Bangladesh Solar Energy Society placed yesterday a 14-point proposal including easy term loan for self-financed renewable energy projects before the government for the expansion of the sector amid increasing power crisis.

Secretary of the society Prof Saiful Haque placed the proposals at a press conference at Renewable Energy Research Centre at Dhaka University.

Federal Minister for Water and Power, Raja Pervez Ashraf has said Pakistan has set high targets for itself such as renewable energies including 5 percent of the electricity generation on grid by year 2030, and the replacement of 10 percent diesel with bio-diesel by year 2025.

Hoping to speed up the development of renewable energy resources on federal lands, the U.S. Interior Department designated about 670,000 acres of land on Monday as potential areas for solar energy production.

Demand for renewables has created a boom for land previously considered worthless in sunny deserts and wind-swept

The first biofuels produced using new generations of biomass raw materials could be available in commercial volumes from 2010 at the earliest, German junior Environment Michael Mueller said on Monday.

But the exact time scale was still unclear, Mueller said at the European Biomass conference in Hamburg.

Member states of the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) voted to locate their headquarters in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt's state news agency MENA said on Monday.

The United States may become the largest market for renewable energy for E.ON, the world's largest utility by sales, within six years, the head of the company's green energy unit told Reuters in an interview.

Norway's government proposed a new law on Friday to develop sea-based wind power as part of a plan to diversify from offshore oil and gas toward renewable energy.

"Offshore wind energy may become the next adventure for the Norwegian industry and energy sector," Oil and Energy Minister Terje Riis-Johansen said in a statement of a draft bill presented by the center-left government.