April 24th, 2009
The European Parliament has amended the 2002 Energy Performance of Buildings Directive to require that all buildings built after 2018 produce as much energy as they consume on-site, averaged over the course of the year, through enhanced efficiency and use of technology such as solar panels and heat pumps.
The amendment, which must be implemented in national law by member state legislatures, also calls for increased financial support for energy efficiency measures and sets standards to upgrade the energy performance of existing buildings.
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April 16th, 2009
Will Chinese workers soon be complaining that all the good manufacturing jobs are being outsourced to Texas? The state Comptroller’s office is reporting on a $1 billion pipe manufacturing facility to be built by a Chinese company on the Texas coast:
TPCO America Corp. (TPCO), a subsidiary of China-based Tianjin Pipe (Group) Corp., will build the plant near Gregory in San Patricio County. This will be the largest single manufacturing investment made by a Chinese company in the United States. The facility could create as many as 600 jobs and have an estimated $2.7 billion economic impact in 10 years.
The plant will produce pipe for the oil and gas industry and is scheduled to begin producing in two and a half years.
(And a shout-out goes to trade development goddess Jen Martinez for tweeting the story.)
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April 11th, 2009
A February 2009 U.S. Commercial Service Industry Sector Analysis (register to download) taps biomass as the renewable energy source with the greatest potential in the Czech Republic. The country currently gets 5.6% of its energy from renewable sources (official target for 2020: 13%), mostly hydroelectric with relatively little growth potential. Although solar photovoltaic saw strong expansion in 2008, the report does not consider solar a high-potential sector due to expiring subsidies. Wind is also experiencing strong growth, with a number of major projects in the pipeline.
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April 6th, 2009
Germany’s new Energy Conservation Ordinance (EnEV), which takes effect this October, permits energy generated on-site from renewable sources to be offset against a building’s energy consumption for code compliance purposes. The new regulation is expected to further boost interest in rooftop solar installations, already widespread thanks to Germany’s feed-in tariff system, especially in combination with new subsidies in the Renewable Energy Law. Critics maintain that the changes will promote electric heating systems and heat pumps at the expense of conservation, thus inadvertently leading to even higher electric power consumption in winter.
The new EnEV is based on comparison of a building’s energy consumption to a “reference building” with specified insulation values and equipment including a solar thermal hot-water system.
Although the website of the Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Affairs does have an English section, information on the new conservation standards is only available in German so far.
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