June 20 (Bloomberg) — Negev Energy, a partnership between
Shikun & Binui Renewable Energy and a unit of Abengoa SA, won a
tender to build and operate a solar plant in southern Israel.

The 121-megawatt Ashalim facility is due to start operating
in the second half of 2017 and will sell power at 0.76 shekel a
kilowatt-hour, Israel’s Finance Ministry said today in an e-mailed statement. The cost of the project is $1.1 billion,
Shikun & Binui said in a separate filing to the stock exchange.

Israel is expanding its solar industry to meet electricity
demand while reducing reliance on fossil fuels. The country
installed 41 megawatts last year, increasing capacity to about
226 megawatts amid plans to source 10 percent of its power from
renewables by 2020, Bloomberg New Energy Finance data show.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Gwen Ackerman in Jerusalem at
gackerman@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

June 20 (Bloomberg) — Tata Group’s solar unit is expanding
its business building plants for customers, forecasting that
offices and factories will be paying more for grid power than
solar by 2016 in most Indian states.

Solar installations for commercial and industrial energy
consumers, such as cement factories, information technology
parks and car manufacturers, seeking to generate their own power
represent a market of about 80 billion rupees ($1.3 billion),
said Ajay Goel, chief executive of Tata Power Solar Systems
Ltd., a unit of India’s biggest industrial group that owns
Jaguar Land Rover.

The company, formerly known as Tata BP Solar Ltd., is
seeking to diversify from making panels after an oversupply from
Chinese competitors crushed prices globally and idled Indian
factories. Customers for whom it has already completed solar
plants for self-generation include Maruti Suzuki India Ltd., the
country’s biggest carmaker, and the local units of Dell Inc. and
International Business Machines Corp.

“We’re seeing a huge uptake as we get closer and closer to
grid parity,” Goel said in a phone interview. “Corporate
customers are coming to us to install solar on their rooftops or
land on the side of their factories because it can provide
energy cheaper than from the grid.”

The investment can pay for itself in a year if the customer
is able to claim tax depreciation benefits or about four years
if they can’t, Goel said. The economics improve further when
businesses calculate the cost of diesel burned during daily
blackouts. Diesel generators cost about 17 rupees per kilowatt-hour to run, more than double the cost of solar, according to
HSBC Holdings Plc.

Cheap Solar

Commercial consumers such as hotels and shopping malls,
which pay the highest rates for electricity from the grid, can
already generate solar power cheaper in 10 percent of India’s 35
states and territories, Goel said. By 2016, that’ll be true in
60 percent of India’s states and territories, and if government
subsidies are considered, the number will increase to 80
percent.

In India, the rate paid for electricity delivered by the
national transmission network differs depending on the type of
consumer and the location. On average, the tariff has risen 15
percent since 2010 to 4.55 rupees a kilowatt-hour, according to
data from the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission on
short-term power sales. In the same period, the average cost of
solar energy fell 39 percent to 6.89 rupees per kilowatt-hour,
according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Natalie Obiko Pearson in Mumbai at
npearson7@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

June 20 (Bloomberg) — As Congress considers scaling back
or abolishing U.S. rules that mandate the use of renewable
fuels, it has the full-throated support of the petroleum
industry — with one major exception.

BP Plc, one of the world’s biggest oil companies by
revenue, is part of a joint venture with DuPont Co. that is set
to start producing a new alternative fuel by the end of the
year. In order to preserve a market for that fuel, its officials
are busy in Washington trying to convince lawmakers that the
current system doesn’t need an overhaul.

“They don’t need to change the law,” Paul Beckwith, the
chief executive of the venture, Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC of
Wilmington, Delaware, said in an interview. The program “as
it’s currently configured is working, and there are good
opportunities for increasing renewable levels beyond where they
are today.”

The Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, dates in its current
form to 2007, when concerns about dependence on overseas oil and
a desire to curb the use of fossil fuels induced Congress to set
quotas for the use of alternatives to gasoline or diesel, such
as ethanol and biodiesel.

Under the law, refiners such as Exxon Mobil Corp. must
blend a certain amount of renewable fuels into their gasoline
each year, with their contribution determined by their share of
the fuel market. The Environmental Protection Agency and
renewable-fuel producers say the mandate spurs production of
American-made fuels, helps corn farmers and cuts carbon
emissions by replacing gasoline.

