- Greene King will install electric vehicle charging points at all of its suitable pubs.
- Amazon announces its third wind farm in Ireland.
- Green energy dominated new US electrical generating capacity additions in the first half of 2020.
- Arcadia Power is committed to making clean energy work for the planet and your bank account — all without changing your utility company. Sign up to receive your $20 Amazon Gift Card.
A pie, a pint, and a charge
Looks like the UK pub chain and brewery Greene King is living up to its name. It’s going to install EV charging points across its 2,700 pubs. As part of the first phase, the company is installing charging points at 900 pubs by the end of 2020.
Raw Charging and Drive Energi are installing the charging points, which will be Pay as You Go with contactless payment. The first charging point debuted at The Churchill, in Royal Wootton Bassett in Wiltshire (pictured above, and yes, it has solar panels) earlier this month.
Tony Hodgson, head of estates at Greene King, said:
We’ve been working hard developing our sustainability plans as we continue to build a greener business.
With more people buying electric cars in a bid to be more environmentally friendly, we want to support our customers who come to dine or stay with us by offering electric charging ports in our pubs that are able to do so.
The British government will implement a ban on selling gas, diesel, and hybrid cars from 2035, so UK consumers will only be able to buy electric or hydrogen cars.
Amazon’s Irish wind
Online retail giant Amazon has announced that it will build a third wind farm in Ireland, which will double its green energy capacity in the country. All three wind farms will add 229 MW of energy to the Irish grid annually.
The 115MW wind farm project will be in Ardderroo in County Galway and support Amazon Web Services’ Irish data centers. The wind farm will be online by 2022 and is expected to host 27 turbines.
The Galway wind farm joins Amazon’s existing projects in Esk in County Cork and Meenbog in County Donegal. The County Cork wind farm is due to go live from next month, and the County Donegal site will become operable in early 2022.
Once all three wind farms are up and running, Amazon said it will be Ireland’s largest single corporate buyer of green energy.
US green energy growth
The US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) June 2020 Energy Infrastructure Update reports that green energy sources (solar, wind, biomass, geothermal, hydropower) dominated new US electrical generating capacity additions in the first half of 2020.
Green energy made up 57.14% (7,859 MW) of the 13,753 MW of new capacity added during the first six months of 2020. Natural gas came in second, with 42.67% (5,869 MW). So, that’s a total percentage of 99.81%. The balance? Coal (20 MW) and “other” sources (5 MW). There were no new additions of oil, nuclear, or geothermal to date in 2020.
So that means green energy now makes up 23.04% of the US’ total available installed generating capacity, compared to coal, at 20.19%. Wind and solar alone are now at 13.08% of the US total, and that’s excluding rooftop solar.
Environment & Energy Leader reports:
Analysis by the Sun Day Campaign, a nonprofit research organization, shows that, five years ago, FERC reported that total installed renewable energy generating capacity was 17.27% of the nation’s total with wind at 5.84% (now 9.13%) and solar at 1.08% (now 3.95%). Thus, over the past half-decade, wind’s share of the nation’s generating capacity has expanded by nearly 60% while that of solar is now almost four times greater.
Photo: Greene King
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