The first week of COP28 did achieve some progress, despite the oppressive presence of fossil fuel lobbyists. Weak oil and gas prices would seem to suggest that they are not having it all their own way.

COMPANY NEWS

Zenobē reveals £270 million investment from Mubadala
Battery energy storage and EV fleet solutions provider Zenobē has received a strategic investment from Mubadala Investment Company, the Abu Dhabi sovereign investor.
Supported by Mubadala, Infracapital, the infrastructure equity investment arm of M&G where Mubadala is a strategic limited partner, will invest £270 million to grow the business both in the UK and globally.
US-listed private equity firm KKR has also announced a £600 million investment to become a joint majority shareholder alongside Infracapital. (current-news)

Iberdrola, Masdar unveil offshore wind and hydrogen partnership
Green energy companies Iberdrola and Masdar have announced a €15 billion strategic partnership to explore offshore wind and green hydrogen projects in the UK, US and Germany.
Signed at COP28, the two companies plan to co-invest in the 1.4GW East Anglia 3 offshore wind project. Onshore construction of the project started in July 2022 by ScottishPower, a subsidiary of Iberdrola, with commissioning scheduled for Q4 2026.
With negotiations still ongoing, Dubai-based Masdar could acquire a stake of up to 49% in the wind farm. A final agreement is hoped to have been signed by the end of Q1 2024. (current-news)

photo: Ibedrola

UK NEWS

Tesco to roll out solar panels across 100 stores
The initiative, which will form part of a number of new power purchase agreements (PPAs) with renewable investors, could generate around 20GWh of electricity.
That’s enough to charge the equivalent of 300,000 Tesco electric home delivery vans.
The project will support Tesco’s aim of becoming carbon neutral across its own operations by 2035.
The first store in Thetford has been fitted with more than 1,000 solar panels as part of a PPA with Atrato Onsite Energy, with four more stores to start construction this month, generating an additional 2GWh of electricity. (futurenetzero)

photo: Tesco

London mayor launches £100m decarbonisation project jv
London’s mayor Sadiq Khan has announced a new £100 million fund to accelerate London-wide decarbonisation ventures, in partnership with leading green investor Sustainable Development Capital LLP (SDCL).
The London Efficient & Decentralised Generation of Energy (EDGE) fund will support new low-carbon infrastructure projects across the capital’s 32 boroughs.
Khan has committed £50 million from City Hall funds, to be matched pound for pound from SDCL’s resources. The asset managers will also manage the public-private EDGE project. (theenergyst)

UK commits £85m to tackle global deforestation
The UK Government has announced a package worth more than £85 million to tackle global deforestation and help reduce methane emissions.
Energy Security Secretary Clair Coutinho made the commitment at the COP28 summit in Dubai, which includes up to £35 million to protect the Amazon rainforest through Brazil’s dedicated Amazon Fund.
The latest funding would be in addition to £80 million announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this year, placing the UK among the fund’s top three contributors.
Other measures include up to £40 million of new funding to expand the UK’s Climate Finance Accelerator, which aims to provide practical ways to help countries finance and deliver their climate commitments under the Paris Agreement.
In addition, £2 million will support US President Joe Biden’s Methane Finance Sprint, helping reduce emissions in major methane-emitting sectors such as energy, agriculture and waste. (energylivenews)

EV OF THE WEEK

Morgan XP-1 – three wheeled electric rocket
This is the car that many electric sports car fans had been hoping Morgan would build. It is an electric version of their classic three-wheeler, the Super 3. According to the company this prototype has a drivetrain built in-house (their first ever) and a 33kWh battery which is good for about 150 miles of range. Remarkably they seem to have kept the weight of the car down to only a little more than the petrol Super 3.
One can only imagine what fun this might be to drive as, in common with other prototypes built by Morgan, the XP-1 will not go into production itself. However, they are promising that it will lead directly to the first of an electric range of cars from the company, just not for this Christmas.

photo: Morgan

EUROPEAN STORIES

Energy Dome gets funding for first construction project
Energy Dome announced funding commitments for its first CO2-based thermo-mechanical energy storage system to be located in Sardinia, Italy. €60m of funding is being provided by Breakthrough Energy Catalyst and the European Investment Bank.
The project will use a standard frame 20MW/200MWh CO2 Battery, which can supply energy to the grid for 10 consecutive hours, the company said. It will be the first of a series of identical units using the same technology design, which Energy Dome says will unlock cost reductions and accelerate the bankability of future units of the modular, standardized CO2 Battery frames.
The CO2 Battery does not use materials from rare metals or lithium, and its main components are based on already existing and known supply chains, Energy Dome said. The battery works by manipulating CO2 between its gaseous and liquid phases. As the CO2 warms up, it evaporates, and expands, turning a turbine to generate electricity. (renewableenergyworld)

photo: Energy Dome

TotalEnergies buys stake in Morocco-UK power project
Thanks to a £20 million investment, TotalEnergies is joining Octopus Energy and Abu Dhabi National Energy Company in the Xlinks Morocco-UK power project, which envisions a new electricity generation facility powered by solar and wind energy combined with a battery storage facility. This project is located in Morocco’s Guelmim Oued Noun region. It will be connected to the UK via 3,800 km HVDC subsea cables, enabling the generated power to be transmitted directly to Britain without connection to the Moroccan, Spanish, Portuguese, or French transmission networks. (offshore-energy)

