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Sweden's World Food Building combines offices with vertical farm
 By 2050, the world's population is expected to swell to 9.6 billion, with around 66% living in urban areas. This projection is leaving many cities wondering how they will feed all those people.

A Swedish food-tech company called Plantagon is proposing that cities consider building what it calls "plantscrapers" — office towers that contain giant indoor farms. Plantagon is constructing its first plantscraper in Linköping, Sweden.

Called The World Food Building, the tower will operate hydroponically, meaning vegetables (mostly greens) will grow without soil in a nutrient-rich, water-based solution. The farm will largely be automated, Plantagon CEO Hans Hassle told Business Insider.

Construction of the $40 million building began in 2012, and it's set to open by early 2020.

Check out the plans below.

Output: Foodtech company Plantagon is building its first "plantscraper" in the southern Swedish city of Linköping. The $40m World Food Building is an office tower that also contains a large automated indoor farm. The building will grow vegetables hydroponically in a nutrient-rich, water-based solution and is set to open by early 2020. It will produce 550 tons of vegetables a year. Two-thirds of the building will be offices with the farm occupying the rest of the tower.


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AI diagnoses pneumonia with similar accuracy to radiologists
 There’s a clear trend that having more data makes it easier to train artificial intelligence. Bigger datasets, like ImageNet, originally showed that AI could be useful for tasks like image recognition, leading to a race among everyone from large technology companies to academics to compile new datasets to stretch the limits of AI.

Now, a new paper from Stanford University shows just how fast a new dataset could be used to train artificial intelligence algorithms to the point of near-human accuracy. Using 100,000 x-ray images released by the National Institutes of Health on Sept. 27, the research published Nov. 14 (without peer review) on the website ArXiv claims its AI can detect pneumonia from x-rays with similar accuracy to four trained radiologists.

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That’s not all—the AI was trained to analyze x-rays for 14 diseases NIH included in the dataset, including fibrosis, hernias, and cell masses. The AI’s results for each of the 14 diseases had fewer false positives and false negatives than the benchmark research from the NIH team that was released with the data.

The paper includes Google Brain founder Andrew Ng as a co-author, who also served as chief scientist at Baidu and recently founded Deeplearning.ai. He’s often been publicly bullish on AI’s use in healthcare.

“I think health care 10 years from now will use a lot more AI and will look very different than it does today,” he told MIT Tech Review earlier this year.

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These algorithms will undoubtedly get better—accuracy on the ImageNet challenge rose from 75% to 95% in just five years—but this research shows the speed at which these systems are built is increasing as well.

Output: Artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to detect pneumonia with the same level of accuracy as trained radiologists, according to new research. A paper by scientists at Stanford University detailed the results of a test in which 100,000 x-ray images were analysed by an AI system. It found that of the 14 diseases it was trained to identify, its results showed fewer false positives than the equivalent human diagnoses in each case. One of the paper's co-authors is Google Brain founder Andrew Ng, who predicts AI will play a bigger role in healthcare in future.


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Union Investment buys a 13% stake in Berlin proptech Architrave
 × Expand Union Investment Jens Wilhelm - Union Investment ‘The investment in Architrave is our first advance into the PropTech sector,’ said Jens Wilhelm, managing director in charge of real estate, portfolio management and IT infrastructure at Union Investment. ‘The strategic partnership is a core element of our strategy of driving forward the process of digitisation in the real estate industry."

German fund manager Union Investment Real Estate has acquired a 13% stake in Berlin-based PropTech Architrave for an undisclosed sum, both firms told REFIRE at EXPO REAL earlier this month, marking Union Investment’s first investment in a PropTech company.

Architrave specializes in intelligent real estate data management solutions. Union Investment has been a partner of Architrave since September and has added more than 400 of its properties to Architrave’s platform. The German fund manager will help Architrave to develop its AI component with a view to establishing an industry standard for collating real estate data in an open, digital platform. This will benefit property owners, asset managers, property managers and facility managers in equal measure, as they will gain access to a systematic and standardised database for each of their properties without any issues with interfaces or problems with information.

‘The investment in Architrave is our first advance into the PropTech sector,’ said Jens Wilhelm, managing director in charge of real estate, portfolio management and IT infrastructure at Union Investment. ‘The strategic partnership is a core element of our strategy of driving forward the process of digitisation in the real estate industry. With its established customer base and continuous expansion, Architrave is an ideal partner to realise our common vision of an industry-wide asset management data platform.’

Semantics – which can include hundreds of thousands of terms and definitions to facilitate closer data matches – has been a buzzword in the online space for a while but algorithms such as the ones used by Architrave are part of the new generation of machine-learning services.

Over time, the aim is to build a pan-European platform, Maurice Grassau, CEO and founder of Architrave, told REFIRE: ‘For now, we are focusing on Germany, although a lot of non-German assets are managed on our platform, which is in English, German and French. Our training docs mark in the relevant data from the start, which is then classified – extraction has a different algorithm because the machine learns rules by reading the data itself. Our aim is to get all properties in Germany digitalized as more companies come on board.’

The advantage of complete digitalization would be that real estate data is always accessible, which would speed up transactions. According to Grassau, Architrave’s data platform is hosted in highly secure German computer centres with maximum safeguards against unauthorised access and misuse. When a property is sold, Architrave transfers the real estate data to the new owner within the platform environment.

‘This marks a milestone in process efficiency for integrating acquired properties into investors’ portfolios,’ Grassau said.

In May 2017, Architrave took second place at Union Investment’s inaugural international PropTech Innovation Award, which attracted interest from 200 companies. Architrave has generated triple-digit revenue growth for the past five years in succession. This year, it is expected to generate revenue of around €2m, a figure that it hopes to double next year.

Output: German fund manager Union Investment Real Estate has acquired a 13% stake in Berlin proptech firm Architrave for an undisclosed sum. The investment will help Architrave develop its artificial intelligence technology to establish an industry standard for collating real estate data on an open platform. Union Investment has been a Architrave partner since September and has already added more than 400 properties to the platform. It is the first time the fund manager has invested in a proptech company. Architrave is aiming to offer its platform across Europe, serving property owners, asset managers and facility managers.


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Scientist makes 3D-printed human skin to help end animal testing
 'Build Beyond Zero' Changes the Way One Thinks About Buildings

Output: Young Brazilian scientist Carolina Catarino has been awarded one of eight young researcher prizes of £10,000 ($13,250) by the Lush cosmetics company for her work on lab-grown human skin models. The skin models are made with 3D printing techniques and it is hoped they will make animal testing unnecessary. In future research, Catarino aims to increase the number of molecules in the skin models, add proteins for skin maintenance and introduce blood vessels for regenerative medicine testing and skin grafts. She is also working towards adding hair follicles, which would help show how substances can enter the body.


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Company boards should set 40% women quota: EU
 The European commission is to push for a quota for women on company boards to address the slow progress to gender equality in the senior ranks of publicly listed businesses.

Under the proposals, companies whose non-executive directors are more than 60% male would be required to prioritise women when candidates of equal merit were being considered for a post.

Previous attempts by the EU’s executive to set a 40% goal for women in the top ranks of listed companies have been blocked by Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden overs fears that Brussels was overreaching into domestic affairs. Hungary and Poland have opposed the move on ideological grounds.

The result of the impasse has been slow progress to greater diversity at the top of companies. Women made up 29% of recruits to UK boards in 2016, down from 32.1% in 2014 and 31.6% in 2012, according to research by the recruiter Egon Zehnder.

The proportion of women on the boards of the largest listed companies across the EU has more than doubled, from 10% in 2005 to 22% in 2015. However, women account for only 7% of board chairs and presidents and 6% of chief executives in the largest companies.

On Monday, the commissioner for justice and gender equality, Vĕra Jourová, will publish proposals to redress the gender pay gap.

Speaking to the Guardian before the launch, Jourová said: “We have so much evidence that it is good for business to have diversity, to have women and men on boards. Women [make up] 65% of university graduates, so why don’t we use that talent and the investment?

“Women have a very good talent for long-term, sensible spending [and] for crisis-solving because they can come up with proposals for negotiation and compromise. It is a necessary balance to the approach of men: attack and escape.”

A quota for boards will be one of a series of legislative proposals aimed at tightening the law to improve diversity and pay practices in work.

The pay gap in the EU, quantifying the difference in average hourly pay for male and female workers, remains resolutely large.

According to figures released in October, Britain registered the biggest increase in the EU’s gender pay gap in 2015. The UK’s gender pay gap jumped from 19.7% in 2014 to 20.8% in 2015, the largest annual rise among Europe’s main economies. The gap in the UK now outstrips the EU’s average of 16.3%.

Jourová, the Czech Republic’s representative in the commission, said: “In each country there are special reasons for this. I think that in most member states, maybe all, the main problem is segregated jobs. Females’ jobs, nurses, social services, teachers are underpaid. And is it because women are working in these roles? Maybe. I would guess this is also the case with the UK and [it is] something they should think about.

“We are addressing the member states with a strong call to look into it and change their renumeration policy in the public sector. The gender pay gap is also partly caused because women have more duties at home and take part-time jobs. And are paid less. It is a trap.”

Across the EU there is a full-time equivalent employment rate of 40% for women and 56% for men.

Jourová said she believes discrimination is still a major factor, and that current EU legislation is ineffective because it is not strongly enforced. Jourová has also suggested legislation to force listed companies to publish gender-specific statistics on pay.

“There are no teeth [to current laws],” she said. “According to our estimates, discrimination accounts for 8-10% of the gap. There is not enough enforcement. It must be done by labour inspectorates, and it should be captured in collective bargaining by the trade unions.”