Lobbying Costs

The efforts of BP and Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont,
which together spent $13.8 million on lobbying in 2012, show the
fissures in the business community over the future of the rules,
and the difficult path any overhaul must tread. A panel of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to hold a hearing on
the program next week, as Republicans such as Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia push to scrap it.

Critics, ranging from motorcyclists to chicken farmers,
focus on two separate issues. Food retailers and food charities
complain that use of corn to make ethanol is pushing up the cost
of food.

Local chain restaurant owners pestered their advocacy
group, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, to find out
why their commodity costs were spiking, according to Robert
Green, the executive director of the Washington-based group.
After hiring an outside research firm to conduct a study, “it
was very clear that the RFS was a cause of it,” he said in an
interview. The group, whose members include White Castle and
Wendy’s Co., is today launching a campaign in Washington it
calls the Feed Food Fairness to repeal the RFS.

Blendwall Danger

Lobbyists representing refiners such as Exxon, based in
Irving, Texas, and Tesoro Corp. of Waltham, Massachusetts, raise
a different objection to the mandates. They say falling U.S.
fuel demand means that requirements for ethanol may force its
use higher than the 10 percent that the government says is safe
for all engines, exceeding what the industry calls “the
blendwall.”

“With each passing day or month we’re going to see more
movement” for repeal, Charles Drevna, president of the American
Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents refiners
such as Exxon and Tesoro, said in an interview.

Now the small collection of renewable-fuel producers are
pushing back against those efforts, arguing that they will soon
be making the kinds of next-generation fuels necessary to fill
the growing government quotas while avoiding the damage to
engines that worries the refiners.

Butamax Plant

Butamax plans to convert an existing ethanol plant to make
biobutanol, a related fuel also made from corn that has lower
greenhouse-gas emissions and doesn’t present the same kind of
refining issues as ethanol, according to the company.

“It completely overcomes the issues with the blendwall,”
Beckwith said before meeting this month with congressional staff
members to discuss the issue.

The London-based BP, which in the U.S. has the capacity to
refine 725,000 barrels of crude oil a day, is taking a slightly
different position than the industry trade groups in advocating
for regulatory mending by EPA, not a legislated end.

“BP supports the goals of the RFS program to stimulate the
development and deployment of biofuels technologies, and we
believe that technologies like Butamax’s will be an important
part of our liquid transportation fuel mix,” Matt Hartwig, a
company spokesman, said. Still, “safely moving past the ethanol
blendwall will require time and investment.”

Iowa Corn

Butamax is not alone in pushing to preserve the program.
Iowa’s corn growers have flooded Washington to make their case,
and to take aim at what they say are unfair subsidies that the
oil industry gets.

Separately, ethanol producer Poet LLC of Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, and Royal DSM NV, a Heerlen, Netherlands-based
biotechnology company, are pushing ahead on a plant that will
use crop residue such as corn cobs and husks to produce 20
million gallons of cellulosic biofuel a year. It plans to start
full commercial production in early 2014.

The foes “continue to work hard to spread myths and
misinformation about the RFS in an effort to return to a
gasoline monopoly on transportation fuel, maintain their record
profits, and serve their interests here and in the Middle East,
Hugh Welsh, DSM’s president for North America, said in an e-mail.

‘‘The RFS is doing great things, and will continue to do so
for the next 15 years,’’ he said. ‘‘When presented with the
facts and the results, our elected officials recognize this.’’

To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Drajem in Washington at
mdrajem@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at
jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

June 20 (Bloomberg) — As Congress considers scaling back
or abolishing U.S. rules that mandate the use of renewable
fuels, it has the full-throated support of the petroleum
industry — with one major exception.

BP Plc, one of the world’s biggest oil companies by
revenue, is part of a joint venture with DuPont Co. that is set
to start producing a new alternative fuel by the end of the
year. In order to preserve a market for that fuel, its officials
are busy in Washington trying to convince lawmakers that the
current system doesn’t need an overhaul.

“They don’t need to change the law,” Paul Beckwith, the
chief executive of the venture, Butamax Advanced Biofuels LLC of
Wilmington, Delaware, said in an interview. The program “as
it’s currently configured is working, and there are good
opportunities for increasing renewable levels beyond where they
are today.”