FOCUS ON: THE AFRICAN CARBON MARKETS INITIATIVE (ACMI)

African Leaders are Eyeing Carbon Markets as a Source Capital
The African Carbon Markets Initiative (ACMI), a UN-backed consortium, reckons that Africa uses just 2% of its annual carbon-credit potential; it aims for Africa to sell $100bn worth of credits a year by 2050. Even a fraction of that would be a boon for a continent where annual foreign direct investment has never surpassed $80bn. William Ruto, Kenya’s president, calls carbon credits an “unparalleled economic gold mine” and his country’s “next significant export”. Yet, as is often the case with Africa and its natural resources, things could go wrong. The benefits of carbon markets can be seen in how they have boosted cooking-fuel startups (see below). Almost a quarter of the African carbon credits issued on voluntary markets involve such projects. More than half of the 30 companies supported by the Clean Cooking Alliance, a donor-funded outfit, have used—or plan to use—carbon markets to attract finance. (iafrica)

KOKO leads the charge for carbon credit driven growth
KOKO is a Kenyan startup that sells high efficiency stoves and bioethanol fuel to households. The company utilises Carbon Credits to subsidise the cost of fuel by between 25% and 40% and the cost of the stoves by 80%. A KOKO stove will replace the traditional charcoal stove that releases greenhouse gases and is unhealthy. Thanks to the efficiency of the stove the cost of fuel will be half of that of the charcoal alternative.
KOKO run local deliveries of bioethanol to local stores where it can be bought from “fuel ATM’s”.
The model has proved very successful; KOKO has sold nearly 1 million stoves since launch in 2019, has channelled $100m of Credits into the market and sells Credits to South Korea and soon to Singapore.

photos: KOKO Networks

If this subject is of interest I suggest these articles in the Economist HERE and the FT HERE



GLOBAL STUFF

US climate tech investment up 38%
According to a new report from Rhodium Group and MIT, US investment reached $225bn over the last year.
There was $225 billion in new investment in the manufacture and deployment of clean energy, clean vehicle, building electrification and carbon management technology in the U.S. over the past year, a 38% annual increase. A record $64 billion of this investment occurred in the third quarter of 2023, an 8% increase from the previous quarter and a 42% increase relative to the same period last year.
Rhodium Group and MIT CEEPR’s Clean Investment Monitor is a comprehensive database, updated each quarter, of investment across the United States (cleaninvestmentmonitor)

New global regenerative agriculture framework
The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Agribusiness Task Force has launched a new framework in the hopes of unleashing trillions of dollars in support of regenerative farming practices. Supporting businesses include Mars, McCain Foods, McDonald’s, PepsiCo and Waitrose.
The new framework aims to render regenerative farming financially viable and scalable, laying the groundwork for implementation projects in key regions including India, the UK and the US.
The strategy is focused on tackling the pressing environmental challenges posed by the current food system, which accounts for approximately 30% of human-produced greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and remains a primary driver of nature loss.
The Task Force highlights that while regenerative farming could contribute a third of the land-based climate action required by 2030, economic barriers hinder its widespread adoption among farmers.
The four-lever framework proposed by the Task Force is founded on new funding and sourcing models, introduction of common metrics, suggested government policy changes and a plan to create new revenue streams for farmers.
The ‘new funding and sourcing models’ is a blended finance model combining philanthropic support; catalytic capital from asset managers; commercial capital offered at preferential rates from banks; longer-term contract commitments from food businesses to source sustainable commodities and crop insurance from insurance companies helping de-risk farming operations.
Additionally, the framework outlines plans to create new revenue streams for farmers by enabling them to earn carbon credits throughout their field’s entire rotation, even during periods of soil recovery. (edie)

TECHIE CORNER

Hybridizing anaerobic digestion with photovoltaic-thermal energy
Researchers from the University of Valladolid and the Technical University of Madrid in Spain have proposed to hybridize biogas and biomethane production systems from cattle manure anaerobic digestion (AD) with photovoltaic-thermal (PVT) energy.
The PVT system conceived by the group is connected to a combiner box with batteries, and it is used to operate the digester, pumps, mixers, and the biogas upgrading unit. The latter is used for producing biomethane and is turned off during periods of low irradiation levels.
The thermal energy collected by the panels is utilized to increase the temperature of the digester until optimal conditions of 35 C are reached. The heat is then transferred by a network of tubes, allowing hot fluid from solar panels and cold fluid from within the anaerobic digester to circulate.
An economic analysis of the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) concerning 20 years of operation found an average value of $0.045/kWh for all five locations. Only the location with the lowest irradiance in the survey failed to supply all of the heat required by the plant. (pv-magazine)