Output: The European Commission is proposing a 40% quota of women on company boards, in order to combat gender inequality at senior levels of publicly listed firms. The plans would require companies whose non-executive directors are over 60% male to prioritise women if candidates of equal merit apply for posts. Previous efforts by the European Union (EU) to establish a 40% target for women in senior roles at listed firms have failed. The proportion of women on the boards of such firms in the EU has increased from 10% in 2005 to 22% in 2015.


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San Leon San Leon Energy to fight winding-up order
 Executive chairman Oisin Fanning is battling to keep his oil and gas explorer afloat after a cash row led to a winding-up petition, writes Gavin McLoughlin

Oisin Fanning faces the wrath of British hedge fund manager Martin Hughes, nicknamed ‘The Rottweiler’, as San Leon Energy fights a winding-up order following a wrangle with Dutch partner Avobone over a loan to cover a share of drilling. Stock image

Investing in oil and gas explorers isn't for the faint-hearted. Good results can deliver big rewards - bad results can mean you lose all your money.

British hedge fund manager Martin Hughes is certainly not in the faint-hearted category - his nickname in the City is 'The Rottweiler'.

Hughes's Toscafund is the majority shareholder in San Leon Energy, the oil and gas explorer run by Irish businessman Oisin Fanning.

San Leon is on the brink - with a creditor having just filed a petition in Dublin's High Court seeking to have it wound up. Toscafund's investment is small fry in the overall scheme of the funds it manages (over $4bn) - but the Rottweiler is probably snarling at the situation San Leon finds itself in.

The proximate cause of the difficulty is a long-running financial dispute with Avobone - a Dutch company which had partnered with San Leon on an asset in Poland. The main problem was a loan Avobone gave San Leon to meet Avobone's share of drilling. San Leon said the loan should only have been repayable "had Avobone exited after the field had generated sufficient cashflow to repay the loan".

"As of the timing of Avobone's exit in early 2013, the field had yet to generate cashflow."

Oisin Fanning. Pic: Courtpix

The row made its way through various arbitration and court hearings before ultimately being settled this time last year. San Leon agreed to pay €23.3m plus interest to Avobone.

It wasn't as simple as all that, however, and a few months later, the companies agreed a revised payment schedule as San Leon had had trouble generating the cash. Another revised schedule was agreed at the beginning of this month.

Then came the bombshell news on Friday that Avobone was seeking a winding-up order. San Leon said its rival was looking to change the terms of the latest agreement, looking for further security for the sums owed.

"These additional requested terms are totally unacceptable ... [San Leon] has already provided security of payment and shall robustly defend the application," the company added. "San Leon can see no reason for Avobone's actions given the imminent payment expected to Avobone of all outstanding sums."

The matter is due back before the courts next month and it may spell the end for a business that just last year was boasting about a "transformational" deal that would see it take a stake in a producing field in Nigeria. The stake was acquired via a complex arrangement that saw San Leon become the beneficial owner of around $175m of loan notes.

But cash flow from that project has been slow - as of April 1 2017, it was due $58m but had only received $5m.

The project also contributed to problems in filing accounts. San Leon missed the stock-market-imposed deadline - and said this was due to the complexity of the Nigerian venture.

"The delay in publication of the accounts has been for procedural reasons," San Leon said, adding that it needed to incorporate "the consolidated financial statements" of a particular entity related to the Nigerian asset using the equity method of accounting - a process for dealing with the financial effects of an investee company in which the core company has a significant influence.

"The consolidation process involves several jurisdictions, and has taken longer than expected for what is the first such consolidation and equity accounted investment in Nigeria for San Leon. When this process is completed, it will be followed by a number of normal audit confirmatory and technical review matters, which when completed will then put the company in a position to finalise and publish its financial statements."

Eventually, the accounts were published three months late, and contained a note of warning from the company's auditors that there were "material uncertainties which may cast significant doubt" about the company's ability to continue. There was, the company recognised, a need for further funding.

Ultimately, the way out for Fanning might be to sell the business.

San Leon told the market in the summer that a Chinese company has been sniffing around and even made an indicative takeover offer valuing the company at 67-76p a share. That was a substantial premium to the share price at the time (around 30p). A formal offer was contingent on the completion of due diligence - with the Chinese expecting to be able to make a their move within 45 days according to San Leon. That period of time elapsed and no offer was forthcoming.

San Leon then said it was still in dialogue with the company, China Great United, which had said the reason for the delay in due diligence was that it was now talking to a potential partner who could add value to the Nigerian project.

Another option that has been mooted is a merger with Midwestern - a partner in the Nigerian project. "San Leon remains in discussions with Midwestern, which are at a very early stage and broad-ranging, regarding a potential corporate transaction, which could include an offer by Midwestern for San Leon or an offer by San Leon for certain assets of Midwestern," the company said on foot of media speculation. Shares are now suspended from trading on foot of this.

If a deal can be pulled off it would represent a great escape by Fanning who has been through some rough times in business before.

He was a founder of collapsed stockbroking firm MMI Stockbrokers, and chief executive from 1993 before stepping down in 1998, the year the company got into serious difficulty. He also founded Smart Telecom which went into examinership three years after Fanning's departure as chief executive in 2006.

Life at San Leon has been eventful too. Leaving aside the current imbroglio with Avobone and the various takeover possibilities, the company last year found itself making headlines when it was excluded from the Norwegian state pension fund's 'investment universe' over its activities in the Western Sahara, a sparsely populated disputed territory.

The dispute is between Morocco and a group of the region's indigenous population.

The fund's ethics council said San Leon "contributes to serious violations of fundamental ethical norms through its onshore hydrocarbon exploration in Western Sahara on behalf of Moroccan authorities".

An activist in the region told the Sunday Independent at the time: "Morocco has no right to explore for oil in Western Sahara without the consent of the people of Western Sahara and if the people of Western Sahara are not to benefit from it. Morocco has no right to look for the oil; San Leon is doing it, so therefore they're kicked out [of the investment fund]."

In response, San Leon said that it had satisfied local interests following dialogue with local elected representatives and that it was in the company's own interest - and that of Morocco - that any revenue from oil or gas would benefit the local community.

San Leon has had interests in the Irish offshore too but sold many of them to John McKeon's Ardilaun Energy which has recently been seeking to raise money from investors. Lamborghini enthusiast McKeon set up Circle Oil which went bust early this year. McKeon had left the board in 2008.

San Leon retains a 4.5pc net profit interest on the Barryroe prospect, majority owned by Providence Resources. Barryroe is Providence's flagship asset and is due to be drilled next year, Finding a heavyweight partner to help get oil out of the ground on a commercial basis has been a long-running saga. Though the upcoming drilling campaign might help, Barryroe isn't going to help San Leon anytime soon.

Fanning is well remunerated. In 2016, his package including share-based compensation came to more than €1.7m, according to San Leon's last annual report. In 2015, his package was almost €1.3m.

On the company's website, his strengths are listed. "Oisin is both visionary and deeply practical in pursuing business goals on behalf of stakeholders. He recognises the importance of finding and developing talented people to achieve a clear set of objectives". If San Leon makes it through the court case, and payments from Nigeria remain slow, he'll need to draw on all his strengths to get the business on track.

Output: Oisin Fanning may be forced to sell his beleaguered oil and gas exploration firm, San Leon Energy, after it was hit with a winding-up order petition in Dublin's High Court. CEO Fanning has steered the company through several crises, but faces more uncertainty thanks to the dispute with Dutch enterprise Avobone, which is set to return to court next month. San Leon is in acquisition talks with China Great United and is also in early-stage merger discussions with partner company Midwestern.


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Sharing-economy insurer Zego raises £6m in funding
 Zego, a pay-as-you-go insurance provider for gig economy workers, has announced a Series A funding round of £6 million led by Balderton Capital with participation from LocalGlobe and a number of angel investors.

The Series A round follows the company’s last funding round of £1.2 million in July.

London-based Zego was founded by a group of former Deliveroo managers to provide insurance coverage to gig economy workers, who are typically not considered employees by the services they work for, leaving them with little or no protection. Uber most notoriously has been challenged in the UK courts over the status of its drivers.

The fresh capital will be used to grow its engineering team ahead of the launch of new insurance products for the self-employed and it is currently developing a tracking feature to ensure safer drivers pay less.

The startup, which employs 33, intends to internationalise in the next six months.

“Zego provides hardworking drivers with the tools to make gig economy jobs work for them,” said Harry Franks, CEO. “Before we came along drivers who wanted to work flexibly and part-time were ill-served by the insurance industry and were forced to pay for insurance cover they did not use.”

“ are in a new and fast evolving market that traditional insurers find it hard to adapt to,” added Rob Moffat, partner at Balderton.

Output: Zego, a UK-based insurtech focusing on providing coverage to workers in the "gig" economy, has raised £6m ($7.9m) in funding. Balderton Capital led the round. The firm provides insurance coverage for sharing-economy workers, such as Uber drivers, who often don't have coverage provided by their employers. The insurtech was founded by a group of former Deliveroo managers.


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More big earthquakes expected in 2018 due to Earth speed changes
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Scientists Warn of Devastating Earthquakes in 2018 as Earth’s Rotation Slows

Scientists Warn of Devastating Earthquakes in 2018 as Earth’s Rotation Slows

Scientists say the fluctuation in Earth's rotational speed could trigger intense seismic activity. The heavily populated tropical regions could be the worst hit, says a research paper.

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New Delhi, Nov 20: While the NASA may have debunked the theory that a planet called Nibiru (or Planet X) is about to destroy the Earth soon, scientists have predicted a far more scary and believable scenario. The number of big earthquakes could increase in 2018 due to variations in the speed of Earth. Scientists say the fluctuation in Earth’s rotational speed could trigger intense seismic activities across the planet. The heavily populated tropical regions could be the worst hit, says a research paper tabled at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

Highlights Big earthquakes could hit the earth in 2018, warn experts.

