Campaigners were celebrating last night after the controversial Brown Muir windfarm plans were rejected by councillors.
But SNP members of the local authority were facing a backlash from protesters amid accusations they put their party before the people by voting to back the scheme.
The 12-turbine project tabled by Vento Ludens for a site between Elgin and Rothes attracted more than 1,300 objections. By contrast, Moray Council received just 20 submissions supporting the proposed development.
The local authority’s planning and regulatory services committee blocked the application yesterday on the casting vote of chairman Chris Tuke.
A wave power device tested at a marine energy centre in Orkney has been boosted by a £580,000 European grant.
Edinburgh-based Aquamarine Power and the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM) have together secured a EU Horizon 2020 grant to improve the performance of Aquamarine Power’s Oyster wave energy converter.
The company has already built and operated two full-scale Oyster machines at the European Marine Energy Centre (Emec) in Orkney.
Recent policy announcements withdrawing support for renewable energy have seen the attractiveness of the UK’s renewables market as an investment destination plummet, according to EY’s Renewable Energy Country Attractiveness Index (RECAI).
Campaigners have hailed the early closure of a subsidy scheme for onshore wind projects – while renewables experts last night warned it will deter investment.
Jenny Hogan, director of policy at Scottish Renewables, warned firms were at risk of “shutting up shop altogether” and that 5,400 jobs had been put at risk by the withdrawal of the Renewables Obligation (RO) scheme.
Ending the subsidy – funded by levies to household bills – a year earlier than expected could cost up to £3billion of investment, she added.
Ms Hogan also called for the Westminster Scottish Affairs Committee to consider holding an inquiry on the move, which she said would have a disproportionate impact on Scotland.
Renewable energy firms are at risk of “shutting up shop altogether” as a result of the early withdrawal of government subsidies, a Westminster committee has been told.
New research has shown for the first time that recent announcements from Whitehall are having a significant impact on investor confidence and their ability to lend to onshore wind farm developers.
Green-energy body Scottish Renewables (SR) is today publishing survey findings it says shows for the first time how UK Government policy is scaring off potential windfarm investors.
Renewable energy consultancy SgurrEnergy has been appointed by utility firm Huaneng Renewables Corp Ltd to assess the general site conditions of offshore wind projects in China.
India’s Power Minister Piyush Goyal said disputes blocking a hydroelectricity project worth at least $1.4 billion have been cleared, part of a drive to revitalize the industry as he targets an unprecedented expansion in renewable energy.
Resolving the years-long delay in the Teesta-III project in northeastern Sikkim state near China will make hydroelectricity more alluring to investors, according to Goyal. One of his major challenges is finding the $200 billion India needs for a goal of 175 gigawatts of green-energy capacity by 2022.
“If you go back in history for the last five years, the entire hydel industry has come to a standstill in India,” Goyal, a 51-year-old former banker and chartered accountant, said in an interview in New Delhi on Tuesday. “We’re going to revive it.”
A venture capital firm specialising in investments in innovative, high-growth technology companies is backing the roll-out of small community wind-energy schemes across the Highlands and islands.
Scottish Equity Partners (SEP) said yesterday the £9million investment from its Environment Capital Fund into newly formed business Hamsin Wind aimed to deliver single units at about 200 high wind speed locations in the north.
Working with development partners Mistral Energy and ABG Corporate Finance, Hamsin has appointed Ayrshire company Kingspan Wind as its turbine supply partner.
The Government is being urged to intervene to speed up a final decision on when a new nuclear power station will be built in the UK or leave the country facing the “very real prospect” of power cuts.
Government plans to slash subsidies for solar panels on homes could cost more than 20,000 jobs, green campaigners have claimed.
Ministers have announced proposals to cut the amount paid for domestic solar arrays from 12.47p per kilowatt hour to 1.63p for new systems from January 2016 - a fall of 87%.
The plans could mean almost a million renewable installations will be prevented from going ahead over the next five years, according to the Government’s impact assessment of the move.
Energy giant EDF has announced a delay in building a new nuclear reactor in northern France, but said it will have no impact on its planned new power station in the UK.
The European pressurised reactor (EPR) nuclear plant at Flamanville in Normandy will not be up and running until 2018, a year later than previously announced.
Two more EPRs are under construction in China and EDF plans to build two at Hinkley Point, Somerset.
REC Solar ASA has signed a deal with O Capital, the renewable energy arm of Orascom Telecom Media and Technology Holding SAE, forming a partnership to sell solar panels and related services in the Middle East and Africa.
O Capital will manage tenders and turnkey installations while REC will be responsible for the engineering side, it said in a statement. The companies are seeking to provide REC’s solar panels to residential, commercial and utility-scale projects.
Energy reform has shown that it is an increasingly influential driver of deals activity in the global power and utilities sector, even as M&A reached a six-year low of US 50.9b in the first half of 2015, according to EY’s quarterly power transactions and trends quarter two 2015 report, released today.
Anti-nuclear public opinion following the 2011 Fukushima disaster is leading to a decline in the capacity of nuclear power plants around the world,
according to research consultants Globaldata.
A revolutionary new electric supercar - powered by wonder material graphene and do 0-60 in 2.2seconds - is being developed by engineers in the United States.
