Building energy use still takes big part

By Du Juan ( chinadaily.com.cn )

Updated: 2012-12-03

The building construction sector still plays a big role in China's energy consumption mixture as the country continues to make efforts to achieve its urbanization target, said a government official on Monday.

"The energy issues are hard to solve during the country's urbanization process," said Han Aixin, deputy director-general of the buildings department for science and technology and energy saving at the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development during the 2012 China Planning Network Annual Conference.

According to figures from the ministry, at present, building energy consumption accounts for about one-third of the total social energy consumption in the country. The other two big consumers are industry and transportation.

He said the ubiquitos energy network - a network combining energy supply, information communication and electricity trading - will be the way to solve urban energy problems.

ENN Group, a private Hong Kong-listed Chinese energy company, has established an eco-community in Qingdao, Shandong province, applying the ubiquitous energy network.

"The network helps community residents adjust their energy consuming behavior to save energy day by day," said Gan Yongqing, vice-chairman of ENN. "The network can also be applied in the industrial sectors."

However, Han said more should be done to calculate experiences with the network.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/m/qingdao/2012-12/03/content_15980403.htm

Schneider helps cities switch on to save

Updated: 2012-11-21 11:14

By Meng Jing ( China Daily)

Opportunities abound as company's projects suit China's soaring demand

Every working day exactly 15 minutes after employees at Schneider Electric's China headquarters in Beijing are to leave work, the lights in the building go out. Those who need to stay late have to turn them back on to prevent their workspaces from being shrouded in darkness.

It is that kind of attention to saving energy that helped the French energy management company reduce the power used in its Beijing building from 160 kilowatt-hours per square meter a year in 2009 to 105 kW/h in 2011. The company now says it expects to have the amount reduced to 90 kW/h by 2014.

Making buildings energy efficient is one of Schneider Electric's specialties. And it has now setits sights on a bigger goal: making cities more sustainable, efficient and livable.

"It doesn't make sense to be leaders in energy management if we cannot addressexpectations and challenges cities are facing today," said Patrick Gaonach, China senior vice-president of strategy and business development at Schneider Electric.

"And China will represent a big proportion of this new market for us due to the number of itscities and the challenges they have."

Starting this year, Schneider Electric has been preparing to move forward with its initiative,Smart City Solutions, which will use different kinds of technologies to efficiently manage cities'energy, environments, water, space and other resources.

Gaonach noted that cities occupy about 2 percent of the land in the world but are home toabout half of the population, use about 75 percent of the energy and are the source of about80 percent of carbon emissions.

"As everyone wonders how to meet the growing demand for energy and resources whiledrastically reducing global carbon emissions, one thing is clear: This challenge will be won orlost in the cities," said Gaonach, who has worked for Schneider Electric for about 25 years.

In the pursuit of its goals, Schneider Electric is working with around 230 cities and regions onprojects to help them improve the efficiency and sustainability of their urban infrastructure, setand meet ambitious environmental goals and all the while staying within their budgets.

Schneider Electric is working on a variety of projects in Europe and even more in the United States. But of all the countries where it has a presence, China probably has the strongest willto make its cities sustainable, Gaonach said.

The scale and pace of urban expansion in China is unprecedented. Last year, for the first time,more than half of the 1.3 billion people making up its population were classified as urbandwellers.

According to a report by the economics think tank McKinsey Global Institute, as many as 100of the world's top 600 cities are expected to be in China by 2025.

"Going green is definitely a trend among Chinese cities, no matter how big or small they are,"Gaonach said. "With rapid development, cities also want to be more cost-effective, not only inbuilding those cost-intensive infrastructures, but also in operating and maintaining them.

"Last but not least, citizens in China are now becoming more and more demanding. They wantcities to be more convenient and livable."

Such demands are broad, he said. And Schneider Electric is working to meet them in a varietyof ways, whether it be through providing power grids, transport, water and public services orbuildings and residences.

"For sure, it is quite a significant move for Schneider Electric, which is moving from being ahardware and software provider to more and more integrated solutions," Gaonach said. "Butthis is a strategic direction we are taking to better meet the needs of our key stakeholders in China."

To achieve that goal, Schneider Electric, which reported sales of 22.4 billion euros ($29.2billion) last year, acquired other IT solution providers in 2011, including the Spain-based IT andindustrial automation company Telvent GIT SA. Schneider Electric said the convergence ofinformation and communications technologies and energy has become common enough toconstitute a global trend.

