WEB ALERT

Renewable energy: finding solutions for a greener tomorrow

Wenxin Shi

Published online: 30 January 2010

� Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010

Renewable energy is energy generated from natural

resources such as sunlight, wind, biomass, tides, and

geothermal heat, which are renewable (naturally

replenished). Some renewable energy technologies are

criticized for being intermittent or unsightly, yet the

renewable energy market continues to grow. Climate

change concerns, coupled with high oil prices and

increasing government support, are driving increasing

renewable energy legislation, incentives and commer-

cialization. The International Energy Agency estimates

that nearly 50% of the global electricity supplies will

need to come from renewable energy sources in order to

halve carbon dioxide emissions by 2050 and minimize

significant, irreversible climate change impacts. In this

issue, we will focus on some important websites which

provide readers with more informative resources related

to renewable energy.

1 REN21: renewable energy policy network

for twenty-first century

REN21 website (http://www.ren21.net/default.asp) is

a global policy network that provides a forum for

international leadership on renewable energy.

Linking the energy, development and environment

sectors, REN21 strengthens the influence of the unique

renewable energy community that came together at the

‘‘Renewables 2004’’ conference in Bonn. REN21 is

the network in which ideas are shared and action is

encouraged to promote renewable energy worldwide.

The goal of REN21 is to bolster policy development

for the rapid expansion of renewable energies in

developing and industrialized economies. Open to a

wide variety of dedicated stakeholders, REN21 con-

nects governments, international institutions, non-

governmental organizations, industry associations,

and other partnerships and initiatives.

REN21 has produced a number of internationally

recognized reports on renewable energy policy and the

development of the renewables marketplace. The

Renewables Global Status Report, in particular, has

achieved worldwide recognition. The REN21 Renew-

ables Global Status Report was released annually since

2004 to show the fundamental transition of the world’s

energy markets continues. Those documents can be

now downloaded from REN21 website (http://www.

ren21.net/publications/default.asp). The Renewables

Global Status Report 2009 update is also available

over there. This Update edition of the Renewables

Global Status Report is the fourth in a series launched

in 2005. This Update edition covers major changes in

renewables worldwide between late 2007 and early

2009. It is intended to show recent progress and trends

and to provide updated 2008 indicators. It is designed

to supplement the Renewables 2007 Global Status

W. Shi (&)

State Key Laboratory of Urban Water Resources and

Environment, Harbin Institute of Technology, 150090

Harbin, China

e-mail: swx@hit.edu.cn; shiwenxin2@yahoo.com

123

Rev Environ Sci Biotechnol (2010) 9:35–37

DOI 10.1007/s11157-010-9187-6

Report, published in March 2008. It provides an inte-

grated picture of the global renewable energy situa-

tion, while coming in the midst of an historic and

global economic crisis.

The ‘‘Virtual Library’’ (http://www.ren21.net/

virtuallibrary/default.asp) provides readers with

relevant documents, including political statements,

thematic contributions, selected literature, etc. Among

the 272 documents, some new issued books and reports

in 2009, such as ‘‘Economic crisis, Rescue Packages in

EU 27 and Renewable Energy’’, ‘‘Biofuels in the

European Context: Facts and Uncertainties’’, and

‘‘Towards Sustainable Production and Use of Resour-

ces: Assessing biofuels’’, can be downloaded for free.

REN21 maintains also a database (http://www.

ren21.net/pledges/pledges.asp) of all pledges that

were submitted at both the Renewables 2004 Confer-

ence held in Bonn and the Washington International

Renewable Energy Conference 2008 (WIREC). This

database provides governments and stakeholders in all

parts of the world with an inspiring source of infor-

mation on specific steps they could take to advance the

uptake of renewable energy. The Renewables Inter-

national Action Programme (RIAP) has been set-up as

a new opportunity for governments and stakeholders to

submit further pledges. At the same time, it is the

framework under which REN21 informs its network

about voluntary pledges made. It comprises all existing

International Action Programmes (IAP) and Wash-

ington International Action Programme (WIAP)

pledges in a standard format for easy reference, and

also includes new commitments made by stakeholders

who wish to inform the international community about

their activities. New pledges can be submitted at any

time by filling the pledge submission form online.

2 REEEP: renewable energy and energy

efficiency partnership

The Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Part-

nership (REEEP) is a non-profit, specialist change

agent aiming to catalyze the market for renewable

energy and energy efficiency, with a primary focus on

emerging markets and developing countries. The

Partnership was established alongside the 2002 World

Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannes-

burg. It is now comprised of 300 partners including 46

governments as well as a range of private companies

and international organizations. REEEP develops and

supports policy-maker networks with initiatives such

as the Energy Efficiency Coalition (EEC), the Sus-

tainable Energy Regulation Network (SERN) and the

Renewable Energy and International Law (REIL).

REEEP disseminates and replicates learning through

news items, publications, its website (http://www.reeep.

org/) and events. ‘‘Accelerate the Market’’ is REEEP’s

toolbox section of the website. In this section users can

learn about laws and regulations, access some training

materials, manuals and guidebooks for the acceleration

of knowledge transfer and capacity building towards the

creation of favorable market conditions for renewable

energy and energy efficiency, find sources of funding

and test the economics of a project (http://www.reeep.

org/47/accelerate-the-market.htm).