The Renewable Fuel Standard, or RFS, dates in its current
form to 2007, when concerns about dependence on overseas oil and
a desire to curb the use of fossil fuels induced Congress to set
quotas for the use of alternatives to gasoline or diesel, such
as ethanol and biodiesel.

Under the law, refiners such as Exxon Mobil Corp. must
blend a certain amount of renewable fuels into their gasoline
each year, with their contribution determined by their share of
the fuel market. The Environmental Protection Agency and
renewable-fuel producers say the mandate spurs production of
American-made fuels, helps corn farmers and cuts carbon
emissions by replacing gasoline.

Lobbying Costs

The efforts of BP and Wilmington, Delaware-based DuPont,
which together spent $13.8 million on lobbying in 2012, show the
fissures in the business community over the future of the rules,
and the difficult path any overhaul must tread. A panel of the
House Energy and Commerce Committee is set to hold a hearing on
the program next week, as Republicans such as Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia push to scrap it.

Critics, ranging from motorcyclists to chicken farmers,
focus on two separate issues. Food retailers and food charities
complain that use of corn to make ethanol is pushing up the cost
of food.

Local chain restaurant owners pestered their advocacy
group, the National Council of Chain Restaurants, to find out
why their commodity costs were spiking, according to Robert
Green, the executive director of the Washington-based group.
After hiring an outside research firm to conduct a study, “it
was very clear that the RFS was a cause of it,” he said in an
interview. The group, whose members include White Castle and
Wendy’s Co., is today launching a campaign in Washington it
calls the Feed Food Fairness to repeal the RFS.

Blendwall Danger

Lobbyists representing refiners such as Exxon, based in
Irving, Texas, and Tesoro Corp. of Waltham, Massachusetts, raise
a different objection to the mandates. They say falling U.S.
fuel demand means that requirements for ethanol may force its
use higher than the 10 percent that the government says is safe
for all engines, exceeding what the industry calls “the
blendwall.”

“With each passing day or month we’re going to see more
movement” for repeal, Charles Drevna, president of the American
Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents refiners
such as Exxon and Tesoro, said in an interview.

Now the small collection of renewable-fuel producers are
pushing back against those efforts, arguing that they will soon
be making the kinds of next-generation fuels necessary to fill
the growing government quotas while avoiding the damage to
engines that worries the refiners.

Butamax Plant

Butamax plans to convert an existing ethanol plant to make
biobutanol, a related fuel also made from corn that has lower
greenhouse-gas emissions and doesn’t present the same kind of
refining issues as ethanol, according to the company.

“It completely overcomes the issues with the blendwall,”
Beckwith said before meeting this month with congressional staff
members to discuss the issue.

The London-based BP, which in the U.S. has the capacity to
refine 725,000 barrels of crude oil a day, is taking a slightly
different position than the industry trade groups in advocating
for regulatory mending by EPA, not a legislated end.

“BP supports the goals of the RFS program to stimulate the
development and deployment of biofuels technologies, and we
believe that technologies like Butamax’s will be an important
part of our liquid transportation fuel mix,” Matt Hartwig, a
company spokesman, said. Still, “safely moving past the ethanol
blendwall will require time and investment.”

Iowa Corn

Butamax is not alone in pushing to preserve the program.
Iowa’s corn growers have flooded Washington to make their case,
and to take aim at what they say are unfair subsidies that the
oil industry gets.

Separately, ethanol producer Poet LLC of Sioux Falls, South
Dakota, and Royal DSM NV, a Heerlen, Netherlands-based
biotechnology company, are pushing ahead on a plant that will
use crop residue such as corn cobs and husks to produce 20
million gallons of cellulosic biofuel a year. It plans to start
full commercial production in early 2014.

The foes “continue to work hard to spread myths and
misinformation about the RFS in an effort to return to a
gasoline monopoly on transportation fuel, maintain their record
profits, and serve their interests here and in the Middle East,
Hugh Welsh, DSM’s president for North America, said in an e-mail.

‘‘The RFS is doing great things, and will continue to do so
for the next 15 years,’’ he said. ‘‘When presented with the
facts and the results, our elected officials recognize this.’’

To contact the reporter on this story:
Mark Drajem in Washington at
mdrajem@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at
jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Siemens AG, Europe’s largest maker
of power equipment, agreed to develop systems that convert waste
industrial gases into fuel using technology from LanzaTech NZ
Ltd.