Cities can overcome various difficulties through the use of information and communicationtechnology, for instance, by relying on car rental arrangements to reduce the number ofvehicles on the roads.

According to the Smart 2020 report, published by the IT services and consultancy companyAccenture last year, the use of smart technologies in electrical grids, transport, shipping,buildings and industrial motors could reduce global emissions by 15 percent by 2020 and saveabout $900 billion a year in energy costs.

Gaonach said Schneider Electric has many opportunities in China. "What we are trying to do isto be more selective in partnerships and take a step-by-step approach," he said.

The company has around 50 SmartCity projects in China, each of which concentrates on oneor two specific undertakings rather than the integrated solutions Schneider Electric can offer,Gaonach said, adding that about 10 of those cities will become the company's long-termstrategic partners.

Those relationships will require extensive cooperation between local governments, privatecompanies and investors and will call on participants from different walks of life to worktogether on sustainable development models.

"It is one thing to do a specific project; it is another to become long-term partners, which ismuch more complicated," Gaonach said. "We are trying to develop our strategic partners fromthose cities we have solid, concrete projects with."

The clients are likely to be some of the large cities found in China's more developed coastalregions, as well as expanding inland cities, he said.

He estimated that a complete renovation of a city can take 10 years or more.

"The top priority for us is to develop in China for China solutions," he said. "We have a veryambitious research and development plan with a new R&D center being established in Chinalater this year."

Schneider Electric invests 5 percent of its annual revenue in research and development, hesaid, and a growing proportion of that money is being put into China.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-11/21/content_15947680.htm

New-energy park slated for former World Expo site

2012-11-17

English EastDay.com

A NEW-energy theme park displaying vintage cars and offering the chance to test drive electric vehicles will open next month at the former World Expo site.

The 2062 New-Energy Theme Park covers 50,000 square meters in the Pudong New Area and will open to the public on December 22, organizers said.

The park will be divided into five sections and feature solar and wind power generation technologies. There will also be biodiesel technologies on display along with exhibits contributed by leading domestic companies in the new energy field.

Admission will be free until the trial opening period ends on December 31.

Beginning on January 1, admission will be 30 yuan (US$4.81), said Gu Yue, a senior organizer of the park.

"Vintage cars consume a lot of energy. We hope to present the evolution of energy development with the display of vintage cars and we expect this to be a highlight of the exhibition," Gu said.

The name of the park, 2062, has a special meaning, organizers said.

"The Mayan Prophecy predicted the end of Earth in 2012, which is not possible. But will human beings change their lifestyles, explore new energies and find better modes of transportation 50 years after the 'doomsday?'" said Zhang Huchao, market manager of Shanghai Foremost Multimedia Co Ltd, which is in charge of the exhibition.

The park's opening is part of a post-Expo development blueprint, which aims to turn the site into a landmark area that incorporates business, exhibition and leisure functions, authorities said yesterday at the China International Travel Mart.

http://english.eastday.com/e/121117/u1a7000862.html

Shanghai issuing 20,000 free license plates for new energy cars

November 13 | By Tony Zhu

Shanghai's government has begun to release 20,000 free plates for energy-saving cars, a strong local push which may eventually affect the entire country’s new energy vehicle industry.

In addition, Shanghai will also grant 40,000 yuan per unit for the purchase of alternative energy cars. Coupled with the central government’s subsidy of up to 60,000 yuan and the license plate worth 60,000 yuan, a buyer of an energy-saving car in the city can enjoy a subsidy of as much as 160,000 yuan--about 75 percent of a premier alternative energy sedan.

The average price for a Shanghai car plate hit a record high of 66,425 yuan ($10,528) last month, up 25 percent from January.

Several other cities are also considering similar preferential policies. Guangdong officials have also mentioned plans to encourage greater new energy vehicle use in the province, including offering a green channel in plate auctions.

Over the first nine months of the year, a total of 6,982 new energy automobiles were sold in China, including 3,009 pure electric vehicles.

http://www.morningwhistle.com/html/2012/Auto_1113/215302.html

Govt offers incentives to electric car buyers

By He Wei in Shanghai ( China Daily)

11/6/12

China's first indigenous purely electric supermini car hit the market on Monday as part of agovernment-sponsored project to encourage the use of energy-saving vehicles.