Scientists say Earth's rotation has slowed down which could have catastrophic impact.

The heavily populated tropical regions could be the worst hit, they warned.

“The correlation between Earth’s rotation and earthquake activity is strong and suggests there is going to be an increase in numbers of intense earthquakes next year,” Roger Bilham of University of Colorado, who presented the research paper along with Rebecca Bendick of the University of Montana, said.

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What The Research Paper Revealed

“The Earth is offering us a five-year heads-up on future earthquakes,” Guardian quoted Roger Bilham, as saying. The experts studied the relationship between periods of major earthquakes and other factors and discovered that whenever Earth’s rotation had slowed down in the past, the period witnessed a substantial increase in seismic activities across the world.

“Next year we should see a significant increase in numbers of severe earthquakes. We have had it easy this year. So far we have only had about six severe earthquakes. We could easily have 20 a year starting in 2018,” Bilham said.

Bilham’s warning comes a few days after a 7.3 magnitude earthquake rattled Iran and Iraq killing over 400 people.

Warning for India

Scientists of Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology (WIHG) had recently warned that a big tremor could hit the region sooner than expect. Scientists explained the Indian Plate is moving towards the Eurasian Plate at the speed of 45 mm/year causing immense pressure under the earth surface in the region.

The energy created beneath the Earth surface triggered the April 2015 quake and experts said there is high probability of more such high intensity tremors in coming years. Prior to the 2015 quake, the Himalayan region has experienced three big earthquakes during the past century – Nepal-Bihar (1934), upper Assam (in 1950) and Kangra, Himachal Pradesh (1905).

On April 25, 2015, a magnitude 7.9 quake wreaked havoc in the Himalayan country of Nepal. Nearly 9,000 people were killed and over 20,000 injured. Tremors were felt as far as New Delhi and other parts of northern and eastern India. The massive earthquake sent Nepal’s economy and infrastructure back by a few years. The Northern Himalayan region is considered to be one of the most active seismic region in the world. Scientists have repeatedly warned of possibility of catastrophic earthquakes in the region. According to a latest research, the world could witness severe quakes in 2018.

Timeline of Major Earthquakes in India, Asia:

April 25, 2015: An earthquake measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale strikes Lamjung district in Nepal.

November 23, 2014: A 6.3 magnitude quake hits China, killing at least two people.

November 23, 2014: Over 50 people were injured and about 10 houses collapsed after a 6.7-magnitude quake hit Japan.

May 5, 2014: An earthquake of 6.0 magnitude occurred in the Bay of Bengal and tremors were felt across India.

September 25, 2013: A 7.7-magnitude quake hit Pakistan’s remote south-west province of Balochistan killed over 300 people.

April 20, 2013: A quake of 6.6 magnitude hit a remote mountainous area of southwestern China’s Sichuan province, killing around 150 people and injuring several people.

September 20, 2011: At least 68 people died and over 300 were injured in a quake of 6.8 magnitude that struck Sikkim.

September 22, 2009: A high-magnitude earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale killed at least 10 people in the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan and left dozens more injured.

October 8, 2005: The magnitude 7.6 earthquake killed at least 86,000 people, injured more than 69,000 and caused extensive damage in northern Pakistan.

December 26, 2004: A quake of powerful 9.3 magnitude on the Richter Scale triggered a massive Tsunami hitting countries in the Asia Pacific region, killing over 2 lakh people.

January 26, 2001: A massive earthquake measuring 7.7 on the Richter scale hit the town of Bhuj in Gujarat, killing over 10,000 people.

For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest India News on India.com.

Output: The world should expect many more devastating earthquakes in 2018 due to variations in the Earth's rotational speed, according to a report from the Geological Society of America. Heavily populated tropical areas may be the worst hit, according to the report. This latest news follows the magnitude 7.3 earthquake that hit Iran and Iraq a few days ago, killing over 400 people. Insurance companies worldwide are already concerned about the future due to the rising number of natural disasters, which could push insurance premiums to unaffordable levels for households and companies.


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Aegon seeking fintech partnerships in India
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In digital drive, Aegon Life looking for fintech partnerships

In digital drive, Aegon Life looking for fintech partnerships

New Delhi, Nov 19 (PTI) Aegon Life Insurance is exploring partnerships with fintech firms to expand customer base through a digital push of selling policies online, a top company official said.Among 2

New Delhi, Nov 19 (PTI) Aegon Life Insurance is exploring partnerships with fintech firms to expand customer base through a digital push of selling policies online, a top company official said.

Among 23 private life insurers, Aegon is ahead of only Sahara Life on new premium collection.

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The LIC, the only state-owned life insurer, holds the top rank in the life insurance space.

“While market share is important, at this point of time, the focus is to build the business more towards direct-to- customer and more digital with an omni-channel kind of a concept,” Saibal Ghosh, Chief Investment Officer, Aegon Life Insurance, told PTI during an interaction.

“Our focus will be largely digital as we believe that digital is going to be big. We are also looking out for digital partners, we will also be looking at some of the financial services companies with a digital focus,” Ghosh added.

In terms of premium collection, the company earns around one-third or 30-35 per cent of the business through digital means like mobile application or Internet-based online channels.

The rest of the polices are sold through the direct channel of the company’s own sales personnel.

The overall objective, Ghosh said, is to push the online business as much as possible.

Asked to name the probable fintech firms with whom Aegon Life may tie up, he said it is a “work in progress”.

The company already has a tie-up with policybazaar.com, an online platform to compare insurance polices.

Aegon Life new premium collection more than doubled to Rs 9.37 crore in October 2017, from Rs 4.35 crore in the same month a year ago, according to data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai).

During April-October 2017-18, the new premium grew by 74.4 per cent to Rs 58.85 crore, from the earlier Rs 33.74 crore.

In 2016-17, the insurer’s overall new premium collection, however, slipped 33 per cent to Rs 91.42 crore, from Rs 136.33 crore in 2015-16, according to the Irdai data.

Aegon life sells term and health insurance, unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs), savings and retirement plans, child, rural and group insurance schemes.

This is published unedited from the PTI feed.

For breaking news and live news updates, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter and Instagram. Read more on Latest News on India.com.

Output: Life insurer Aegon Life is seeking partners involved in fintech in India. The firm reportedly ranks 22 out of 23 among premiums collected by Indian private life insurers. The push for partnerships is aimed at giving the firm a greater platform to sell policies online. The firm already has an arrangement with online insurance marketplace PolicyBazaar. It also earns roughly a third of its premiums via digital channels at present.


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Brokers mull AI use for interaction with insurers
 Brokers are excited about the potential of artificial intelligence (A.I.) to help streamline interactions—not just between brokers and consumers, but also between brokerages and insurance companies.

Chatbots are often cited as an A.I. tool to help brokerages automate and streamline their online interactions with clients. But chatbots can also act as “advisors” internally at brokerages, helping brokers to figure out the different insurance company manuals, data collection rules and processes.

“We have lots of companies with different rules,” says Amanda Ketelaars, operations manager at Mitchell & Whale Insurance Brokers Ltd., which has already started using a chatbot to streamline interactions with consumers.

“We think there is lots of learning A.I. and chatbots can do around managing the different [company] rules and helping us to straighten those things out. That makes it easier [for the broker] to find a lot of [company] information that we now have to enter manually. I think it can be an internal advisor as much as an external advisor.”

Rick Orr, owner of Orr Insurance & Investment, believes A.I. will save insurers “a fortune,” by automating processes between brokerages and insurers.

“I think you’ll just use A.I. to load the [company] manual into the system and let the brokers chat [with the insurers] and get an answer back,” he says. “You will end up with way fewer, higher-level underwriters dealing with true exceptions to what the book says, the way it should be.”

For now, much of the hype around A.I. is the possibility of improving broker relationships with clients. The Insurance Institute of Canada recently released a trends paper on A.I. in the Canadian p&c industry, in which sources talk about increasingly sophisticated chatbots becoming “robo-advisors” in the future.

For example, PwC predicts robo-advisors will soon offer broker clients more ‘recommender’ systems and ‘someone like you’ statistical matching, the paper says. “When fully mature, robo-advisors will understand individual and household balance sheets and income statements [and they] will be able to recommend, monitor and change financial goals and portfolios for their p&c policyholders.”

The genesis for robo-advisors already exists today in the form of chatbots. But the current experience with chatbots suggests regulatory hurdles to achieving the utopian vision of robo-advisors.

“There are restrictions around licensing and what [a chatbot] can tell [consumers] and what it can’t,” Ketelaars says of the Mitchell & Whale’s chatbot experience.

“But it can automate simple tasks, answering repetitive or straightforward questions like, ‘Where do I find your office? Where would I get a quote?’ or ‘I need to speak to a broker about this.’ It can collect all the information before it gets to the broker. The chatbot can do quoting, until we get to a bind stage and then the person can speak to a broker at the end of that phase.”

The Insurance Institute paper notes some barriers to A.I. use among brokers in Canada. “Barriers to AI use in Canada include high investment costs, which could be prohibitive to small insurers and brokerages, as well as a general lack of trust in allowing machines to handle personal interactions with humans.”

But Ketelaars thinks brokers can defray their costs by working with partner insurance companies and insurtechs already working in the A.I. space. Mitchell & Whale, for example, partnered with ProNav Technologies, an Ontario-based insurance tech company, to develop its chatbot.

EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story paraphrased Rick Orr as saying that brokers could save a fortune with A.I. Rick Orr intended to say insurers could save a fortune. CU regrets the error.

Output: Insurance brokers are mulling the adoption of chatbots to interact with insurers. Chatbots are frequently used in a customer-service application, but could now be deployed to facilitate discussions between underwriters and brokers. Artificial intelligence-powered bots could be used, for example, to understand an insurer's compliance policies, allowing conversations between brokers and insurers to focus on details surrounding the nuances of clients and their desired coverage.


