Mercury’s $1 Billion Geothermal Expansion Signals a New Era for New Zealand’s Renewable Energy Future By: Robert Buluma Mercury Doubles Down on Geothermal Power New Zealand’s renewable energy transition has entered a bold new chapter after Mercury announced plans to significantly scale its geothermal platform with a potential investment of up to $1 billion. The announcement marks one of the country’s most ambitious geothermal expansion strategies in recent years and reinforces geothermal energy’s growing role as a reliable, baseload renewable power source capable of supporting future electricity demand. Mercury revealed that it will immediately commit NZ$75 million toward geothermal appraisal drilling at two major projects located near Taupō — Ngā Tamariki and Rotokawa. These developments could collectively generate an additional 1 terawatt-hour (TWh) of electricity annually, enough to power approximately 125,000 more homes across New Zealand. The projects are expected to t...
1. China is the leader in wind power generation, with continued rapid growth in new wind facilities. With it's large land mass and long coastline , China has exceptional wind power resources: Estimated China has about 2,380 gigawatts (GW) of exploitable capacity on land and 200GW on sea. Wind power remained China’s third-largest source of electricity at the end of 2022, accounting for 8.2% of total power generation.
- European Union has a total installed wind capacity of about169.3 gigawatts (GW). A total of 15,680 MW of wind power was installed, representing 55% of all new power capacity, and the wind power generated 336 TWh of electricity, enough to supply 24.8% of the EU's electricity consumption. wind power is likely to continue to grow in the European Union. According to a European Environment Agency report, wind energy can play a major role in achieving the European renewable energy targets.
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Fig 1: Top 10 Countries by Cumulative Wind Capacity
2. United States From January through December 2022, More than 379.8 terawatt-hours were generated by wind power, or 12.46% of electricity in the United States. The average wind turbine generates enough electricity in 46 minutes to power the average American home for one month. wind power surpassed hydroelectric power as the largest renewable energy source in the U.S.
As of January 2022, the installed wind power nameplate generating capacity in the USA was 135,843 megawatts (MW).This capacity is exceeded only by China and the European Union.
3.Germany's wind is growing industry. The installed capacity is more than 55.6 gigawatts (GW) at the end with 5.2 GW from offshore installations. a quarter of the country's total electricity was generated using wind power.
More than 30,786 wind turbines are located in the German federal area, and the country has plans for further expansion.[Germany also has a number of turbine manufacturers, like Enercon, Nordex and Senvion.
Fig 2: Top 10 Countries by added Wind Capacity
4. India As of 31 December 2022, the total installed wind power capacity was 41.93 gigawatts (GW), Wind power capacity is mainly spread across the southern, western, and northwestern states.
Wind power costs in India are decreasing rapidly. The levelized tariff of wind power reached a record low of ₹2.43 (3.0¢ US) per kWh during auctions for wind projects in December 2017.the levelized tariff increased to ₹2.77 (3.5¢ US) per kWh in March 2021. In December 2017, union government announced applicable guidelines for tariff-based wind power auctions to bring more clarity and minimize the risk to the developers.
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Fig 3: Growing number of wind gigawatt-markets
Source: Wikipedia.org
#WindPower #World #2022 #Renewableenergy
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