Roewe E50 buyers in Shanghai could save around 100,000 yuan ($16,000), thanks togovernment subsidies and an upcoming local policy waiving license plate fees, according tocompany sources.

The E50, a purely electric vehicle, is the result of three years' research and development byShanghai Automotive Industry Corp, said Shen Ling, public relations manager of thecompany's new energy department.

The car applies advanced energy-saving and safety technologies to ensure zero emissions,she said.

Although the new model officially retails at 220,000-240,000 yuan, buyers may enjoy steepdiscounts as the government and automakers strive to promote new-energy vehicles.

Under a central government notice, a rebate of up to 60,000 yuan is offered on the purchaseprice to buyers of battery-powered cars, and the Shanghai municipal government is offering asubsidy of up to 40,000 yuan.

A move which could give the sector a further shot in the arm is a policy due to be unveiled bythe Shanghai authorities offering free license plates to owners of electric vehicles.

According to Shen, the decision, which is subject to the approval of the National Development and Reform Commission, is likely to be implemented "very soon".

Other than government incentives, auto manufacturers are seeking to drum up buyers' interestwith value-added services.

Meanwhile, SAIC is finalizing plans to offer discounts on group purchases by businesses, sheadded.

Shen said the company has set no sales targets for the new model. But SAIC chief engineerLing Tianjun said in August that it expects to sell 1,000 vehicles next year.

The launch of the car on the retail market will be a step forward for new-energy vehicles inChina, as the majority are currently owned by government bodies or used for publictransportation.

The average energy conversion rate of electric vehicles is 46 percent higher than conventionalcars, and they have the potential to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by up to 68 percent, saidRaymond Tsang, a partner at Bain and Company.

Apart from purely battery-powered electric vehicles, hybrid cars, which run on a combination ofbatteries and conventional engines, are also popular as they are easier to operate, he said.

China's strategy to develop new energy cars has gained ground on many fronts, according toWang Tianwei, policy director of the policy coordination department of Jiading Auto City inShanghai.

On the policy front, the development of the electric vehicle industry has been a priority of theMinistry of Science and Technology for more than a decade.

On the regulatory front, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the NationalDevelopment and Reform Commission have issued at least 20 regulations over the pastdecade to regulate and promote the wider use of hybrid and electric vehicles.

The target was to make the country a world leader in electric vehicles by putting 500,000 onthe road by 2011.

But Wang said the deadline has been extended to 2015 as a result of technological constraintsand a lack of policy coordination.

Battery performance remains the greatest threat to the credibility of electric vehicles inmotorists' eyes. Wang said Chinese companies still lag far behind their competitors in the Westin battery technology.

A study conducted by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs saidChina holds just 1 percent of the total patent registrations for lithium ion batteries, while Japanowns 52 percent and the United States has 22 percent.

The other common concern is a lack of recharging stations, he said.

SAIC has set up 1,170 recharging stations in Shanghai, but most of those are in suburbanareas.

Tao Weishuo, a veteran motorist in Shanghai, said that despite all the incentives he was stillreluctant to buy an electric vehicle.

"The shortage of recharging stations in the city center would limit where I could drive. What'sthe point of owning a car if it fails to take me anywhere I want?"

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2012-11/06/content_15881637.htm

Sewage for heat, trend within a trend

October 4, 2012

Column | Korky Koroluk

Daily Commercial News

We’re hearing more and more about mining sewage systems to recover heat. They’re far from common so far, but they are cropping up here and there around the world.

There’s one in a condominium building in Vancouver, several in China, a few in Paris, one in Philadelphia —the list goes on.

It’s clearly a trend, but it’s a trend within a trend.

Tapping sewers to obtain heat is just like geothermal energy, but instead of using the ground or a lake as a source, you use the sewers, which is why it’s become known simply as sewage geothermal.

Most of us never think about the sewage being carried in pipes right beneath our feet. It’s usually pretty warm, and we can capture that heat through heat exchangers, just as ground-source geothermal system uses exchangers to bring heat into our homes.