Siemens’s Metals Technologies unit will collaborate with
LanzaTech for 10 years to commercialize and market systems for
the steel industry, the two companies said today in a joint
statement.

LanzaTech’s fermentation process turns carbon monoxide and
carbon dioxide from steel mills into fuels and chemicals. Steel
and iron manufacturing produces 6.7 percent of global CO2
emissions, and turning the gas into fuel may help steel mills
lower operating costs and comply with government requirements
aimed at curbing climate change, according to the statement.

Siemens has “developed a lot of the technologies that are
used in steel mills,” Jennifer Holmgren, chief executive
officer of Auckland, New Zealand-based LanzaTech said in an
interview today. The German company will help design new mills
that integrate LanzaTech’s process from the beginning or assist
with incorporating it into existing ones.

LanzaTech developed microorganisms that consume waste gases
to produce fuel and chemicals. Steel mills typically flare the
byproduct gas or use it to produce heat and electricity for
industrial processes.

LanzaTech completed two “pre-commercial” plants last year
at steel mills owned by the Chinese producers Shanghai Baosteel
Group Corp. and Shougang Group. The sites each have ethanol
production capacity of 300 tons a year. Holmgren expects the
steelmakers to begin construction this year on larger facilities
that will begin production in 2014.

Siemens and LanzaTech are “already pursuing several
commercial gas fermentation project opportunities around the
world,” the companies said in the statement.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Andrew Herndon in San Francisco at
aherndon2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Reed Landberg at
landberg@bloomberg.net

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Heavy oil from Alberta will be
developed with or without the proposed Keystone XL pipeline,
though the fuel will be delivered to market using less efficient
means, Canada’s ambassador to the U.S. said.

Speaking at a Bloomberg Government breakfast in Washington
today, Gary Doer said he supported the U.S. State Department’s
finding in March that blocking the TransCanada Corp. pipeline
won’t stop production of bitumen, a type of heavy crude oil, in
the oil sands of the Canadian province.

Enviromentalists oppose Keystone in part because they say
production and use of bitumen releases more greenhouse gases
tied to climate change compared with conventional forms of
crude.

“Oil will get to market,” Doer said. “It gets to market
with pipelines. It will get to market by trains. It will get
there by trucks. It will get to India, it will get to China, and
it will continue to have the opportunity to go to U.S.
refineries, which create a lot of jobs for the United States for
the manufacturing sector on the U.S. Gulf Coast.”

The State Department is reviewing TransCanada’s application
to build the $5.3 billion link between Alberta and Steele City,
Nebraska. From Nebraska, the oil would eventually find its way
to refineries along the Gulf Coast.

The State Department has jurisdication because the pipeline
crosses an international border.

Canadian Lobbying

Environmentalists argue that developing the oil sands will
be slowed if President Barack Obama’s administration rejects
Keystone, and cite lobbying by TransCanada and Canadian
officials such as Doer as evidence of the project’s importance.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, responding to the
State Department’s draft environmental analysis, said the report
was insufficient in assessing how Keystone would affect oil-sands development and therefore greenhouse-gas emissions.

Doer said Canadian officials are pressing the point that
the oil will be developed regardless of the U.S. decision. He
said Keystone will reduce the costs to transport the fuel and
release less carbon dioxide than transporting the fuel by train
or truck.

“I haven’t seen anything that refutes this common sense
fact that this oil is going to go from Canada to market,” Doer
said. “We’re trying to make sure the facts are straight. It’s
coming on trains now.”

To contact the reporter on this story:
Jim Snyder in Washington at
jsnyder24@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Jon Morgan at
jmorgan97@bloomberg.net

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Nico Tyabji, a policy analyst at
Bloomberg New Energy Finance, talks about global efforts to
reduce greenhouse-gas emissions and financing of clean-energy
projects. (Source: Bloomberg)

Running Time: 06:04

June 19 (Bloomberg) — Cia De Utilitati Publice Dunarea
Braila SA, a Romanian utility, awarded a 56.6 million-lei ($17
million) contract for water and wastewater upgrades in the
eastern town of Gropeni to Arcon AG SA and Tancrad SRL.

The contract, initially estimated at 73.7 million lei,
attracted five bids, according to a notice published on the
country’s public auction website.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Irina Savu in Bucharest at
isavu@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
James M. Gomez at
jagomez@bloomberg.net