Despite continuing growth in fossil fuel spending and record investment in coal, clean energy sources are becoming ever more dominant in a world that is expected to spend US$2.8 trillion on all forms of energy this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported last week.The shift in financing still isn’t fast enough or deep enough to hit a net-zero emissions target by mid-century, the agency warns. But days after the IEA released its World Energy Investment 2023 report, a U.S. bank analyst was asking a question that would previously have been unthinkable: whether privately-owned oil and gas companies will run short of investment dollars to develop new extraction projects.“Yes, there is a danger, or a risk at least, of a severely diminished ability to privately finance oil and gas projects,” Ed Morse, global head of commodities research at New York-based Citibank, told fossil newsletter Rigzone.

Morse’s assessment was more dire for the industry, more hopeful for a decarbonized future, than the IEA’s. But the Paris-based agency’s report, the latest in an annual series, shows clean energy spending outstripping fossil fuels for the fourth year in a row and growing 24% over the last two years, compared to 15% for oil, gas, and coal, with solar expected to surpassoil production investment for the first time.Days earlier, the IEA said new solar manufacturing announcements have reached a threshold that would deliver on a 2030 decarbonization target, though only one-quarter of those projects are fully committed. All told, the IEA expects to see $1.7 trillion invested this year in renewable energy, energy efficiency, grid modernization, electric vehicles, energy storage, and nuclear. Clean technologies are pulling away from fossil fuels,” said IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.“This crowns solar as a true energy superpower. It is emerging as the biggest tool we have for rapid decarbonization of the entire economy,” added Dave Jones, head of data insights at the Ember energy think tank. “The irony remains that some of the sunniest places in the world have the lowest levels of solar investment.”But “while fossil fuel investment falls behind cleaner alternatives, it’s still set to reach the highest level since before the pandemic,” Bloomberg Green reports, with the IEA projecting a 6% increase this year. “That would have to start falling sharply this decade to be in line with the IEA’s scenario that would see the planet reach net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.”       https://www.theenergymix.com/2023/05/30/analyst-sees-oil-and-gas-running-short-of-cash-as-iea-releases-energy-investment-update/?utm_source=The+Energy+Mix&utm_campaign=cd06f351c7-TEM_RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_dc146fb5ca-cd06f351c7-509990701

 Perovskite: new type of solar technology paves the way for abundant, cheap and printable cells. Silicon solar cells are an established technology for the generation of electricity from the sun. But they take a lot of energy to produce, are rigid and can be fragile. However, a new class of solar cell is matching their performance. And what’s more, it can now be printed out using special inks and wrapped flexibly around uneven surfaces. We have developed the world’s first rollable and fully printable solar cell made from perovskite, a material that is much less expensive to produce than silicon. If we can also improve their efficiency, this points to the possibility of making cheaper solar cells on a much greater scale than ever before. The silicon solar cells that are so recognisable to us have a significant limitation. If enough were made to cover our needs, we could run out of the materials to make them by 2050.  The perovskite solar cell is emerging to fill that gap. Perovskite is a crystal structure made with inorganic and organic components, named after Lev Perovski, a Russian mineral expert of the 17th and 18th centuries. Perovskite solar cells first appeared in research labs in 2012 and caught the attention of researchers due to two factors: their ability to convert sunlight into electricity, and the potential for creating them from a combination of inks. In research labs, using highly controlled production methods in environments where oxygen and water are completely removed, perovskite solar cells can now match the electricity generation of silicon solar cells. This is a remarkable achievement.

But cheap perovskite solar cells that do away with silicon have yet to be manufactured on a commercial scale. So what if these materials could be produced using the same sorts of processes we use for printing ordinary packaging?  Scientists have found that to achieve record efficiencies, the semiconductor and perovskite layers in this new form of solar cell must be extremely thin – between 50 and 500 nanometres (about 500 times smaller than a human hair). Perovskite solar cells have demonstrated high performance in research labs, and have now been proven capable of making the leap to high-volume manufacturing. But the job is not quite done yet.    https://theconversation.com/perovskite-new-type-of-solar-technology-paves-the-way-for-abundant-cheap-and-printable-cells-202579?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%203%202023%20-%202615426317&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20May%203%202023%20-%202615426317+CID_0dbb6b9f23bab68c9dba0239916331df&utm_source=campaign_monitor_uk&utm_term=Perovskite%20new%20type%20of%20solar%20technology%20paves%20the%20way%20for%20abundant%20cheap%20and%20printable%20cells  

