Spain’s Ongoing Solar Woes Give Portuguese PV a Push

Spanish developers are building over the border to avoid taxes and red tape.

Continuing regulatory issues in Spain mean solar development is getting pushed across the border.

This month, for example, the Irish developer WElink Energy, which has offices in Madrid and Barcelona, inaugurated Europe’s largest subsidy-free solar plant on the back of a power-purchase agreement with Holaluz, a Spanish energy retailer. But the plant is in Portugal.

Wind power still gets lower public subsidies than fossil fuel tax breaks

Public subsidies for the development of wind power in the UK are dwarfed by the tax breaks enjoyed by fossil fuels, a new Guardian analysis has revealed. Financial support for fledgling renewable energy industries has increasingly come under attack in recent months, but the new data shows that the older industries benefit to a far greater extent.

Gas, oil and coal prices were subsidised by £3.63bn in 2010, according to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development , whereas offshore and onshore wind received £0.7bn in the year from April 2010. All renewables in the UK benefited from £1.4bn over the same period, according to data from the Department of Energy and Climate Change (Decc).

Obama Budget Would Cut $40 Billion in Fossil-Fuel Credits

President Barack Obama, who pledged an “all of the above” energy strategy that included fossil fuels, renewed his proposal to cut more than $40 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas and coal producers in the next decade to spend more for conservation and alternate energy.

“We need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by ending the subsidies for oil companies and doubling down on clean energy that generates jobs and strengthens our security,” Obama said today in a speech on at Northern Virginia Community College in Annandale, Virginia.

UK: Renewables policy overhaul promises “clean, green, secure energy”

The government has today unveiled long-awaited changes to the UK's renewable energy subsidy regime, proposing new support levels for a raft of clean energy technologies, and setting out plans on how it aims to reduce subsidies over time.