of the largest lenders in the country, has a paper investment structured product for retail investors linked to international futures contracts, including WTI Crude and Brent Crude. The structured product linked to oil benchmarks burnt many Chinese investors in last month’s market carnage when…

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