In Philadelphia, a firm called NovaThermal Energy LLC is doing something similar. It has built a plant at a sewage treatment plant for easy access to wastewater. The company also plans to market a Chinese system that’s somewhat like the one in Vancouver. They plan to sell it to any large buildings located near a major trunk sewer that carries a steady flow of wastewater still warm from its previous uses.A Vancouver firm, International Wastewater Heat Exchange Systems Inc., has a system that filters suspended solids, and then sends the filtered wastewater to a heat exchanger. There, heat is either extracted from the wastewater (for heating) or transferred to the wastewater (for cooling). Then the wastewater is discharged back to the sewage main pipe.

Many industrial processes use hot water, which is one reason wastewater is usually pretty warm. International Wastewater says it can reach an average temperature of just over 25°C where it leaves buildings. In septic drains, the average is about 15°C.

What we’re seeing is part of a larger trend: district heating and cooling. And we’re going to see more and more of it as construction costs climb, as energy costs soar, and more ways are sought to limit emissions of greenhouse gases.

District heating and cooling is hardly new. In Northern European countries district energy systems are an important part of heat production. Well over half of Denmark’s buildings are on district energy systems. In its capital, Copenhagen, 98 per cent of buildings are supplied by district energy. Even in North America, it’s not uncommon to see entire industrial or academic campuses heated from a central plant. In Ottawa, a central plant heats the government buildings on and around Parliament Hill.

At one time it could be even be found in small towns.

Growing up in small-town Alberta, I was familiar with the gas-powered steam plant that provided heat to the small central business district. But it was shut down in the name of progress, and individual buildings had to install their own small gas boilers.

In recent years, we’ve seen the growth of Enwave Energy Corp., which now provides district heating and cooling to something like 140 buildings in Toronto’s downtown core. And just north of Toronto, Markham District Energy now has three combined heat and power plants in service, with a fourth under construction.

District energy is growing, so it makes sense for the systems to tap in to any energy source that’s handy, and that often means a sewage plant or a large sewer main.

All this will mean that an increasing share of our heating and cooling needs will met by small facilities serving a relatively small area—a subdivision, an industrial park, a neighbourhood, a town.

It will mean more work for electrical and mechanical engineers and contractors as a changing climate forces us to seek out new ideas to replace those that have become too shop-worn to keep.

http://dcnonl.com/article/id52194/--sewage-for-heat-trend-within-a-trend

Mayor warns solar tariffs 'may hurt' American jobs

US tariffs on imports of Chinese-made solar cells for electricity could put American jobs at risk and discourage investment by China, the mayor of a small Arizona city told federal regulators on Wednesday in support of a Phoenix business group's complaint.

The Greater Phoenix Economic Council, or GPEC, which represents about 160 companies, filed a letter of protest with the US Commerce Department and the US International Trade Commission in July over the duties on Chinese-made photovoltaic cells and modules.

More than 9,000 jobs in Arizona are related to renewable-energy companies and utility-scale power projects.

The state was ranked third in the US for installed solar capacity by the Department of Energy.

On Wednesday, Mayor Georgia Lord of Goodyear, Arizona, who is a member of the GPEC board, was the elected public office-holder at the hearing.

"Many of Goodyear's economic development efforts center on solar or foreign direct investment," she testified. "As a small city located in a foreign-trade zone, we want more Suntechs — not less."

China-based Suntech Power Holdings Co, the world's biggest maker of solar panels by output, has a manufacturing plant in Goodyear, a city of fewer than 70,000 people. The plant employs more than 100 engineers and technicians.

According to GPEC, Suntech each month produces 15,000 solar panels, which are used in providing electricity to about 10,000 American homes per year.

The ITC has been investigating whether the US solar-cell industry has been harmed by alleged dumping and unfair subsidies of Chinese-made panels.

The commission has said it will announce it's final decision in November.

In May, the Commerce Department announced preliminary tariffs of up to 250 percent on imports of Chinese solar cells.

The US government also slapped subsidy-fighting duties on Chinese solar producers in March, following allegations from SolarWorld AG of Germany that Chinese producers were able to sell their goods cheaply because of government subsidies.

A study by consulting firm the Brattle Group found that the duties will affect US demand for solar energy, resulting in substantial job losses. The report estimates that a 100 percent tariff would result in nearly 50,000 job losses in the US by 2014.

The GPEC fears that the tariffs could create the perception in China that the US doesn't welcome its investment. According to the group, about 12 Chinese companies have identified the Phoenix area as a possible location for their solar projects with an investment of $400 million.