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RBS launches low-cost robo-adviser service
 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has officially applied the latest artificial intelligence-led technology to its wealth-management operations, as the state-backed lender is trying to gain an edge over rivals in the UK banking sector.

RBS will run the newly launched robo-adviser service under its NatWest brand, the bank it bought more than 15 years ago.

For retail investors, the investment threshold for the new service has been set at £500 ($660), which is a low amount compared to the product limits of traditional banking wealth management.

Starting Monday, NatWest branches will begin offering the automated online investment advice to over 5 million customers, RBS said on Friday. The product offers a cheaper option for this basic segment, and actually helps them trim charges for in-depth financial advice around topics such as tax and inheritance planning.

RBS has already tested the waters in using robo advisers in a bid to improve the bank's financial results after having posted its longest streak of annual losses, which remains a blow to UK government plans to sell off the 70 percent public-owned bank.

Additionally, earlier this year the bank cut tens of investment advice positions and scaled back its service to clients that can invest at least $330,000, more than double the previous $130,000 threshold.

With banks in the UK still largely playing catch-up in embracing this digital technology, RBS is claiming to be the first among the nation’s big lenders to unlock the potential of the robo-advisers, which are being adopted rapidly by the wealth management industry worldwide.

Paolo Galvani, co-founder and CEO of Moneyfarm, a robo-advisor provider and one of Europe's biggest digital wealth managers, commented on the news: “The recent surge of online offerings from traditional wealth managers demonstrates the rise of robo-advisers, which the industry can no longer ignore. However, it’s crucial that digital solutions continue to be complemented by professional and human advice, which is not often the case. Moneyfarm provides all clients with over-the-phone access to Investment Consultants who can provide practical advice on the product and in-depth information on an individual’s investment.”

Output: Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) has introduced a robo-advice platform with a minimum investment of £500 ($663). The platform will reportedly be rolled out via RBS's NatWest brand. The move came after RBS did away with a large number of wealth advice positions earlier this year. It's estimated more than five million customers will have access to the new platform.


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AI may add $1.2tn to global financial services by 2035: Accenture
 According to Accenture research, the financial services industry is now the third most impacted by productivity gains achieved with the implementation of AI, behind only the media and telecoms, and manufacturing sectors

Output: The adoption of artificial intelligence could add $1.2tn to the global financial services industry by 2035, according to a report from Accenture. The report also notes that financial services, as a sector, is the third largest beneficiary of AI developments. Media and telecommunications, as well as manufacturing, are the top sectors benefiting from increased AI adoption. Developments in AI are likely to be a boon for financial service firms' customer service capabilities, while providing products such as micro-insurance is said to be an impossibility without an increased usage of the tech.


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American Century latest active manager to license ActiveShare ETF structure
 Factor Investing Strategy Briefing - Thursday 29th June 2023 - The Connaught, Mayfair. Please join us for our annual smart beta and factor investing event, featuring Goldman Sachs Asset Management, FlexShares, First Trust, MSCI and WisdomTree. Please register now if you would like to attend.

American Century Investments has entered into an agreement with Precidian Investments to license the firm’s ActiveShares methodology in support of the potential launch of actively-managed, semi-transparent ETFs. The Precidian model allows ETF issuers to deliver actively-managed investment strategies in an ETF vehicle without disclosing holdings on a daily basis.

While most passive and active ETFs today require daily portfolio disclosure, which exposes active managers’ investment ideas to other investors, the ActiveShares approach masks an ETF’s holdings by inserting a blind trust, known as a ‘confidential account’, between the fund and its authorized participants.

Normally, authorized participants are entitled to purchase and redeem large blocks of ETF shares from an ETF in exchange for baskets of securities and cash that are acceptable to the fund managers. All other market participants trade ETF shares on a secondary basis. As with an ordinary ETF, the current valuation of the underlying portfolio would be disseminated to the market, and arbitrageurs would be able to compare this indicative value, which is to be updated each second and verified by a second pricing vendor, to the quoted price of the ETF shares.

ActiveShares differs, however, in that authorized participants would not be able to calculate their own indicative value, since the creation basket will only be disclosed to a representative (a custodial bank) that will manage the confidential account. To create ActiveShares for an authorized participant, the custodian would accept the required consideration and assemble a creation basket, which it would contribute to the fund for new ETF shares in the confidential account. It would then distribute the ETFs to the authorized participant.

American Century is the latest asset manager to express interest in the structure – other interested parties include JPMorgan Chase, BlackRock, Capital Research, Nationwide, as well as Legg Mason affiliates ClearBridge and Royce. Precidian is still seeking approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to allow for the use of ActiveShares by asset managers.

American Century has been laying the foundation for its entry into the ETF marketplace, and is reportedly considering other avenues of entry other than ActiveShares. In October, the firm filed registration statements for two transparent ETFs: an index-based value ETF and an actively-managed diversified corporate bond ETF. The firm anticipates a mid-January effective date for both funds, subject to SEC approval.

Edward Rosenberg, senior vice president and head of ETFs for American Century, commented: “As we build out American Century’s ETF product suite, our long-term plan is to leverage our established active-management capabilities to bring clients our investment strategies in an ETF format, which aligns with certain investors’ preferences. While waiting for SEC approval of the ActiveShares methodology, we are proceeding with plans to launch other transparent ETFs that are informed by decades of experience and apply our unique insights to solve common investment problems and help investors achieve their goals.”

Output: American Century has become the latest active manager to license an exchange-traded fund structure developed by Precidian Investments. The structure, dubbed ActiveShares, is said to be "semi-transparent", meaning managers don't have to disclose holdings on a daily basis, as is the case with active ETFs currently in the market. Precidian is yet to receive regulatory approval from the Securities and Exchange Commission for ActiveShares. American Century follows the likes of JPMorgan, BlackRock and Legg Mason in signing up to license the active ETF structure.


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Fintech Intrinio partners with Nasdaq for data offering
 The fintech startup Intrinio has partnered with Nasdaq to include the exchange’s real-time data feeds in its financial data marketplace.

It’s the latest step in an evolution for Intrinio, which aims to “democratize all types of data,” CEO and co-founder Rachel Carpenter said.

Intrinio currently offers application programming interfaces for 150 different types of financial data, including S&P Dow Jones index data, U.S. public company financials and feeds from other stock exchanges.

Clients — investors, algorithmic traders, hedge funds and banks — can select which data feeds they want in order to track companies, to supply their algorithmic trading programs or to do other things.

“Tens of thousands of users now are coming to us because we have the most affordable a la carte data feeds on the market,” Carpenter said. Several customers asked for the Nasdaq feed.

The original idea behind Intrinio was to bring Warren Buffett’s investment ideas to life in software. Carpenter’s co-founder, Joey French, whom she met in college, was a big fan of Buffett.

“We felt that valuation was an industry ripe for disruption,” Carpenter said. “It costs a lot of money to run a valuation when it could be automated.”

They taught themselves how to program and developed an app for the valuation industry. It ended up being highly data intensive, screen-scraping stock prices and fundamentals data from 10,000 sites including Yahoo Finance and company web pages.

“When we had it all built, we said, we can’t sell this thing without legitimately purchasing the data,” Carpenter said. “We were very naive at that point in time. We called all the big data vendors, and we got quoted more than $50,000 for the data we needed. We were just fintech entrepreneurs — imagine how discouraged we were. Discouraged doesn’t cut it. We were angry.”

It was too early in the company’s life to raise money, so they set about solving their own problem.

“We found financial data to be reserved for the elite, for the big institutional investors, and not available to the masses,” Carpenter said.

They built machine learning technology for a data marketplace and found partners from whom they could obtain data streams for a reasonable price.

Under the latest agreement with Nasdaq, the exchange streams raw, unfiltered data to Quodd, another partner. Quodd normalizes the data and built a WebSocket infrastructure that allows communication over a single transmission control protocol connection to serve up the data.

“We believe WebSockets are the way of the future, a simple way to have two-way communications,” Carpenter said. “They’re easy to get up and running which, true to our mission, will help put this data in more hands faster. With just three lines of code, you can access the data.”

Individuals can consume any data on Intrinio’s marketplace for $75 a month; companies pay a varying rate.

Although her media relations person embraces the term “Bloomberg killer” to describe the company, Carpenter does not.

“We have clients that leverage our data to build apps that may be similar to what you have on a Bloomberg [terminal],” she said. “But our mission is just to make raw data feeds available.”

Output: Data-focused fintech Intrinio has partnered with Nasdaq to condense the exchange's data into a feed which corporations and individuals can purchase. Intrinio says its clients range from investors, algorithmic traders and banks. Clients use the data feeds for a variety of reasons, including tracking individual companies and feeding automated trading systems. Individuals can gain access to Intrinio's data feeds for $75 a month.


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Two Sigma to turn to outside fundraising for PE fund
 Two Sigma Planning to Raise Outside Money for Private-Equity Investments

By Juliet Chung

Two Sigma Investments LP is preparing to raise outside money for its private-equity strategy, which has for years invested only partners’ money, according to people familiar with the matter.

The New York quantitative hedge-fund firm is spinning off its Two Sigma Private Investments into a business called Sightway Capital and hopes to register it with the Securities and Exchange Commission in January, according to people familiar with the matter. It is unclear how much money the unit currently manages and how much outside money it plans to raise.

Sightway will continue to focus on illiquid investments, said a person familiar with the venture, including in credit, special situations, real estate and natural resources. A website for Sightway showcases video of an oil rig, farming equipment, a train, a plane and medical equipment. Wray Thorn will continue to lead the business.