The REEEP toolkit system offers an array of

information in the field of Renewable Energy and

Energy Efficiency, i.e. REEEP digital library. These

range from policy papers and case studies to presen-

tations that are produced by REEEP funded projects

spanning the entire globe. New information is added

regularly. The toolkit system is available at http://tool

kits.reeep.org.

This training package on ‘‘Sustainable Energy

Regulation and Policymaking for Africa’’ provides an

introduction to the key issues relating to the energy

market and energy regulation, as they affect sustain-

able energy (http://africa-toolkit.reeep.org/).

REEEP also operates a specialist clean energy

search engine (reegle) for the green energy world

(http://www.reegle.info/) and a clean energy blog

(http://blog.reegle.info/). Reegle provides informa-

tion and data on all the various sub-sectors within

sustainable energy at a global level. It is designed to

be a one-stop-shop search engine for high quality up-

to-date information on renewable energy, energy

efficiency and on key industry participants (‘Actors’).

It has three main search components. The central

function of the site is a web search, which offers a

‘‘mind map’’ based search refinement function. The

users can also click on a map of the world and get

information on renewable energy and energy effi-

ciency in that specific country, including relevant

government ministries, private companies, country

energy statistics, and a sampling of clean energy

development projects in that specific area. Reegle

has a large directory of organizations involved in

renewable energy and energy efficiency. It contains

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information and links to over 1300 governmental

ministries, companies and other green organizations,

cross-referenced by geographical area and subject

matter. In addition to its search function, the site has

news feed provided courtesy of Enviro Finland

(http://www.energy-enviro.fi/), and a green glossary

of terms and event listings.

3 Bioenergy network of excellence (NoE):

integrating expertise for a greener Europe

The informative and vibrant website, Bioenergy Net-

work of Excellence (http://www.bioenergy-noe.com/),

offers new information on Bioenergy NoE’s research,

partners and the organizational strategy. Sponsored by

the European Commission’s DG Research, Bioenergy

NoE is a pan-European partnership of eight leading

bioenergy institutes who are pursuing integrated

research to take bioenergy into the marketplace. The

chief aim of the network is integration. Partner insti-

tutes are integrating their research and development

activities to build a Bioenergy R&D Centre that will

help Europe to build a world class bioenergy industry.

This approach will inspire excellence and innovation

in bioenergy research and industry, help the EC to meet

its goals for reduced greenhouse gases, and create a

better quality of life across the globe.

The Bioenergy NoE supports these goals through

technology development and implementation, policy

actions, and market strategies. The R&D programme of

the NoE will cover all methods necessary for establish-

ing successful ‘‘bioenergy chains’’ to produce heat,

electricity and biofuels for the energy end-use market

including: planting and harvesting of biomass, solid

fuels from agricultural, forestry and industrial biomass

residues and organic waste components, combustion,

gasification and synthesis, pyrolysis, anaerobic digestion

and fermentation of biomass feed stock, production of

liquid biofuels and hydrogen, heat and power production

plants, analyses of socio-economic, policy, market and

environmental issues including climate change.

The interactive homepage features a clickable

octagon that allows users to access information on all

eight partners and all eight research areas (http://

www.bioenergy-noe.com/?_id=131). Bioenergy NoE

publishes regularly newsletters to support the proac-

tive communication of bioenergy research, policy and

market strategies. The website also offers audience

reports and case studies funded by Bioenergy NoE

(http://www.bioenergy-noe.com/?_id=179) or other

publications which can be downloaded from the

partner websites linked with the bioenergy NoE

website. A diary lists all major bioenergy conferences

and events throughout Europe and the world (http://

www.bioenergy-noe.com/?_id=149).

4 GBEP: the global bioenergy partnership

The Global Bioenergy Partnership (GBEP) was

launched during the Ministerial Segment of the 14th

session of the Commission on Sustainable Develop-

ment (CSD14) in New York on 11 May 2006. The

purpose of GBEP is to provide a mechanism for part-

ners to organize, coordinate and implement targeted

international research, development, demonstration

and commercial activities related to production, deliv-

ery, conversion and use of biomass for energy, with a

focus on developing countries.

GBEP launched its official website (http://www.

globalbioenergy.org/) to provide a global political

forum to promote bioenergy and encourage the sus-

tainable production, marketing and use of ‘‘green’’

fuels, with particular focus on developing countries.

The website works to facilitate exchanges of know-

how and technology, promote supportive policy

frameworks and identify ways of fostering invest-

ments and removing barriers to the development and

implementation of joint projects.

GBEP’s bioenergy database (http://www.globalbio

energy.org/bioenergyinfo/en/) contains records from

different organizations and institutions worldwide as

well as regional and country specific data selected to

provide relevant information about bioenergy. It aims

to disseminate information on bioenergy development,

best practices and critical issues. The database con-

tains information on bioenergy background, bioenergy

and climate change, bioenergy and food security,

bioenergy and trade, bioenergy and sustainability, etc.

To promote information sharing, the GBEP web-

site also provides information on ‘‘Programme of

Work’’, where some working documents of GBEP

can be downloaded. The website also offers links to

sources of information on bioenergy and features

news and a regularly updated list of bioenergy events.

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