Green Options

Although some of the heavy hitters are still major players, 2008 has shown growth in renewable energy markets that had been weak previously. New players however are entering the renewable energy field, according to Clean Energy Trends 2009 report.

France

The vast majority of the electricity generated in France comes from its 59 nuclear reactors. It has not been considered a global leader in renewable energy, but France has taken some bold steps recently to support growth in this industry.

The government plans to have 23% of its electricity generated from renewable energy sources including hydroelectric by 2020. A feed-in tariff of 30 Euro cents for commercial buildings has been introduced to encourage solar energy growth.

France now exceeds Denmark in wind energy capacity after adding 950 MW in 2008. The country currently has 3,400 MW of wind power and plans to increase this to 25,000 MW by 2020.

Morgan Solar, a Toronto-based company launched last summer, believes it has the answer to creating simple and cheap solar concentrators.

While other companies are working to make solar cheaper by using mirrors or lenses to magnify sunlight that is directed into solar cells, Morgan Solar takes a different approach. Their system uses a thin sheet of acrylic to concentrate sunlight 750 times. The sunlight is directed to a tiny cell on the edge of the plastic, greatly reducing the amount of material needed.