“While a wide and growing number of markets and asset classes globally lend themselves to algorithmic and systematic approaches, a number of primarily illiquid investment in private assets still require a different approach,” wrote Sightway’s new chief of strategy and capital development, Susan Soh, in an email viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Sightway’s approach, she wrote, “focuses on partnering with experienced industry operators and strategic partners to build business platforms in targeted industries, helping these businesses as they seek to grow over time.”

Two Sigma was founded in 2001 by a computer scientist, David Siegel, and a mathematician, John Overdeck, who had both worked at hedge funds including the D.E. Shaw Group. The firm reached $50 billion in assets under management in October.

The Sightway effort marks a continued expansion of its business from quantitative investing. Last year Two Sigma joined with American International Group Inc. and Hamilton Insurance Group Ltd. to provide an automated, online analytical system to issue policies in minutes to smaller businesses like beauty parlors and medical offices. Early this year, a Two Sigma affiliate agreed to work with AIG on an insurance platform. The firm also has a venture arm that invests internal money.

A person familiar with Two Sigma said the firm continues to be focused on its hedge funds.

Leslie Scism contributed to this article.

Write to Juliet Chung at juliet.chung@wsj.com

Output: After previously only investing partners' money, Two Sigma is turning to external clients to raise investment for its private equity offering. The move is part of the firm's spinning out of its private equity business, which will go by the name Sightway Capital. The firm's quantitative focus within its hedge fund strategies has seen it grow its assets significantly, now ranking among the largest quant hedge funds globally. The firm has also been expanding into the insurance space, providing coverage for small and medium-sized businesses through a partnership with AIG.


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UK minister lobbied on behalf of BP, Premier Oil and Shell
 Britain successfully lobbied Brazil on behalf of BP and Shell to address the oil giants’ concerns over Brazilian taxation, environmental regulation and rules on using local firms, government documents reveal.

The UK’s trade minister travelled to Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte and São Paulo in March for a visit with a “heavy focus” on hydrocarbons, to help British energy, mining and water companies win business in Brazil.

Greg Hands met with Paulo Pedrosa, Brazilian deputy minister for mines and energy, and “directly” raised the concerns of UK-based oil firms Shell, BP and Premier Oil over “taxation and environmental licensing”.

Pedrosa said he was pressing his counterparts in the Brazilian government on the issues, according to a British diplomatic telegram obtained by Greenpeace.

The Department for International Trade (DIT) initially released an unredacted version of the telegram under freedom of information rules to Greenpeace’s investigative unit, Unearthed, with sensitive passages highlighted. Shortly after, the department issued a second version of the document, with the same passages redacted.

Greenpeace accused the department of acting as a “lobbying arm of the fossil fuel industry”.

The UK government denies it was lobbying to weaken the environmental licensing regime, although the lobbying drive appears to have borne fruit. In August, Brazil proposed a multibillion-dollar tax relief plan for offshore drilling, and in October BP and Shell won the bulk of deep-water drilling licenses in a government auction.

Rebecca Newsom, senior political adviser at Greenpeace, said: “This is a double embarrassment for the UK government. Liam Fox’s trade minister has been lobbying the Brazilian government over a huge oil project that would undermine the climate efforts Britain made at the UN summit in Bonn.

“If that wasn’t bad enough, Fox’s department tried to cover it up and hide its actions from the public, but failed comically.”

The document also reveals that the UK pressured Brazil to relax its requirements for oil and gas operators to use a certain amount of Brazilian staff and supply chain companies.

British diplomats described the weakening of the so-called local content requirements as a “principal objective” because BP, Shell and Premier Oil would be “direct British beneficiaries” of the changes.

The UK’s drive to soften the requirements continued on the day after the meeting between Hands and Pedrosa, with a senior DIT official leading a seminar on the subject at the headquarters of Brazil’s oil and gas regulator.

The UK government has come under fire in the past for providing hundreds of millions of pounds of support for Brazil’s scandal-hit state oil firm Petrobras via the UK’s credit export agency.

The UK’s continued oil lobbying efforts in Brazil emerged days after British ministers were touting the UK’s leadership on cutting carbon emissions at international climate talks in Bonn.

Claire Perry, the climate change minister, told the summit: “we are taking our commitments under the Paris agreement very seriously and we are taking action.”

A DIT spokesman said: “DIT is responsible for encouraging international investment opportunities for UK businesses, whilst respecting fully local and international environmental standards. The UK oil and gas industry and supply chain supports thousands of jobs and provides £19bn in goods exports alone.

“However, it is absolutely not true that our ministers lobbied to loosen environmental restrictions in Brazil – the meeting was about improving the environmental licensing process, ensuring a level playing field for both domestic and foreign companies, and in particular helping to speed up the licensing process and make it more transparent, which in turn will protect environmental standards.”

Output: A UK trade minister successfully lobbied for BP, Premier Oil and Shell in order to address the companies’ concerns about environmental regulation, taxation and rules governing use of local firms in Brazil, according to a diplomatic telegram obtained by Greenpeace. Greg Hands travelled to Brazil in March to support efforts by UK firms to win business in the South American country. Hands “directly” raised the firms' concerns with Brazil’s deputy minister for mines and energy, Paulo Pedrosa. Greenpeace has accused the UK Department for International Trade of operating as a “lobbying arm of the fossil fuel industry”.


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UK could introduce single-use plastic tax
 The chancellor, Philip Hammond, will announce in next week’s budget a “call for evidence” on how taxes or other charges on single-use plastics such as takeaway cartons and packaging could reduce the impact of discarded waste on marine and bird life, the Treasury has said.

The commitment was welcomed by environmental and wildlife groups, though they stressed that any eventual measures would need to be ambitious and coordinated.

An estimated 12m tonnes of plastic enters the oceans each year, and residues are routinely found in fish, sea birds and marine mammals. This week it emerged that plastics had been discovered even in creatures living seven miles beneath the sea. The introduction just over two years ago of a 5p charge on single-use plastic bags led to an 85% reduction in their use inside six months.

Separately, the environment department is seeking evidence on how to reduce the dumping of takeaway drinks containers such as coffee cups through measures such as a deposit return scheme.

Announcing the move on plastics, the Treasury cited statistics saying more than a million birds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles die each year from eating or getting tangled in plastic waste.

The BBC series Blue Planet II has highlighted the scale of plastic debris in the oceans. In the episode to be broadcast this Sunday, albatrosses try to feed plastic to their young, and a pilot whale carries her dead calf with her for days in mourning. Scientists working with the programme believed the mother’s milk was made poisonous by pollution.

The call for evidence will begin in the new year and will take into account the findings of the consultation on drinks containers.

Tisha Brown, an oceans campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said the decades-long use of almost indestructible materials to make single-use products “was bound to lead to problems, and we’re starting to discover how big those problems are”.

She said: “Ocean plastic pollution is a global emergency, it is everywhere from the Arctic Ocean at top of the world to the Marianas trench at the bottom of the Pacific. It’s in whales, turtles and 90% of sea birds, and it’s been found in our salt, our tap water and even our beer.

“The Treasury’s announcement is only a statement of intent, but it recognises the significance of the problem and the urgent need for a solution. There is a long way to go, but hopefully this is the beginning of the end for single-use plastic.”

Jeff Knott, head of nature policy for the RSPB, noted how Blue Planet was “seeing attention turned to the manmade threats the marine world faces”.

He said: “Sadly our marine life is in trouble. Through the mismanagement of our waters with fishing, pollution and littering we are seeing declines in many important marine species as well as those that depend on them.

“A tax on single-use plastics is a welcome move, but we must also recognise more needs to be done to tackle the often less visible threats.”

After the Brexit vote, Knott said, the UK had “a strong interest in demonstrating global leadership in tackling this international problem that impacts not just on our shores and our overseas territories but every coastline around the world. However, this must be part of a bigger package of measures that also looks at overfishing, lack of protection, climate change and pollution.”

Mike Barrett, director of science and policy for the wildlife charity WWF, said: “Too often birds, fish, turtles and whales are found dead having eaten plastic. Plastic is suffocating our seas.

“Any action to tackle single-use plastic is a good thing, but we must ensure any action is truly ambitious if we want to make the real difference needed to help save the planet.”

Output: A “call for evidence” on the environmental impact of taxes and charges on single-use plastics will be announced in the UK’s budget on Wednesday, according to a statement from the country’s Treasury. Approximately 12 million tonnes of plastic enter the world’s oceans each year, causing over a million birds and 100,000 sea mammals and turtles to die. The call for evidence will start in early 2018. It will consider findings from a separate consultation by the environment department on measures including deposit return schemes aimed at reducing waste from disposable drinks containers such as coffee cups.


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Apple Watch uses AI to predict high blood pressure, sleep apnea
 The world’s most valuable company crammed a lot into the tablespoon-sized volume of an Apple Watch. There’s GPS, a heart-rate sensor, cellular connectivity, and computing resources that not long ago would have filled a desk-dwelling beige box. The wonder gadget doesn’t have a sphygmomanometer for measuring blood pressure or polysomnographic equipment found in a sleep lab---but thanks to machine learning, it might be able to help with their work.

Research presented at the American Heart Association meeting in Anaheim Monday claims that, when paired with the right machine-learning algorithms, the Apple Watch’s heart-rate sensor and step counter can make a fair prediction of whether a person has high blood pressure or sleep apnea, in which breathing stops and starts repeatedly through the night. Both are common---and commonly undiagnosed---conditions associated with life-threatening problems, including stroke and heart attack.

The new study adds to evidence that the right algorithms might transform the Apple Watch from personal trainer to personal physician. Apple said in September that it is working on a study with Stanford that will test whether the gadget can detect atrial fibrillation, or irregular heartbeat, which can lead to stroke or heart failure. A study independent of Apple presented in May has already suggested the answer is yes. And health insurer Aetna said last week that it is partnering with Apple to give Apple Watches to members to try to reduce health costs.

