Japanese electronics maker Kyocera believes solar’s star is rising, and the company said it plans to expand its solar cell production to keep up with growing global demand, building a new large-scale solar cell manufacturing facility in Yasu City. Kyocera said it will be the company’s largest manufacturing plant in Japan.

The cost of the new facility was not disclosed, but Kyocera said that, combined with its existing Yohkaichi plant, the new site will more than double its annual production of solar cells to 650 megawatts (MW) by March 2012, up from a projected output of 300 MW this year.

Kyocera, which makes fine ceramic and semiconductor parts and telecommunications equipment, said its new solar plant is part of a strategy to continue as a fully integrated solar module manufacturer. The company said it covers the entire production process, from procuring and casting raw silicon to producing solar cells and assembling modules.

Earlier this year, Kyocera reportedly made a deal to help put some sun power into the next-generation Toyota Prius. Solar panels from Kyocera could be used to help power the car’s air conditioning system.

Construction of Kyocera’s new manufacturing plant is scheduled to start in early 2009 and be completed by the end of the year. The first solar cells are expected to start rolling off the production line in the spring of 2010.

New England will be getting more cash for environmentally friendly technologies under a new program announced today by Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell. A $9 million fund has been launched to make investments in seed and early-stage companies, focusing on renewable energy, energy efficiency, environmental remediation and clean water.

“We want to position Connecticut as the preferred location to grow cleantech jobs,” said Governor Rell in a statement. Cleantech companies could get up to $1 million from the new Connecticut Clean Tech Fund, which will be managed by Connecticut Innovations, a quasi-public authority responsible for technology investing in the state. Connecticut Innovations and the Department of Economic and Community Development have each made an initial commitment of $3 million for the new fund. The Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, also run by Connecticut Innovations, is putting up $3 million for companies that meet its criteria.

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In addition to receiving an infusion of cash through its merger with Winrock International, the Environmental Resources Trust’s Greenhouse Gas Registry also got a name change: It is now the American Carbon Registry. But the folks with the money at Winrock are doing more than just thinking about what the world’s first carbon registry should be called; they have helped the registry compile the detailed new guidance documents it’s rolling out today.

According to American Carbon Registry Founder and Nobel Prize winner Wiley Barbour, the hope is that this will position the registry for success when the federal government institutes national cap-and-trade legislation for carbon. Barbour says private registries with a history of quality offsets and a transparent registration process based on solid guidelines may be able to get offsets through the federal compliance process more quickly. A federal system could create a huge market — in the range of hundreds of millions — for quality offsets, according to Barbour.

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The Scottish government believes the North Sea could become host to an underwater renewable energy grid, supplying power from wind, wave and tidal power across Europe, but England could be left out in the cold. A new study from Scotland looks at the possibility of a supergrid between Scotland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands, but doesn’t mention Scotland’s big neighbor to the south.

Yes, Scotland is still part of the UK, and most of England’s east coast is also on the North Sea, but the word “England” doesn’t even show up once in the 21-page study and “UK” is only used in a couple of footnotes. It might just be an oversight, but the possible snub comes during the same week in which the UK government made a filing with the Commission on Scottish Devolution questioning the Scottish government’s powers covering energy.

Political wrangling aside, there’s a big push for wind and marine power in the UK, not just in Scotland, so the area could become a hub for renewable energy in the region. In October, the UK government said it surpassed Denmark to take the top spot in offshore wind power in the world, boasting 590 megawatts of offshore wind vs. Denmark’s 423 megawatts.

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Despite the ongoing global credit crunch, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said today that the world can’t afford to pull back on renewable energy and efficiency programs, forecasting that $4.1 trillion will need to be spent to avoid an energy supply crunch on a much warmer and more energy-hungry planet.

The Paris-based IEA, founded in 1974 after the oil crisis, is an energy policy adviser to 28 member countries, including the U.S., the UK, Germany, Japan and Australia. The group said without a shift in government policy and spending, global energy demand will expand by 45 percent by 2030, including the need for four times the current oil capacity of Saudi Arabia, leading to an eventual global temperature increase of up to 6 degrees Celsius.