Abuja, Nigeria – December 1, 2022 RMI launched the Energy Transition Academy (ETA) Global Fellowship Program in Nigeria, with funding support from Shell. The Nigeria fellowship program offering is the first ETA Global Fellowship Program for West Africa and the third cohort of the global program. With this expansion, the ETA Global Fellowship Program now includes 48 energy professionals from 16 countries spanning the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa. The fellowship program is designed to support utilities in advancing renewable energy projects, promoting reliable and resilient energy access, and acting on climate change. This cohort includes 20 participants representing four Nigerian distribution network companies (DisCos), including Abuja Electricity Distribution Co., Ikeja Electric, Eko Electricity Distribution Co., and Ibadan Electricity Distribution Co. Fellows have backgrounds in a range of disciplines such as engineering, project management, finance, and law. In the new group, 35 percent are women, representing a concerted effort by RMI and participating DisCos to diversify participants. “The ETA Global Fellowship Program is designed to build the capacity of local distribution companies by upskilling well-positioned professionals who can serve as clean energy champions to advance the development and scaling of utility-enabled renewable energy projects in Nigeria,” "This capacity growth is critical to meet the goals of Nigeria’s Energy Transition Plan. Inclusion of a balance of young professionals, seasoned energy practitioners, and women representing the sector is critical to advancing the energy transition in Nigeria.”

Universal access to electricity in Nigeria is a national development priority. Today, more than 90 million Nigerians lack access to electricity and millions of those connected to the grid have less than 12 hours of electricity per day. “The Nigeria Energy Transition Plan seeks to add 30 GW of new installed capacity by 2030, with at least 30 percent sourced from renewable energy. As noted in the national plan, Nigeria’s net-zero pathway will result in significant net job creation with up to 340,000 jobs added by 2030 and 840,000 by 2060,” says Suleiman Babamanu, Nigeria Program Director, RMI. “This transition requires investing in the people doing the work to advance distributed renewable energy, and the fellowship program is designed based on the training needs identified by RMI, participating DisCos, and fellows.” 

The Renewable-Energy Revolution Will Need Renewable Storage. Can gravity, pressure, and other elemental forces save us from becoming a battery-powered civilization? The German word Dunkelflaute means “dark doldrums.” It chills the hearts of renewable-energy engineers, who use it to refer to the lulls when solar panels and wind turbines are thwarted by clouds, night, or still air. Power companies need to plan not ju st for individual storms or windless nights but for Dunkelflaute that stretch for days or longer.  The obvious solution is batteries. The most widespread variety is called lithium-ion, or Li-ion, after the chemical process that makes it work. Such batteries power everything from mobile phones to electric vehicles; they are relatively inexpensive to make and getting cheaper. But typical models exhaust their stored energy after only three or four hours of maximum output, and little by little, with each recharge. It is expensive to collect enough batteries to cover longer discharges, and batteries can catch fire. The batteries depend on lithium and cobalt. but some seventy per cent of the world’s cobalt came from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. “Unless we have diversity, we’re going to be in trouble,” Srinivasan said. Moreover, a lot of water and energy are required for mining the metals, which can cause environmental damage, and some cobalt-mining operations involve child labor. We need to expand our capacity; by one estimate, we’ll require at least a hundred times more storage by 2040 if we want to shift largely to renewables and avoid climate catastrophe.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      Ideally, we’d pair renewable energy with renewable storage.  We already have one kind of renewable energy storage: more than ninety per cent of the world’s energy-storage capacity is in reservoirs, as part of a remarkable but unsung technology called pumped-storage hydropower. Among other things, “pumped hydro” is used to smooth out spikes in electricity demand. Motors pump water uphill from a river or a reservoir to a higher reservoir; when the water is released downhill, it spins a turbine, generating power again. A pumped-hydro installation is like a giant, permanent battery, charged when water is pumped uphill and depleted as it flows down.  But the construction of new facilities in the United States peaked decades ago- the right geography is hard to find, permits are difficult to obtain, and construction is slow and expensive so the hunt is on for new approaches to energy storage.  Instead of pumping water uphill, Quidnet's system sends it underground through a pipe reaching at least a thousand feet down. Later, the system lets the Earth squeeze the water back up under pressure, using it to drive generators. Quidnet’s technology is like a green riff on fracking but with a different goal: the water is meant to be sandwiched between layers of rock, forming underground reservoirs that can be released on demand. The world needs “a whole suite of storage methods.” and not all methods will find a niche as we are really imagining trying to rebuild the entire grid system.” .......and there are other approaches being explored- read on                           
 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/04/25/the-renewable-energy-revolution-will-need-renewable-storage