Emma Marcegaglia, president of Confindustria,  the main organisation representing Italian manufacturing and services companies, calls on Italian government to reintroduce incentives on energy efficiency. Up to Confindustria, these incentives could add a 0.4% to GDP and create 800.000 jobs. In a speech at a conference on environment, Marcegaglia also explained Confindustria position on nuclear and [...]

Bracknell (UK), 1 February 2011. To affirm its commitment to a low-carbon future on the eve of the EU Summit, the Assembly of European Regions (AER) organised together with its partner GE Energy, regional representatives and energy experts a one-day event presenting viable actions to build up an energy efficient European territory. “Much of the [...]

The Regulatory Authority for Electricity and Gas (Autorità per l’energia elettrica e il gas), in a report to the Parliament and Government is pointing out that strong rules and anti -speculation measures are needed to effectively promote renewable energy and achieve the European goals without putting a strain on the bills. By the regulator, the Measure drafted by the Government  have positive and acceptable aspects, but some remedial actions are [...]

According to the German green electricity industry, the uniform subsidy system for renewable energies in Europe demanded by EU Energy Commissioner Günther Oettinger is not going to help reduce costs but push them up instead. In Berlin, the German Renewable Energy Association (BEE) explained that it is untrue that an EU-wide, standardised subsidisation would make [...]

Germany will fail to achieve its energy savings goals set by the European Union, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported today, citing an internal European Commission document. Efforts of EU Member States are so far only sufficient to increase energy efficiency by 10 percent at the most by 2020. While EU members agreed in 2007 to increase [...]

Next week, EU heads of government will discuss the Union’s future energy policy. The proposal that the commission has put forward will mean, according to the Swedish energy minister, Maud Olofsson, that the Swedish taxpayers may be forced to pay for new electricity network. The EU Commission’s proposal states that the EU’s future energy portfolio [...]

The Algeria government is planning to have a silicium plant built from 2013 to provide for the manufacture of solar panels. The projects will be based on a 200 million to 250 million Euros investment. This project would help producing panels locally and avoid the plant to be dependent on imported raw materials. The plant’s [...]

On Monday, January 24th the Moroccan Energy federation celebrated its 10th anniversary with the publication of its founder’s new book “10 years of reflecting on energy choices”. The book is organised chronologically from 2011 to 2010, which allows readers to follow the evolution of energy policies in Morocco in the last decade. The country saw [...]

EU commissioner for energy, Gunther Oettinger, while speaking in advance of next week’s summit of EU leaders, detailed a five-point ‘action plan’ for energy. The plan includes a more substantial commitment to reducing energy consumption, a point which has become ever more pressing given that worldwide demand for energy is set to rise by 30% [...]

Flemish Energy Minister, Freya Van den Bossche, has stated that administrative procedure for the allocation of wind farm permits is a far too lengthy process and believes that approval procedures can be simplified. Last year 10 new wind turbines came into operation resulting in 20 MW of installed capacity. The Minister also went on to [...]