Sector insights

Posted by Michael Mendolia
The building sector in France, which represents nearly 46% of total domestic energy consumption, is facing increased pressure to improve energy efficiency.  Through the Grenelle Law, passed in June 2009, France set ambitious targets for energy efficiency in buildings, including a 38% reduction in energy consumption and a 50% reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the building sector by 2020. 

Posted by Michael Mendolia
For many years now, the rapidly growing photovoltaic industry has been primarily a European phenomenon – in 2011, 75% of all new installed capacity was located in Europe – and the countries getting the most attention have been Germany and Italy. With over 24.6 GW of cumulative capacity at the end of 2011, Germany has maintained its status as the leading country in terms of total installed capacity, but last year Italy was the top market, with 9.3 GW of new PV connections compared to 7.5 GW for Germany. Nonetheless, prospects for continued growth in Germany and Italy are now considerably bleaker, due to recent sharp cuts in governmental subsidies, compounded by the ongoing financial crisis in the euro zone.

Posted by Michael Chase
Our aerospace expert and business partner Michael Chase shares with us his insight from aerospace trends, this time focusing on the helicopter market.

Posted by Michael Chase
Our aerospace expert and business partner Michael Chase shares with us his insight from aerospace trends, including the latest Pre-Owned Business Jet, Business Turboprop Aircraft and Helicopter market information. 

Posted by Michael Mendolia
Even in the midst of global economic weakness, the global photovoltaic market grew in 2011, though the exact figures remain in dispute.  Bank Sarasin’s highly-regarded report from November 2011 estimated that in 2011 the newly installed PV capacity was at 21 GW, reflecting only a 3% growth since 2010.  In contrast, the solar market report published in 2012 by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) indicated that 27.7 GW of photovoltaic installations were newly connected in 2011.  Notably, the EPIA analysis discusses projects that were put in place in 2010 but were only connected to a grid in 2011. Such projects were particularly common in Italy, where systems which were installed towards the end of 2010 were only connected by mid-2011 and thus benefited from more generous Feed-In Tariffs (FITs).  In fact, EPIA reports that Italy was the top PV market in 2011 with 9 GW of newly connected systems, catapulting itself ahead of Germany with only 7.5 GW.

Posted by Michael Mendolia
The highly publicized Autolib’ electric car-sharing program was launched on the streets of Paris last month.  Although many other cities have similar programs, the Paris initiative is notably larger – with 250 of the four-seat compact BlueCars already on the road, to be increased to 2,000 by summer.  Car-sharing of traditional gasoline-powered vehicles is not new to Paris – Caisse Commune (now operated by Transdev) has been around since 1999, and Mobizen (now operated by Veolia Transport) since 2007 – but in the new program, the Autolib’ cars, which were developed through a collaboration between Italian car designer Pininfarina and Groupe Bolloré,  are powered by lithium ion polymer batteries.  The program also addresses one of the primary obstacles to the widespread adoption of electric cars – the lack of infrastructure.  There are now 1,200 charging stations and parking spaces reserved exclusively for Autolib’ users on Paris streets.

Posted by Richard Todd
German government announced a moratorium on nuclear energy after the nuclear disaster in Fukushima in March. It subsequently made a dramatic U-turn on the policy it had announced last autumn to extend the lives of nuclear power stations into late 2020s and 2030s.  It has now decided to close all nuclear power stations for the production of electricity by the end of 2022 (hooray I hear the masses singing!). The last plant was commissioned in the 1980s and the previous government (Red-Green) had already agreed to close them by 2022, a decision taken in 2000 and ratified by parliament in 2011.  The 8 plants closed as part of the moratorium will remain closed for good.