The Apple Watch’s potential to predict high blood pressure and sleep apnea was revealed by a collaboration between University of California San Francisco and a startup called Cardiogram. The company offers an app for organizing heart-rate data from an Apple Watch, and other devices with heart-rate sensors. UCSF provided data from more than 6,000 Apple Watch users enrolled in a study on mobile health. Cardiogram’s founders drew on their previous experience as Google employees, working on speech recognition for Android phones and the Google Assistant.

Cardiogram’s engineers took the kind of artificial neural networks that Google and others use to turn our speech into text and adapted them to interpret heart-rate and step count data. (Like speech, they are signals that vary over time.) The system, dubbed DeepHeart, is given strings of heart-rate and step data from multiple people, and information about their health conditions. In May, the company and UCSF released results showing that DeepHeart could figure out how to predict atrial fibrillation from a person's Apple Watch data. The study presented Monday shows that with one week of data on a wearer, the algorithms can predict hypertension with roughly 80 percent accuracy, and sleep apnea with about 90 percent accuracy.

Doctors don’t---and probably couldn’t---diagnose high blood pressure or sleep apnea just by eyeballing a week’s worth of data from your smartwatch. They diagnose hypertension by putting that familiar cuff on your arm. Sleep apnea requires a visit to a sleep clinic, or use of home monitoring equipment. So how do Cardiogram’s algorithms make good guesses without directly measuring a person's blood pressure or breathing? We only sort of know.

Breathing, heart rate, and blood pressure are all connected to our autonomic nervous system, which regulates the unconscious bodily functions that keep us alive. Past research has shown how hypertension and sleep apnea alter the dynamics of heart rate. For example, heart rate variability is lower in people with sleep apnea. But Brandon Ballinger, a Cardiogram cofounder, admits that he doesn’t know all the patterns in a person's heart rate that his algorithms use to make predictions. “They’re kind of a foreign form of intelligence,” says Ballinger.

Ballinger says that, with the right testing, that doesn't prevent his alien intelligence from having business potential. Cardiogram’s app for Apple Watch and other devices is free today. But the startup’s business plan is to one day add features that advise a user to be checked for atrial fibrillation, high blood pressure, or sleep apnea. To stay on the right side of the FDA, the app would have to advise a person to get tested, and not suggest the person has a particular condition. Cardiogram would make money by offering to ship the necessary equipment for a home test, and billing a person's health insurer. The app could also provide advice after a diagnosis, or link people to medical practitioners or health coaches, Ballinger says. He predicts some of these features will appear within months.

Output: Health start-up Cardiogram has partnered with the University of California San Francisco on a study that demonstrated that, in concert with the right algorithms, an Apple Watch can predict hypertension and sleep apnea with 80% and 90% accuracy, respectively. To develop the DeepHeart system, Cardiogram adapted artificial neural networks normally used to process speech into text to analyse heart-rate and step data from more than 6,000 Apple Watch users. Cardiogram’s heart-rate app is currently free, but the company said revenues could come from shipping home tests or offering post-diagnosis support.


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Speechmatics' AI learns a new language in one week
 Benedikt von Thngen, CEO at Speechmatics in Cambridge . Picture: Keith Heppell

We talk to CEO Benedikt von Thüngen as firm unveils machine learning technology called Automatic Linguist.

How Speechmatics has added more languages to its portfolio

It hopes one day to master all 7,000 languages in the world.

And Speechmatics is off to a good start, having deployed its artificial intelligence technology on 28 so far, enabling accurate speech-to-text transcription for a host of purposes.

Yesterday, the Cambridge company officially launched Automatic Linguist (AL), its machine learning platform that enables it to tackle a new language in as little as a week.

Purpose-built from the ground up using technology developed at the University of Cambridge, the platform recognises patterns in language and applies them to each new build.

Dr Tony Robinson at Speechmatics. Picture: Keith Heppell

Challenged by a major corporate client with learning Hindi in two weeks, Speechmatics delivered a production-ready system that, according to its test, makes 23 per cent fewer errors than the market leader.

Benedikt von Thüngen, CEO at Speechmatics, told the Cambridge Independent: “Hindi was surprisingly easy. We discovered it is very similar to English in pronunciation, so we were able to use a process called adaptation. It learned from the different data sets we have.

“Each language has interesting aspects. If you take Korean, Turkish, Finnish or German, they use agglutination – where words are added together to form new words. That was a fun challenge to solve…

“You have tonal languages, like Vietnamese and Mandarin and its variations, which was another fun challenge. But it’s a matter of teaching the system to deal with it and that opens up a new swathe of languages.”

Speechmatics was joint winner in the Artificial Intelligence scale-up category with Audio Analytic at the Cambridge Independents Entrepreneurial Science and Technology Awards. Picture: Keith Heppell

The traditional route for enabling speech recognition of a language involved laborious, expensive manual processes, in which vast amounts of data was collated and cleansed by experts, creating a one-off system. It meant it was economical to cover only the most widely-spoken languages.

But using decades of research in neural networks, developed from Cambridge PhD work by Dr Tony Robinson, who is now CTO at the company, Speechmatics can learn the initial base of a language in less than a day from relatively little data by recognising fundamental sounds and grammatical structures.

One major use of the software is providing accurate real-time closed captioning for TV, and it is adding a custom dictionary to cater for specialist languages – football players’ names, for example.

Meetings and recordings can be transcribed with the platform and Benedikt said financial institutions can use the technology for call recording to demonstrate compliance or to audit for PPI mis-selling.

He predicted: “Voice will very quickly become the main mechanism to interact with devices. We are seeing the really early adoption of that with Amazon Alexa, Siri and Google Voice, which is phenomenal but it’s still very one-dimensional.

“We’ll move more into an intuitive world and we are going to get to much more conversational interfaces.”

Benedikt says: “Our USPs are accuracy, operational performance – memory footprint and speed – the breadth of language coverage and speed with which we offer a new language, and the speed at which we can add new features.”

A white paper from the firm says: “Our eventual aim is to have a language pack for all the world’s languages. This is an ambitious aim – it is estimated there are around 7,000 living languages at present, and we hope to cover them all one day.”

Benedikt conceded that was a tall order, given that most of those are barely documented, but said Speechmatics would look first to get to the milestone of 100 and then 1,000.

Little wonder the Kirkwood Road-based company, which jointly won the AI scale-up category of the Cambridge Independent’s Entrepreneurial Science and Technology Awards in September, is looking to double its staff of 39 over the next 12 months.

Output: Cambridge company Speechmatics has launched an artificial intelligence (AI) capable of learning a new language in seven days. The software uses fundamental sounds and grammatical structures to understand a language, and can learn the basics in less than a day. The software is currently used for closed captions on TV, while future uses could include recording calls to demonstrate compliance within financial institutions. CEO Benedikt von Thüngen said the current adoption of voice-activated devices was the start of a wider trend toward "much more conversational interfaces".


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AI start-up Bytedance buys social music app Musical.ly for $800m
 Bytedance, an AI-enhanced content platform, is acquiring Musical.ly, maker of a social music app, in a deal that has been estimated at more than $800 million.

“Upon closing of the transaction, Musical.ly will continue to operate as an independent platform, integrating Bytedance’s global leading AI technology and leveraging its reach in China and key markets across Asia to enhance Musical.ly’s offering to users, creators, and partners,” the acquirer said.

The transaction is expected to close before the end of November. Musical.ly’s co-founders Louis Yang and Alex Zhu and their team will join Bytedance and continue to run the app.

Yiming Zhang, founder and CEO of Bytedance, said: “We see immediate and exciting opportunities to build on the obvious synergy with our business. By integrating Musical.ly’s global reach with Bytedance’s massive user base in China and key Asian markets we are creating a significant global platform for our content creators and brands to engage with new markets. At the same time, our global-leading AI technology will help Musical.ly to accelerate their incredible pace of innovation in mobile video creation.”

Musical.ly was launched in October 2014, and has a “strong reach” across the US, Europe, South America and India.

Bytedance was founded in 2012. In 2016, it established an AI Lab which builds on the company’s datasets to develop innovations in AI.

Bytedance said its flagship product, Toutiao, is the largest AI-powered content platform in China, with more than 120 million daily active users.

Musical.ly did not specify how many users it has, but said “every day, millions of people use Musical.ly to express themselves”, and that the app has hit number one in the iOS app store for free apps in more than 20 countries.

According to Billboard, Musical.ly has 200 million users.

The report said ByteDance is considered one of China’s “hottest startups” and so far has kept its independence from the country’s three tech giants: Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba.

Output: Chinese start-up Bytedance is set to acquire social music app maker Musical.ly in a deal thought to be worth more than $800m. The purchase will see Bytedance integrate its artificial intelligence (AI) technology and use its presence in Chinese and Asian markets to help with Musical.ly's expansion. The target company will continue to operate as an independent business, with co-founders Louis Yang and Alex Zhu at the helm. The deal is set to close before the end of the month.


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Eni to construct 20 MW solar facility in Ghana
 Italian oil and gas major Eni SpA (BIT:ENI) earlier this month unveiled plans for the construction of a 20-MW solar park in Ghana’s Northern Region.

The company announced its intentions during a meeting between the president of Ghana Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo and Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi that aimed to discuss Eni's activities in the West African country. According to a company statement, the photovoltaic (PV) facility will be situated in the region’s capital city of Tamale.

Meanwhile, Eni is also conducting a feasibility study on a project for a floating solar park in the Volta basin, details of which are not available. The Italian group said the two PV schemes will be implemented in line of Ghana’s goal of achieving a 10% renewables share by 2020 and Eni’s vision to add more renewables to its traditional energy business.