Tom Gutierrez, CEO of GT Advanced Technologies Inc, a New Hampshire-based company that supplies China with equipment used in manufacturing solar panels and their polysilicon components, said the tariffs artificially raise prices and do not help the long-term goal of reducing costs."

It damages the long-term future of the solar industry," said Gutierrez.

About 90 percent of GT's business is in Asia, mostly China. Its customers include leading Chinese solar companies such as Yingli Green Energy Holding Co and LDK Solar Co.

In late 2011, a group of US companies formed the Coalition for Affordable Solar Energy, or CASE, to oppose the tariffs. CASE mainly consists of companies that install Chinese-made solar panels.

http://www.china.org.cn/business/2012-10/05/content_26706262.htm

China rolls out new $2.2 bln subsidy scheme-Xinhua

BEIJING, Sept 9 

(Reuters) - China will provide subsidies worth $2.2 billion to buyers of energy-efficient computers and air-conditioners in the latest effort to stimulate domestic demand and encourage the use of environmentally friendly technology, Xinhua reported on Sunday.

The one-year subsidy programme will cover purchases of desktop computers, air-conditioners, fans, water pumps, compressors and transformers, Xinhua said, quoting sources at China's Ministry of Finance.

It is expected to raise the market share of the energy-saving products to more than 40 percent.

"The move marks the government's effort to combine stabilising economic growth and stoking domestic demand with promoting energy savings and emission reductions," the state news agency quoted an official at the ministry as saying.

China's economic growth has slowed for six straight quarters and analysts expect the trend to extend to a seventh when third quarter GDP data for 2012 is published. Growth in Q2 was 7.6 percent, its slackest in more than three years.

Recent data have cemented views that growth for the full year will be its lowest since 1999, likely below 8 percent and may even struggle to hit the government's 2012 growth target of 7.5 percent.

Officials last week revealed they had given the green light to 60 infrastructure projects worth more than $150 billion, as Beijing seeks to energise the economy.

The announcement fuelled investor hopes the world's growth engine may get a lift in the fourth quarter of the year and beyond.

"The subsidy program will help save 31.3 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity every year and drive sales of the energy-saving products by 155.6 billion yuan ($24.5 billion)," the official said.

China has around 130 million desktop computers, which consume 31.2 billion kwh of electricity every year, Xinhua said, adding that the annual power consumption of air-conditioners reach 350 billion kwh.

Xinhua said the power consumption of fans, pumps, compressors and transformers accounted for 40 percent of total energy use in 2011, but they were only 80 percent as efficient as those in developed countries.

China has subsidised energy-efficient products since 2009. It extended the scheme to five types of home appliances - air conditioners, flat-panel televisions, refrigerators, washing machines and water heaters - from June 1 this year.

Xinhua said the subsidy policy had boosted sales of energy efficient products by over 600 billion yuan and saved 28 billion kwh of electricity each year since 2009.

The report did not say when the program would start.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/09/china-economy-subsidies-idINL5E8K91H920120909

China price war drains jobs in Germany’s Solar Valley

Sydney Morning Herald
9/8/12

When Thomas Behling returned to his home state of Saxony-Anhalt in 2006, he was drawn by a job in the solar industry and the chance to participate in Germany’s renewable energy boom. He was fired in July.

Behling’s employer, Sovello, produced its last solar panel on Aug. 26, sending 1,000 workers home after attempts to find an investor to save the seven-year-old company failed. Next door, Q-Cells SE, once the world’s largest solar-cell maker, is being acquired by Hanwha Group of South Korea as soaring debt brought it to the brink of bankruptcy. At least 12 German solar companies filed for protection from creditors in the past year.

Their demise, fueled by price competition from China and a cut in German subsidies from April, has hobbled Saxony-Anhalt’s effort to turn a 350-hectare (1.4 square miles) business park near the town of Bitterfeld-Wolfen into Europe’s solar-power nucleus. Even as Chancellor Angela Merkel pins Germany’s exit from nuclear energy on power derived from the sun and wind, a global glut of solar panels is killing the fledgling firms.

“I believed that I was working in an industry with a future,” Behling, a 31-year-old industrial mechanic, said in an interview. “That it’s over now is very sad.”

