Aug 31, 2012 - EDP Renewables and Repsol file proposal for 1.5-GW wind farm off Scotland's coast, South Korea's Hanwha Group comes to the rescue of insolvent solar firm Q-Cells and Japan turns to OriginOil's algae-to-biofuel technology to eliminate radioactive contaminants at over 100 sites.
Despite the heavy opposition of US tycoon Donald Trump, who is building a GBP-1-billion (USD 1.6bn/EUR 1.3bn) golf resort in Scotland’s Aberdeenshire, Moray Offshore Renewables Ltd yesterday filed a planning application for a 1.5-GW offshore wind farm in the region.
The developer, a joint venture of Spanish/Portuguese group EDP Renewables and Spain's Repsol Nuevas Energias, intends to erect some 339 turbines in the Moray Firth for a total cost of GBP 4.5 billion. If given the green light, work on the wind farm is to begin in 2015, with completion expected by 2020.
Q-Cells' creditors say YES to Korea's Hanwha
On Wednesday, the creditors of German Q-Cells SE (ETR:QCE) gave the thumbs-up to its takeover by South Korea's Hanwha Group. Under the deal Hanwha will acquire a total production capacity of 1 GW, including Q-Cells' headquarters, factories in Germany and Malaysia and sales offices in the US, Australia and Japan.
Another German company in trouble, photovoltaic (PV) module maker Sovello, did not have Q-Cell's luck. It is still looking for possible investors, even though it has already shut down its plants and let its 1,000 employees go, Mitteldeutsche Zeitung reported on Thursday quoting liquidator Lucas Floether.
Q-Cells filed for insolvency this April, as it was unable to find an alternative option to carry out its financial restructuring, while Sovello did the same a month later. The two companies are among the many victims of overcapacity in the solar power sector, which has been driving the prices of solar products down for nearly a year, putting huge pressure on company margins.
OriginOil technology picked for toxic remediation, biofuel production in Japan
US OriginOil Inc (OTC:OOIL) said Thursday its algae-to-biofuel process may be installed at more than 100 sites in Japan, as part of a biofuel project whose additional benefit, and a huge one, will be to eliminate radioactive contaminants.
Takaaki Maekawa, head of the Research Institute of Tsukuba Bio-tech and a long-time partner of OriginOil, has secured a grant from Japan's agriculture ministry to install two initial algae-to-fuel plants close to the Narita International Airport, near Tokyo, and in Fukushima province. The funds come to support Japan’s efforts to "cure" contaminated lands following the Fukushima nuclear power plant accident. If the pilot installations reach their objective, over 100 more are to come.
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