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Output: Italian energy company Eni is to build a 20 MW solar facility in Ghana. The photovoltaic (PV) project will be constructed in Tamale, the capital city of the country's Northern region. Eni is also carrying out a feasibility study on a possible floating solar park on the Volta basin. Both projects will contribute to Ghana's target of a 10% renewables share by 2020.


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Indian solar companies raise $4.2bn through September of 2017
 Indian solar companies managed to raise USD 4.2 billion (EUR 3.6bn) in financing in the first three quarters of 2017, including venture capital/private equity (VC/PE), debt financing, and public market financing.

The total was calculated by consultancy Mercom Capital Group and compares to USD 2 billion raised in the same period of 2016. The nine-month corporate funding secured by solar firms in India was equal to almost 34% of the global total on the back of “robust” financing activity. Meanwhile, Indian companies contributed 60% of the global VC and PE funding in the solar sector.

The top VC deal was a USD-100-million capital injection secured by Indian rooftop solar developer CleanMax Solar from New York-based buyout firm Warburg Pincus. The list of the biggest deals in the past months is available at https://mercomindia.com/financing-activity-indian-solar-sector/.

Mercom said there was nearly 7 GW of solar power capacity in India as of the end of September.

(USD 1.0 = EUR 0.857)

(INR 10 = USD 0.153/EUR 0.131)

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Output: Indian solar firms raised $4.2bn between January and September this year, according to consultancy Mercom Capital Group. The corporate funding was equivalent to almost 34% of the worldwide total thanks to "robust" financing activity, it said. The investment included venture capital, private equity, public market and debt financing and was more than double the $2bn raised during the same period in 2016.


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Enel to bid in Mexico's power auction following massive fundraise
 UPDATE: The official results are in, and revealed Enel's low-cost bid was for wind -- not solar. Preliminary results did not specify technologies. Regrettably, there are errors in the story below as a result. We've retained this story in the interest of transparency. GTM reported on the final results of Mexico's latest energy auction here.

Preliminary results from Mexico’s latest energy auction have broken the lower boundary for solar costs, following a trend seen in other auctions around the world.

The Mexican government this month announced the average price achieved in its third long-term auction of 2017 was $20.57 per megawatt-hour, which it said is “one of the lowest prices achieved internationally.”

A breakdown of the winning bids, published by Electrek, shows Italian developer Enel pitching two solar lots at $17.70 per megawatt-hour, or just 1.77 cents per kilowatt-hour -- the lowest bid achieved anywhere in the world so far. Two years ago, the U.S. solar sector was cheering projects priced below 4 cents per kilowatt-hour.

The record-low rate comes hot on the heels of an auction in Chile that saw Enel bidding $21.48 per megawatt-hour of solar power on one sub-block of capacity.

It was the lowest price for solar in the whole of Latin America, but not quite as cheap as bids achieved in the Middle East not long before.

In October, a tender for 300 megawatts of solar power in Saudi Arabia saw Abu Dhabi developer Masdar offering a price of $17.86 per megawatt-hour, the lowest cost on the planet up until Mexico’s results this month.

Wind power also hit an eye-poppingly low price point in Mexico, coming in at $22 per megawatt-hour for a 118-megawatt project proposed by Engie Wind. “Wind energy’s race to the bottom may have just ended in Mexico,” observed MAKE Consulting partner Dan Shreve in a blog post.

The price was almost half of the lowest bid for wind energy in Mexico last year, belonging to Enel, which MAKE attributed to a combination of low project internal rates of return, a low landed cost of turbines, and extremely low operational expenses.

To make this year’s wind costs work, said Shreve, Engie would need to gain access to new turbine technology at a favorable price and expect to be able to run it for at least 25 or 30 years instead of the more typical 20. This leaves Engie exposed to significant risks, however.

First, there is no guarantee that newer turbines will be able to last longer.

Second, the power-purchase agreements (PPAs) on offer are only for a term of 15 years, although Shreve noted that a transition to higher-priced wholesale markets might actually help project economics after the PPAs run out.

Despite this, Engie will probably be looking at a project internal rate of return of around 5 percent, compared to the 7.5 percent that Enel might have been able to make from its market-leading pitch last year.

“It means only the biggest players stand a chance in these new auction systems,” Shreve concluded. “In order to take on both market and technical risks, the company must have substantial capital and credit.”

GTM Research Americas solar analyst Manan Parikh confirmed the same pattern for solar. “Most of the developers that are in there are major developers,” he said. “We’ve seen them before, either in Mexico or in the broader region. I don’t think there are any surprises in who is winning.”

Mexico’s National Energy Control Center (Centro Nacional de Control de Energía) is due to confirm the auction results this week. For now, the government is claiming the exercise will attract almost $2.4 billion in investment.

Mexico auctioned off 5.49 million megawatt-hours of energy, 593 megawatts a year of power capacity, and 5.95 million clean energy certificates. Solar was the big winner, taking 55.4 percent of the energy and 58.3 percent of the certificates on offer.

Solar and wind also took around 2 percent and 14 percent, respectively, of the power capacity being auctioned, with the rest going to gas.

The average energy pricing represents an almost 66 percent savings on the maximum price of $60 per megawatt-hour set by the three offtakers in the auction: the state-owned Federal Electricity Commission (Comisión Federal de Electricidad or CFE), Iberdrola and Cemex.

“The clean energy acquired in this auction is equal to approximately 1.78 percent of the annual electricity generation in Mexico,” said the government. “This result is an important addition toward meeting the aim of generating 35 percent of electrical energy in Mexico from clean sources by the year 2024.

***

Join GTM February 13-14 in Mexico City for an in-depth look at the country's rapidly expanding solar market. Solar Summit Mexico will leverage GTM Research’s expertise in Mexico to ensure your company is uniquely positioned to capture specific opportunities while appropriately managing regulatory, political and market risks. Find out more here.

An earlier version of this article used the incorrect monetary term for Enel's solar bid. The bid came in at 1.77 cents per kilowatt-hour, not $1.77 per kilowatt-hour. We regret the error.

Output: The preliminary results of Mexico's third long-term power auction saw an average price of $20.57 per MWh, including clean energy certificates, more than 38% lower than the last auction just over a year ago. Solar photovoltaic took up more than 55% of power supply contracts, compared to 44.65% of wind, while total capacity was 2,562 MW. This round also saw external buyers participate in tenders for the first time, as Iberdrola and Menkent went up against the state-owned Comision Federal de Electricidad, while Enel was among the provisional winners.


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Mexican solar set to be cheapest electricity in the world
 I’ve made a mistake – I’m sorry. In my haste and excitement to see show off solar power – I’ve given it undue credit. Wind Power got these bids and I initially misinterpreted a piece of ambiguous information. While solar power did amazingly get a bid at 1.97¢ – it did not break below the recently set Saudi Record. Anything written in this article hereafter has been updated.

Per a press release from the Centro Nacional de Control de Energía (Cenace) of Mexico, the department received bids for 3TWh of solar wind electricity, with the lowest bids being 1.77¢/kWh coming from Italian multinational ENEL Green Power.

This record low price of green electricity on earth, just beats out the 1.79¢/kWh from Saudi Arabia, and is part of a pattern marching toward 1¢/kWh bids that are coming in 2019 (or sooner).

Mexico’s Department of Energy along with Cenace announced the results of the country’s ‘Third Long Term Auction.’ Fifteen bids were accepted from eight wind and solar power companies. ENGIE bid as Solar and Wind companies, Mitsui alongside Trina, ENEL and Canadian Solar were some of the better known names.

ENEL won bids on four projects total with tariffs of 1.77¢, 1.77¢, 1.94¢ and 1.80¢/kWh. The projects were sized 167MW, 122MW, 277MW and 116MW, respectively – totaling 682MW total. These four bids are the two lowest, and 4th/5th lowest bids ever for solar power projects.

The average bid price of all 5.5TWh of power of wind and solar, totalling 2.3GW of capacity, was 2.05¢/kWh.

These projects are due to deliver power to the grid by 2020. The last two auctions, held last year, received average prices of 4.49¢/kWh and 3.17¢/kWh. More details on the bids will be released November 22nd.

The world has seen solar power fall from a record price of 8.3¢/kWh in 2013 in the USA, to 5.84¢/kWh in 2014 in the UAE, then 4.97¢/kWh in Saudi Arabia in 2015 before settling at 2.42¢/kWh in 2016. So far in 2017 we’ve seen seven bids below 2016’s record price. 2016 and prior data for this chart came from this CleanTechnica research.

Electrek’s Take

Solar power (and wind) is fulfilling the potential that the dreamers of the world of the past foretold of.

When the bids of 2.42¢/kWh hit last summer in 2016, much of the world suggested this was a bottom that was unique and couldn’t be passed without financial loss by the owners. When Saudi Arabia hit 1.79¢/kWh just a few weeks back – the narrative was that these prices were impossible elsewhere in the world because nowhere else in the world has Saudi Arabian oil money, sunlight, and control of all levels of government.

Mexico’s economic rating, like Chile’s, is less than perfect. The S&P just increased Mexico to ‘stable.’ Moody’s Investors Service rates Mexico’s debt at A3 – one level above S&P’s assessment – with a negative outlook. These ratings affect the rates that developers can borrow money at. These groups are definitely not getting the same interest rates that the Saudis give each other (if the Saudi’s give any interest rates internally at all – look up Islamic Finance).

I predict that in 2019 we’re going to see 1¢/kWh from a solar power project – and this low price will be primarily driven by increasing solar panel efficiencies. I am bullish that efficiency will drive an additional 0.7¢/kWh out of solar power because right now we’re seeing laboratory efficiencies increase from a current standard of 16-17% solar panel efficiency toward a leading edge solar cell at 23.45% by JinkoSolar. Depending on how that cell efficiency translates to a panel, that’s an increase of up to 40% more efficiency based upon 16.5% solar panels. That means 40% less racking, 40% less labor laying our wiring and solar panels, 40% less maintenance and cleaning, 40% less land, etc.

