Greece has recently gone through the greatest financial crisis to affect a member of the Eurozone since the introduction of the single currency ten years ago. With raging unemployment exacerbated by huge cut-backs in public sector spending, the Athens government spent the first quarter of 2010 faced by riots in the streets, a result of the financial crisis which is hitting the Greeks harder than anybody.

However, plans are afoot to revitalise the stricken Greek economy with the announcement yesterday that 12 billion euros will be invested in green projects in an attempt to create jobs in new renewable industries. In a press release issued by the Greek government, Tina Birbili the Environment Minister said,

“The ministry hopes the programme will decisively contribute to face recession and lead to dynamic economic growth”

Birbili believes that renewable projects could attract around 32 billion euros of investment from around the world creating up to 192,000 jobs. This will at least come as a glimpse of light in a country where unemployment is steadily on the rise and national debt is at an all time high. The EU bailout, funded largely by Germany expires in 2 years, by which point Greece will be hoping that the economy is back on track.

Both Gordon Brown and Barack Obama have been keen exponents of renewable energy as a means of kick-starting the struggling economies of the UK and US respectively. Sound bites such as ‘Green New Deal’ have regularly appeared in the press both sides of the Atlantic in a reference to the government projects of the 1930’s designed to boost recovery after the Great depression. It seems that Greece is going to follow this lead with a number of projects now in the pipeline.

Certainly, with Greece already falling behind other southern European countries with regards to its renewable energy uptake, the investment could provide the vital impetus needed to get the renewable energy industry in Greece on its feet. With targets of generating 40 per cent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, they have their work cut out.

Time and time again it has been shown that implementing a Feed in Tariff policy is the single most effective way of boosting the Renewable Energy share in a country’s, state’s or region’s energy mix.

First introduced in the USA in 1978 under the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act (PURPA), the Feed in Tariff policy has developed and grown to become an integral part of 59 country’s energy legislation. Energy Ministers and policymakers have learnt a lot from Germany’s Feed in Tariff (introduced in 1990), which brought in the idea of “differentiated tariffs” (different tariffs for different technologies) and “stepped tariffs” (different tariffs for different sizes of the same technology), which take into account the lower costs of economies of scale. Germany also introduced the idea of “degression”, which means that tariffs reduce each year as a way of stimulating installers, manufacturers and other market players into reducing their costs.

The Feed in Tariff is geared up towards reaching grid parity, that magical moment where a Renewable Energy technology becomes price competitive with traditional energy sources such as coal, gas and oil and at which point it becomes a simple economic choice to abandon fossil fuels. For certain countries, this change may only take 2-3 years.

Global Feed in Tariffs was set up in April 2010 with the aim of providing information to anyone globally wanting to find out about the FiT policy. Released today is the basis of a resource which will grow and grow with time into one of the most comprehensive Feed in Tariff resources worldwide. It provides information on each of the 59 country or state-wide Feed in Tariffs in operation today and also looks at those countries which will shortly be added to the list of 59. The resource will be updated daily in order to provide an as accurate and reliable information source as possible.

For more information please visit http://www.globalfeedintariffs.com/

President Obama has approved $1.85bn in loan guarantees for two large scale solar projects as part of the economic stimulus package. Combined these projects are thought to be creating 5000 jobs. Abengoa Solar is to receive $1.45bn in loan Guarantees to help support the development of a new solar farm in Arizona which is expected to power 70,000 homes.

 A further $400 Million in Loan Guarantees will be provided to Abound Solar Manufacturing to develop two new solar manufacturing plants. This is expected to create up to 1500 permanent jobs. It is an interesting move away from the Bush era’s pro oil approach. With the BP crisis in the gulf still in full swing Obama will face far less opposition in pushing these loans through. There will also be much stronger public support for renewable energy generally and drop in support for further off shore drilling programmes.

Obama is looking towards renewable energy as not only an investment in the environment but as a new industry to help rebuild America’s fragile economy. By investing in Solar power production Obama is opening a new income steam to the U.S and is also going to be competing directly with China who currently have huge solar panel production capacity.

 As more countries realise the importance of investing in solar energy and solar panel development we are likely to see increases in efficiency and a decrease in technology costs.

With the huge oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico still fighting for column inches with the FIFA World Cup in most parts of the world, it still remains a highly emotive subject in the country where it is having the most devastating impact. The Gulf states of the US are reeling under the blow to their economy, environment and way of life with an understandable backlash now both in the media and in Washington towards the oil industry and in particular, BP.

With this public maelstrom directed at the hapless BP, a leading energy attorney, Greg Chaffee has stated that the disaster will inevitably lead to more investments in green energy. Chaffee who practices at Morris Manning & Martin and also acts as the chairman of the MMM Green Industry Practice stated that,

“This is more evidence that the Gulf spill disaster has become a wakeup call for a nation that remains firmly addicted to oil.”

With specific reference to BP, Chaffee added,

“Not only should the federal government hold BP accountable for its errors and misjudgments leading up to the disaster, the federal government is now positioned more than ever to be the catalyst for funding research and development on alternative fuels.”

The Obama administration has already given its commitment to leading the way in green technologies with other leading countries such as China giving backing to funding in renewable energy sources. Chaffee however believes that what is really needed is not government legislation but a root change in the culture of the public.

“If we do not mobilize our resources now to concentrate on our energy future, we will be missing a key opportunity to positively re-shape the economic and environmental future of our nation. Weaning ourselves from our addiction to oil does not begin at the White House. It begins at home.

Each decision we make daily – from the cars we drive, to the containers in which we store our food, to how high we set the thermostat has an impact on our demand for oil. It’s that demand which led us to drill a mile beneath the ocean floor in the Gulf of Mexico.”