The European Union yesterday threatened to impose tariffs on solar panels from China, echoing a similar move by the U.S., as it opened a probe into whether Chinese manufacturers are selling them below cost, a practice known as dumping. Tariffs however will come too late for Sovello and many German firms.

Bosch closing

The closures aren’t confined to Saxony-Anhalt. Robert Bosch, the world’s biggest car parts manufacturer that has invested at least 1.5 billion euros in its solar division, said last week it would close a plant in the state of Thuringia by the end of the year. First Solar Inc. of the U.S. said in April it would shutter its biggest European manufacturing site in Brandenburg that employs 1,200 people.

China’s share of global crystalline silicon-cell capacity surged to 66 percent last year from 26 percent in 2006, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Germany’s share sank to four percent from 23 percent six years ago.

Crystalline-based cells are the principal device in most solar panels.

Of the world’s 10 biggest solar-cell manufacturers with a combined production capacity of almost 17 gigawatts, eight were mainly based in China and two in Taiwan as of last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. JA Solar, the biggest cell-maker based in Shanghai, more than tripled its capacity to 2.8 gigawatts from 2009 to 2011.

Chinese panel makers led by Suntech Power are grabbing market share from European rivals in a price war that drove solar-panel prices down by about 50 percent last year, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Price matters

“Quality matters, but what matters more is price,” Heinz Steffen, an analyst at Fairesearch GmbH in Kronberg, said in an Aug. 30 interview.

The Bloomberg Industries Global Large Solar index has fallen about 37 percent this year as German solar companies including Solon SE, Solar Millennium AG and Solarhybrid AG filed for insolvency. That compares with the 2.7 percent gain in the period by the MSCI World Index, a 1,625-member global benchmark.

The collapse flies in the face of a German plan to use renewable energy as a pillar to rebuild the economy in the eastern part of the country after reunification in 1990.

The policy helped turn a landscape that in the 1980s was dotted with coal-fired power stations that emitted fly ash and chemical plants that pumped waste into local rivers, earning it the title of Europe’s dirtiest region, into a clean-energy hub.

Solar survives

The government pumped about 375 billion euros ($450 billion) into eastern Germany in the 20 years after reunification, according to a study by the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Dresden. It led industrial nations in subsidizing renewable energy generators, which supplied 25 percent of the nation’s power in the first half of this year.

German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier said on Aug. 16 that “it’s in Germany’s interest” that the domestic solar industry survives.

Germany’s introduction in 2004 of the world’s first above-market rates for solar energy turned the country into the single-biggest photovoltaic market that same year, prompting Spain, Britain and Japan to follow suit with similar initiatives aimed at generating “green jobs.”

Q-Cells produced its first solar cell in 2001, with 19 workers. Six years later, it had more than 1,700 employees and generated annual sales of 860 million euros. By 2008, it had overtaken Sharp of Japan as the world’s biggest producer of solar cells.

Purge overcapacity

“The solar industry needs this storm to purge some of the overcapacities, not just in Germany but in Asia too,” Fairesearch’s Steffen said. “German solar companies still have excellent intellectual property, so there’s hope that some will survive.”

While German cell- and panel makers have largely stayed domestic, the U.S. solar industry, led by First Solar of Arizona, is focusing on thin-film technology and is producing mainly in Southeast Asia.

The U.S. government mainly supports installations with a 30 percent investment tax credit for solar projects through 2016 and has backed projects with billions of dollars in federal loan guarantees. First Solar got $3.1 billion in such guarantees for three projects it later sold.

As Chinese companies took market share from Q-Cells and the failed Solyndra LLC of the U.S. in the last few years, they’ve become burdened with billions of dollars in debt amid the global drop in profit margins they helped instigate.

Chinese financing

State-owned China Development Bank has offered at least $47.3 billion in financing since 2010 to support the country’s wind and solar manufacturers, though credit lines were only been partially tapped, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Employment in Germany’s clean energy industry probably will “stagnate” this year after creating about 31,600 jobs a year since 2004, Claudia Kemfert, a senior energy analyst at the DIW economic institute in Berlin, said in April.

Unemployment in Saxony-Anhalt dropped from about 20.5 percent in 2003 to 11.6 percent last year. That’s still more than Germany’s 6.8 percent national average. The state’s Economy Ministry estimates that as many as 6,000 positions at local suppliers, including glass makers, are dependent on the solar industry.