This efficiency gain is in addition to other technological advances. Drones are lowering long-term costs, international finance has more trust in solar, inverters are getting smarter and cheaper, re-powering is extending plant lives and companies are learning how to manage their projects better.

Soon we’re going to have to confront new questions as solar power costs less than anything seriously considered before, and will offer new opportunities never thought of before. What will we do with all of this cheap energy? How do we move from fossil systems toward solar sources without destroying the social fabric of those dependent on revenue from gas and coal? How will our post scarcity society continue to advance? It’s going to be more difficult to live up to the potentials of solar and ‘free energy’ than we think.

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Output: The Centro Nacional de Control de Energía of Mexico has accepted 15 bids following its third Long Term Auction, with eight wind and solar power firms being selected. The list includes Engie, Mitsui, Canadian Solar and Enel Green Power. The bids were for 3 TWh of solar electricity, with a record global low price of 1.77 cent/kWh from Enel. The overall average bid price was 2.05 cent/kWh, with the average price for two auctions last year being 4.49 ¢/kWh and 3.17 cent/kWh respectively. The projects are due to generate power for the grid by 2020.


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Enel begins output from 300 MW wind facility in Missouri
 Italian utility Enel SpA (BIT:ENEL) said today it has started operations at the 300-MW Rock Creek wind farm in the US state of Missouri.

The USD-500-million (EUR 425m) wind power plant, located in Atchison County, was completed almost two months ahead of schedule, Enel said. Expected to produce about 1,250 GWh per year, the facility is selling its power and renewable energy credits under long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) with Kansas City Power & Light (KCP&L) and KCP&L Greater Missouri Operations Co (GMO).

Rock Creek is the Italian company's first project in Missouri and brings the state's operating wind capacity to almost 1 GW, according to the announcement.

Enel announced the start of construction of the wind park in October last year. In May this year it inked a USD-365-million tax equity deal for the project with Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JP Morgan (NYSE:JPM).

The wind farm is owned by Rock Creek Wind Project LLC, a subsidiary of Enel's US-based renewables unit Enel Green Power North America Inc.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.851)

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Output: Italy's Enel has said that its 300 MW Rock Creek wind power plant in Missouri is operational, beating its construction deadline by two months. The $500m plant is the firm's first scheme in the US state, and is set to generate 1,250 GWh annually, while Kansas City Power & Light and KCP&L Greater Missouri Operations have signed up for long-term power purchase agreements.


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Enel buys Rattlesnake Creek 320 MW wind farm to power Facebook
 Enel SpA (BIT:ENEL) has acquired the 320-MW Rattlesnake Creek wind project in the US state of Nebraska and has started construction of the facility, the Italian utility said today.

The project was acquired from Kansas-based Tradewind Energy, which is a long-term strategic development partner of Enel. It was announced in October that the wind farm will power Facebook Inc's (NASDAQ:FB) data centre in Papillion, Nebraska. The social media company will buy a 200-MW portion of the power and renewable energy credits from the project under a bundled, long-term power purchase agreement (PPA).

Enel said it is financing the wind farm, which will cost USD 430 million (EUR 366m) to build, through its own resources. Once operational, the park will produce some 1.3 TWh per of clean power year.

The company owns the project through a subsidiary of its US renewable energy company Enel Green Power North America Inc.

(USD 1 = EUR 0.851)

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Output: Italian energy company Enel has begun construction work on the $430m, 320 MW Rattlesnake Creek wind project, set to power Facebook's data centre in Papillion, Nebraska. The site was purchased from long-term strategic development partner Tradewind Energy, while a bundled, long-term power purchase agreement will see Facebook buy 200 MW of the project's power and renewable energy credits. When fully operational, Rattlesnake Creek will generate 1.3 TWh per of power per year.


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redT installs largest vanadium redox flow battery in the UK
 UK energy storage company redT energy plc (LON:RED) said today its 1-MWh energy storage project in Cornwall is now grid connected and fully operational.

The project, described as the largest operating containerised vanadium redox flow machine system in the UK, is located at The Olde House, a working farm and holiday retreat. It has gone live as part of a trial by energy company Centrica PLC (LON:CNA). The GBP-19-million (USD 25m/EUR 21m) Local Energy Market (LEM) trial is aimed at demonstrating the role of flexible generation and storage in reducing pressure on the grid. The Olde House and redT are the first participants in the trial, Centrica said.

The redT machines will help The Olde House use more of its onsite solar power and generate revenues through the provision of grid services. "The Olde House is a perfect example of how UK businesses can now utilise more of their renewable generation and make money supporting the electricity grid," commented redT chief executive Scott McGregor.

(GBP 1 = USD 1.309/EUR 1.123)

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Output: redT Energy, a UK-based energy storage firm, has begun its trial of a 1 MWh energy storage facility in Cornwall. The pilot project will be the biggest containerised vanadium redox flow machine system in operation in the UK. The £19m ($25m) installation forms part of a Local Energy Market trial from energy firm Centrica, testing how flexible energy generation and storage can reduce grid pressure.


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Abu Dhabi looks to buy KKR's shares in Acciona Global Renewables
 The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) is among the parties negotiating the acquisition of KKR’s (NYSE:KKR) 33.3% stake in Acciona Global Renewables, Spanish newspaper Expansion reports.

Acciona Global Renewables, previously known as Acciona Energia International (AEI), holds the international renewable energy generation business of Acciona Energia. KKR acquired a one-third stake in AEI three years ago for EUR 397 million (USD 466.5m). At the time, the business had 2.3 GW of wind farms, with a small number of solar photovoltaic and thermal power plants, in 14 countries.

According to sources quoted by the daily, KKR now wants to sell its interest in the firm for at least EUR 600 million. El Economista reported last month that KKR had engaged investment bank Lazard to prepare the sale.

Expansion’s own sources have now said that the UAE-based sovereign wealth fund is well-positioned to buy the one-third interest. Insiders have also told the daily that ADIA had shown interest in AEI even before KKR bought the stake.

(EUR 1.0 = USD 1.175)

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Output: United Arab Emirates sovereign wealth fund the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority is among the potential buyers for New York investment firm KKR's one-third stake in Acciona Global Renewables, according to Spanish newspaper Expansion. KKR purchased the stake three years ago for €397m ($466.5m), and is now looking to sell for at least €600m.


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China’s Xinjiang Goldwind joins 4 MW wind turbine club
 China’s Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology (HKG:2208) on Tuesday announced the release of a medium-speed smart wind turbine with a rated capacity of 4 MW-4.2 MW.

The permanent magnet direct-drive (PMDD) machine, named GW4S, expands the company’s 3S platform and will be available with rotor diametres of up to 136 metres (446.2 ft). It is suitable for class IIA wind sites, the wind turbine maker said.

Goldwind intends to install a prototype of the new turbine in China in the second quarter of next year and start selling the product commercially in the first quarter of 2019. Target markets for the 4S turbine will include North America, Australia, South America and Turkey, CEO Tony Pan noted.

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Output: Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology will launch a medium-speed smart wind turbine, developed with a 4 MW to 4.2 MW capacity. The GW4S, a permanent magnet direct-drive machine, will extend the business' existing 3S platform. The device will have a rotor diameter of up to 136 metres and will be available for class IIA wind farms. A prototype turbine will likely be installed by Q2 2018, with commercial sales due by Q1 2019. Goldwind plans to target markets in North America, South America, Australia and Turkey with the new model.


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Solar and wind transactions totalled more than 6 GW in Oct 2017
 Solar and wind deals topped 6 GW in the month of October, Green Dealflow says in its monthly transaction activity report.

In comparison, only 1,590 MW of solar and wind power assets changed owners in September.

Green Dealflow, an online marketplace for wind and solar projects, maintains a transaction database tracking equity transactions of solar and wind projects around the globe and below is a short overview of the activity in October.

SOLAR

In the solar industry, the report records 23 transactions amounting to approximately 4.1 gigawatts. While the number of transactions has not increased significantly compared to September, the amount of capacity transacted has increased almost six times. The largest contributor is the United States with major transactions such as ABP’s acquisition of the Moapa solar farm or NextEra Energy Partners’ acquisition of the Desert Sunlight solar project. Regarding capacity transacted, the United States is followed by Mexico’s almost 1 gigawatt of capacity transacted chiefly the result of Caisse depot et placement du Québec and CKD Infraestructura México’s acquisition of numerous projects from Enel Green Power. Regarding numbers of transacted, the transactions are well-balanced among different phases; however, construction-stage assets dominate regarding capacity transacted.

WIND

The wind industry has seen significant transaction activity during October, although much less than has the solar industry. October saw 19 transactions, up from just 7 in September. Moreover, capacity transacted has increased from approximately 900 megawatts in September to approximately 2.4 gigawatts in October. The United Kingdom dominates wind transactions regarding capacity, followed by Mexico. Mexico’s large amount of transaction activity in the wind industry is due to the same transaction by Caisse depot et placement du Québec and CKD Infraestructura México who together has acquired numerous wind and solar projects from Enel Green Power. Those assets transacted are predominantly operation-stage assets.

The full report can be accessed here.

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Output: The US, UK and Mexico were the main drivers behind 6 GW of solar and wind deals transacted last month, up from 1.59 GW in September, according to Green Dealflow. The US and Mexico were the biggest players in the solar market, where capacity rose almost six-fold, even as transactions rose only modestly. In the wind market, the UK and Mexico took the lead, with 19 transactions in October compared to five the previous month, and capacity leaped from 900 MW in September to 2.4 GW.