Archive for the 2-Minute Briefing Category

Argentina has a gas-intensive economy. Commercial users account for 3.7% of gas supplied and the residential sector for 21.6%. Argentina, with around 2.9 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, is a significant player in the Latin American oil market. TGS is South America’s largest pipeline company. It […]

One peculiarity of the US regulatory system for weights and measures is that responsibilities are shared between the federal and state governments. The United States has created both public and non-profit standardisation bodies of international renown, including the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the […]

Most of the European and North American Electricity Transmission and Distribution networks we know today are a legacy of the post-war boom and build cycles. In the years since the end of the Second World War, the population has grown, and our collective energy consumption has outpaced […]

The power delivery system is largely based on technology developed in the 1950s or earlier and installed as much as 50 years ago. The strain on this aging system is beginning to show, particularly as consumers ask it to do things it was not designed to do. […]

Short, localised outages occur on power systems fairly frequently. System-wide disturbances that affect many customers across a broad geographic area are rare, but they occur more frequently than a normal distribution of probabilities would predict. Electric power systems are robust and are capable of withstanding one or […]

The transmission and distribution network that Ukraine inherited from the Soviet Union is inefficient and antiquated and a significant amount of power generated in Ukraine is wasted via line losses. In February 2001, Russia and Ukraine struck a deal to reconnect their energy grids, providing Ukraine with […]

In the 1990s this has resulted in a succession of calls for a moratorium on World Bank funding and reparations for those affected by construction of large dams. Although it had been involved in the financing of a relatively small proportion of the large dams, the World […]

Western Europe produces 10% of the world’s natural gas, the bulk of it from the North Sea, and consumes 18% of the global total, importing via pipeline from Russia and North Africa and as LNG from countries further afield. The energy profiles of the various European countries […]

The below was originally published in 2010. The leading domestic company is Suzlon and is ranked sixth among world producers. In 2009, Suzlon had a 6.9% share of the global wind turbine market and in March 2010 had a 45% share of the domestic market. In May […]

Bhutan is almost entirely dependent on hydro power for its electricity. The total installed hydro capacity is 1,465 MW out of 1,490 MW. This capacity was only reached in 2007 at the end of the Ninth Five-Year Development Plan, at the start of which it was only […]

UtilityWise have performed a survey in October of this year targeting decision makers for companies of various sizes in the UK. This was done in light of the upcoming changes in the water market for consumers and businesses, whereby the market is set to become deregulated. End […]

The following is a look back at the market for wind energy in 2010 and describes the outlooks and targets set at the time. The development of wind power in the past has been slow in Portugal, mainly due to lack of tariff support. At the end […]

In the development of Indonesian coal mining, the contractors pursue two different concepts. The one option as in the case of Kaltim Prima, involves all investment being borne by the mining firm using conventional methods with production conducted under its own management. The other approach adopted, for […]

Numerous products are being developed to improve energy efficiency in the transportation sector. On top of micro-hybrid and other electric vehicles, there is also a market for more energy efficient engines and drive trains. Ecomotors Products: Engine (main) and other powertrain products Use: Transportation (all modes) and […]

Hurdles remain in the effort to make wind power even more successful in four main areas: variability, grid issues, centralised control centre, and meteorological prediction. Critics of wind power in Spain have pointed to the inherent variability of the energy source as one of the main stumbling […]

Pumped hydro China has over 50% of the world’s small hydro plants and generous subsidies for hydro projects. The world’s largest hydro pump storage project is located in Tianhuangping. Several pumped storage projects are in the pipeline or have been developed over the past three years, perhaps […]

From time to time we take you back to one of our past reports to present the state of an industry as it was viewed when it was written. This time, we look at the solar industry. Since 2003 Germany has experienced strong growth in Solar PV […]

CNOOC The CNOOC is China’s largest producer of offshore crude oil and natural gas and one of the largest independent oil and gas exploration and production companies. In the first half of 2011 natural gas production increased by 23.5% to 208.2 bcf, compared to 168.6 bcf in […]

The two main exporting state-controlled natural gas exporters are Gazprom and Qatargas. The former mainly exports natural gas via pipelines to meet domestic demand and demand in Europe, but is increasingly increasing its exports of LNG to the Asia Pacific region and increasing its presence in third […]

Coal gasification technologies are likely to become the norm, with a strong focus on the production of chemicals from coal. Already there is considerable coal to methanol and ammonia production in the county. There is a strong market for olefins, a long-chain polymer synthetic fiber, from coal […]