All not lost

Rainer Haseloff, the governor of Saxony-Anhalt, and state Economy Minister Birgitta Wolff traveled to South Korea on Aug. 29 to meet with potential investors, Beate Hagen, an economy ministry spokeswoman, said.

“The solar industry is very important for Saxony-Anhalt and for eastern Germany as a whole,” Hagen said by phone on Aug. 28. “We have the entire solar value chain in our region and we’re doing everything possible so that it stays here.”

Still, all is not lost. Hanergy, a Chinese renewable-energy operator, agreed in June to buy Solibro, a thin-film unit of Q-Cells, pledging to raise production at its plant in Germany’s Solar Valley to 100 megawatts.

The Fraunhofer Center for Silicon Photovoltaics CSP in nearby Halle is conducting research into new technologies, and Calyxo GmbH, a maker of thin-film solar panels, plans to more than triple its output to 80 megawatts by the end of this year.

Thin-film technology

“Thin-film has a very attractive future,” because the technology’s costs will continuously fall, Florian Holzapfel, the company’s chief executive officer, said in an interview with Photovoltaics International.

Thin-film panels are made by depositing semiconducting material such as cadmium telluride onto metal or glass. While cheaper, they’re less efficient at converting sunlight to power than traditional, polysilicon-based panels. The falling cost of polysilicon has narrowed the price gap between the technologies.

The creditors of Q-Cells on Aug. 29 backed a takeover bid from Hanwha, which pledged to keep manufacturing and research in the Solar Valley and keep 1,250 of the company’s 1,550 global jobs.

“We’re seeing light at the end of the tunnel for Solar Valley,” Hagen said.

Behling, who operated and monitored Sovello’s machines for the past six years, is optimistic he can start working elsewhere by October. While three local companies contacted him after he sent around applications, none of his potential new employers works in the renewable energy industry, he said.

“In life, you have to move on,” he said.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/china-price-war-drains-jobs-in-germanys-solar-valley-20120908-25kp4.html#ixzz25udzAbSU

Buy a new energy car and save 100,000 yuan

By Hu Xiaocen  |   2012-9-8
Shanghai Daily

CONSUMERS who buy fuel-saving and new energy cars in Shanghai can save around 100,000 yuan (US$15,760) in total, as the government plans to introduce more measures to boost the sales of such cars, officials said yesterday.

"China will expand the use of energy-saving cars," Wan Gang, Minister of Science and Technology, said in Beijing. "Other policies may include exemption for users from license plate auction and lottery."

Shanghai was named the country's first pilot city for electric vehicle development in April last year. 

"The Shanghai government will subsidize 40,000 yuan for each purchase of electronic car," Shou Ziqi, director of the Shanghai Science and Technology Commission, said. "And buyers can have specially numbered license plates for the cars, without going through the plate auction process."

The average price for a car plate in Shanghai surged to 62,559 yuan in August, 4,288 yuan more than in July.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/nsp/Metro/2012/09/08/Buy%2Ba%2Bnew%2Benergy%2Bcar%2Band%2Bsave%2B100000%2Byuan/

A Chinese City Moves to Limit New Cars

September 4, 2012

New York Times

By KEITH BRADSHER

GUANGZHOU, China — It is as startling as if Detroit or Los Angeles restricted car ownership.

The municipal government of Guangzhou, a sprawling metropolis that is one of China’s biggest auto manufacturing centers, introduced license plate auctions and lotteries last week that will roughly halve the number of new cars on the streets.

The crackdown is the most restrictive in a series of moves by big Chinese cities that are putting quality-of-life issues ahead of short-term economic growth, something the central government has been slow to do on a national scale.

The measures have the potential to help clean up China’s notoriously dirty air and water, reduce long-term health care costs and improve the long-term quality of Chinese growth. But they are also imposing short-term costs, economists say, at a time when policy makers in Beijing and around the world are already concerned about a sharp economic slowdown in China.

“Of course from the government’s point of view, we give up some growth, but to achieve better health for all citizens, it is definitely worth it,” said Chen Haotian, the vice director of Guangzhou’s top planning agency.

