The German government plans to compensate utility RWE with around 2.6 billion euros for costs related to the country’s planned coal exit. Mining company Mibrag, owned by Czech energy group EPH, is likely to get 1.75 billion euros of compensation. The payments will begin when coal-fired plants are turned off until the broad final coal exit date.

Only 276 new wind turbines with an output of 940 MW were put into operation in 2019. Compared to the average expansion in the past 5 years, it is a decrease of 77%. The reasons are long approval procedures, insufficiently designated areas and many lawsuits. Many local initiatives against the construction of wind turbines have been formed.

Green bonds are red hot. Issuance smashed through projections in 2019 and will continue expanding this year as sustainability minded investors snap up almost every deal that hits the market. Moody’s had to revise its projection for the year 2019 from $200 billion to $250 billion. The average offering is more than three times oversubscribed.

The Finish EU presidency, the European Commission and the European Parliament on Monday evening all agreed on the common classification system for environmentally-sustainable investment. The final confirmation will be done by EU ambassadors on Wednesday and by a plenary vote that will probably take place in January 2020.

Prodded by their own governments into slashing emissions and getting out of coal, European companies are a step ahead of their US counter parts. “There’s definitely a trend here,” said Peter Henry, managing director at HW Anderson Ltd. in New York. “There are opportunities for them to apply similar strategies that have worked in Europe.”

Germany gets 23.5% of its energy from wind. But in the first half of 2019, only 35 wind turbines were added — an 82% drop compared with 2018. Last year was bad, too: Just 743 turbines were added, compared with 1,792 in 2017. Local opponents of the wind farms often go to court to stall new developments or even have existing towers dismantled.

Report released by the Rocky Mountain Institute. Public policy, manufacturing, research and development, and economies of scale will drive battery performance higher while pushing costs as low as $87/kWh by 2025 (currently $187/kWh). These changes are already contributing to cancellations of planned natural-gas power generation.

The market for green bonds has exploded, with global sales increasing by more than 300% in the past five years to reach $162 billion this year. The Bloomberg Barclays Euro Green Bond Index shows a total return of 18% since 2014. Investors appear entirely unwilling to forgo wealth to invest in environmentally sustainable projects.

The European Central Bank has been buying the debt as part of its asset repurchase program. Hungary and France’s central banks have each created funds dedicated to ecological investments. The Bank for International Settlements started an open-ended fund for central bank investments in green bonds last month.

“The nuclear sector has to get back on track. It’s a question of energy sovereignty...” Le Maire told a news conference, after unveiling a government-backed audit of setbacks at EDF’s Flamanville 3 nuclear project in France. It has also had to hike its cost estimates for the Hinkley Point C nuclear plant it is building in Britai

Germany’s wind power industry could shed about 40% of its jobs because of sliding interest among investors to build turbines on land. Net new onshore capacity dropped from 5.3 GW in 2017 to 2.4 GW last year and to a mere 0.3 GW in the first six months of 2019. Far short of the 4.7 GW needed for Germany to create a 65% share for renewables.

An influx of new offshore wind farms around the world is set to draw $840 billion of investments over the next two decades. Additions of 20 GW of new offshore capacity a year still won’t be enough to hit global climate targets. Capacity additions would need to be near to 40 GW a year in the next decade, adding over $1.2 trillion of investment.