Even without a shift in policy, renewables stand to do very well over the next few years, overtaking natural gas soon after 2010 to become the second largest source of electricity behind coal — but you have to go by the IEA’s definition of “renewable,” which includes massive amounts of hydro power, likely including the not-so-environmentally-friendly Three Gorges Dam in China.

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The oil-rich nation of Qatar is teaming up with the UK government-backed Carbon Trust to pour cash into cleantech companies. The two countries plan to launch a £250 million ($396.2 million) fund for clean energy business, focusing on startups in the UK. The deal also calls for the possible creation of a joint research center in Qatar that could help the emirate jump on the growing cleantech industry in the Gulf region.

The Qatar-UK partnership will begin investing with up to £150 million ($237.8 million) coming from Qatar and the remaining £100 million from the Carbon Trust and the private sector. The Carbon Trust told Earth2Tech that it has not yet disclosed the amount of its contribution. The funding will be used to invest “in companies developing a wide range of low carbon technologies,” UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a press conference in Qatar. “And it is right that we cooperate on how we can make the energy resources of our countries do better for us in the future.”

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U.S. businesses are creating new citizenship initiatives at a record pace. But meeting the pressures of various stakeholders and optimising strategy to take advantage of opportunities can be a daunting task. How are U.S. businesses meeting the challenges? How does globalization affect corporate citizenship? What are the roles for government, advocacy groups, and public-private partnerships? Economist Conferences present “Corporate Citizenship: Building a Sustainable Business,” Nov. 18-19 in San Francisco. The conference will address how leading companies are striving to be good corporate citizens, focusing on top-down strategies. Earth2Tech readers receive a discount of $500 off the $1,395 registration fee. Register here using the discount code GIGA1.

How America can revamp its energy infrastructure, recharge its economy and reshape its future by embracing three major green initiatives.

The financial meltdown has rattled the U.S. banking system to its core. The unprecedented increase in the price of oil this summer has wreaked havoc on household budgets. The presidential race has surfaced divisions of class, race and geography among the American people.

But a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. The presidential election taking place next week has the potential to set America on a new path. Embracing three massive opportunities presented by eco-related initiatives will help America move closer toward its goals of achieving energy independence, escaping recession and creating a sustainable lifestyle for its citizens.

1. Rebuild the National Grid.

The current power grid is outdated and inefficient. The majority of power plants are more than 30 years old. The aging infrastructure costs the economy between $25 to $180 billion in outages every year. More than 7 percent of energy was lost due to inefficient transmission and distribution methods in 2007 alone.

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Environmental responsibility may be one area where AMD is beating Intel these days. Its 8th Global Climate Protection Plan, released early this morning, details significant energy and emissions reductions that surpass goals set out in previous plans.

The plan also underscores the benefits of the company’s LEED Gold-targeted Austin Lone Star campus and announces its intention to begin measuring its greenhouse gas emissions through Scope 3, the highest level of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. Under Scope 3, companies have to track carbon impacts not only of their direct impacts but also indirect impacts — from suppliers to employees to product life-cycle impacts. It’s a move AMD senior strategist Larry Vertal told us is “not for sissies, which is why so many other companies have not yet considered addressing it.”

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An Oregon Public Utilities Commission investigation that gets under way this morning will offer up one of the best examples to date of the potential pitfalls facing the success of renewable energy certificates (RECs) and, by extension, carbon offsets. It all comes down to the fact that there aren’t enough qualified people out there to evaluate and certify renewable energy projects.

For renewable energy producers, the proceedings will also highlight the potential expense of the auditing process if they do not already have deals in place with utilities. The utilities, meanwhile, may either discover a new revenue stream in the auditing process or be saddled with the chore of regulating RECs they’re not using themselves. In either case, the outcome of the investigation will affect the number of RECs available to utilities attempting to meet the state’s renewable energy portfolio standards (RPS).

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