Energy Law

President Barack Obama has announced in his weekly address that the Department of Energy is awarding nearly $2 billion in conditional commitments from the Recovery Act to two solar companies.

?The first is Abengoa Solar, a company that has agreed to build one of the largest solar plants in the world right here in the United States. After years of watching companies build things and create jobs overseas, it?s good news that we?ve attracted a company to our shores to build a plant and create jobs right here in America. In the short term, construction will create approximately 1,600 jobs in Arizona. What?s more, over 70 percent of the components and products used in construction will be manufactured in the USA, boosting jobs and communities in states up and down the supply chain. Once completed, this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use ? even at night. And it will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes."

Senegalese parliamentarians have praised a new law aimed at promoting an enhanced renewable energy production. The bill, named Guidance on Renewable Energy, was adopted unanimously by the country's Parliament and attracted praises for its innovative nature.

Among the objectives of the law are that it seeks to secure supplies in sufficient quantities and the best quality, durability and cost, as well as increase people's access to modern energy services and reduce vulnerability to pollution from fossil fuels.

It "materialized the pioneering vision of a proactive president,? said Minister of Renewable Energies, Biofuels and Aquaculture, Therese Coumba Diop. She said Senegal was a non-oil producer whose authorities have understood the need to turn to non-fossil energy.

"Nature has endowed Senegal of solar energy. We have a potential of 3,000 hours of sunshine that we can develop," she said. According to Minister Therese Coumba Diop, with the passage of this ?law of social orientation,? Senegal might exceed its targets for development of renewable energy.

ALBANY -- The U.S. Department of Energy has scheduled public meetings on a proposed $3.8 billion power line running 420 miles from Quebec to Connecticut under Lake Champlain, the Hudson River and Long Island Sound.

The Champlain-Hudson Power Express project, proposed by Toronto-based Transmission Developers Inc., would carry up to 2,000 megawatts of hydroelectric and wind energy to the New York metropolitan region. Plans call for completion in 2015.

Donald Jessome, president and CEO of Transmission Developers, said the project will meet the growing energy demands of New York and New England by bringing clean, renewable energy into the power grid with minimal disruption to communities or the environment along the transmission line.