Nanjing and Hangzhou in east-central China are moving to require cleaner gasoline and diesel. Cities from Dongguan and Shenzhen in southeastern China to Wuxi and Suzhou in the middle and Beijing in the north are pushing polluting factories to the outskirts, where they are typically being rebuilt with better pollution controls. And Xi’an and Urumqi in northwestern China are banning and scrapping cars built before 2005, when automotive emissions rules were less stringent.

“There’s a recognition finally that growth at all costs is not sustainable,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, the managing director of Silk Road Associates, a Hong Kong consulting firm.

Facing public pressure to address congestion and pollution, municipal governments from across China have been sending delegations to Guangzhou. But the national government in Beijing is pushing back against further car restrictions because of worries about the huge auto industry, said An Feng, a senior adviser in Beijing to transportation policy makers.

“This has really become a battle,” Mr. An said

Beijing’s municipal government started limiting new license plates at the start of last year when the economy was in danger of overheating, but Guangzhou is the first city to act during the current slowdown. Faced with public dissatisfaction over congestion, Guangzhou has also built an extensive subway system in the last few years, along with large parks and a renowned opera house.

The local government initiatives are not the main cause of the Chinese economy’s difficulties. The government clamped down on credit a year ago in a successful bid to rein in inflation, but starved many small and medium-size businesses of credit in the process.

Other broad economic problems have been building for years. These include industrial overcapacity and the monopolistic grip of many state-owned enterprises, as well as the inefficient allocation of loans.

But for now, the growing regulatory burden on business is reinforcing a trend toward slower growth, economists say.

“That’s why I think the slowdown is likely to be a trend, instead of just a short-term cycle,” said Xiao Geng, the research director at the Fung Global Institute in Hong Kong.

Polluting factories being pushed out of increasingly affluent cities in southeastern China are being turned away by poorer cities in western and northern China unless they install costly, extensive equipment to control emissions, said Stanley Lau, the deputy chairman of the Hong Kong Federation of Industries, a trade group representing manufacturers that employ nearly 10 million workers in mainland China.

“There is no hint that these costs will be lowered because of the market slowdown,” he said.

Some executives in China complain about rising regulatory costs, particularly as new rules at the local level coincide with rising wages. Critics in the business community say that an economic slowdown may not be the best time for China to turn away from the largely unrestrained dash for prosperity of the last three decades.

But while the local measures may limit short-term growth, they are part of a broader transition. China is no longer just a developing economy that has pursued a particularly raw form of capitalism, while remaining Communist in name. It is becoming a modern, industrialized economy whose leaders increasingly listen to public opinion and seek to balance the environment, social welfare and many other issues against economic growth.

The question is how much short-term pain will China endure, in the form of slower growth and higher costs, to achieve a more balanced and sustainable economy.

Ma Jun, the director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an environmental group in Beijing, said that local officials had become more interested in the environment in the last year after street demonstrations against polluting factories in cities like Dalian, Shifang and Qidong. In each case, local officials agreed to halt construction of the projects or close them after becoming the targets of local and national ridicule.

Bernadette Brennan, a senior lawyer in the Beijing office of the Natural Resources Defense Council, said that after three decades of experience in China, she had seen change in the last year. Instead of resisting pressure to address pollution, she said, municipal officials have begun contacting her office to seek advice on how to improve.

Measuring the environmental benefits of the changed policies is difficult.

A series of typhoons makes it hard to compare air quality data in China this summer with previous years, said Alexis Lau, the director of the atmospheric research center at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. In Guangzhou, emissions of a wide range of pollutants peaked in 2007 and 2008 and receded in 2009 and 2010 because of weaker economic growth. Emissions started to rise in 2011 as growth returned, but did not match 2008 levels.

Pollution per dollar of economic output has clearly declined, Mr. Lau said. Emissions of sulfur dioxide, a top priority in China in recent years because of its role in acid rain, have declined across China but particularly in Guangzhou.

The financial dependence of local governments on the sale of land leases to new developments may limit the extent to which some cities confront businesses. But city governments also own many of the businesses within their borders, making these businesses think twice about challenging policies like license plate restrictions.

“The car companies are owned by the government,”said Mr. Chen, who drives a Toyota Camry built in Guangzhou. “The car companies must obey the government.”

He added, “What do we need gross domestic product for if we don’t have health?”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/05/business/global/a-chinese-city-moves-to-limit-new-cars.html?hp