Sustainability Outlook Headlines

Shan Solar to develop solar park

Shan Solar, a Bangalore-based solar module manufacturer, plans to establish a 50 MW solar park near Hyderabad. Its Chairman and Managing Director Suryaprakash Singapur, and Chief Marketing Officer Rajesh Rangarajan told The Hindu on Tuesday that the company had identified 250 acres for the purpose. The total investment expected at the park was nearly Rs.500 crore.

Shan Solar would create the common infrastructure and evacuation facilities. It would also install solar panels for the investors. The project was expected to be completed in a year.

Acquisition of land and... Read more..

New waste disposal system in city from March 1

GVMC will introduce localised solid waste management in all the 72 wards of the city from March 1.

Announcing this at the inaugural of a national workshop on ‘Appropriate solid waste management options for small and medium towns in India’ here on Tuesday, Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanaryana said all through the month of February people would be educated on the new waste disposal method. Though the city had a landfill at Kapuluppada it was not scientifically managed, he said.

“We have already implemented on a pilot basis the ‘Warangal’ model at 10 places. Now we... Read more..

Expensive Loans Dim The Prospects For Renewable Energy In India

India, a country blessed with enormous reserves of renewable energy, pays up to 32 percent more for electricity from solar and wind than the U.S. or Europe because projects are so expensive to finance, according to a report.

A joint study by the Climate Policy Initiative and the Indian School of Business issued in December found that a combination of high interest rates and unclear government policies make the electricity from a clean-energy project carry a premium of 24 to 32 percent compared to a similar project in the West. Expensive clean energy makes it more likely that... Read more..

GE and Sealed Air’s Diversey® Business Expand Global Water Alliance to India

GE and Sealed Air’s Diversey business are bringing their global water alliance to the food and beverage markets in India. GE and Diversey will provide advanced water and energy management services in the region, a first for the one-year-old alliance.

Specifically within the food and beverage industry, the alliance’s water offerings will support wastewater reuse projects and the reduction of freshwater consumption in the brewery, dairy, beverage and snack markets. In India, Sealed Air’s Diversey business will sell and service GE’s water treatment chemicals, water and process... Read more..

Aeon Renewable Energy to invest Rs 250 cr in solar power in 3 yrs

Aeon Renewable Energy Solution, a newly-launched solar energy firm of Chennai-based Madurai Appu Chain of restaurants, plans to invest Rs 250 crore over the next three years on setting up 25 megawatt (Mw) of solar power generation capacity in Tamil Nadu. The company is planning to establish its presence in the retail solar power generation solutions for domestic and industry for captive use.

The Madurai Appu Restaurant Group, which has been operational for almost 12 years now, has entered the solar energy industry at a time when the potential of the sector has increased... Read more..

Wind energy capacity addition to dip in financial year 2013

India will witness its weakest wind energy capacity addition in seven years , due to the double-whammy of high interest rates prevailing in financial year 2012-13, coupled with a rollback of incentives, sector players and experts said.

The country may be able to add only 1,500 MW of new wind energy capacity in the fiscal year 2012-13, missing the target of 2,500 MW set at the beginning of the year. According to data from Central Electricity Authority, India has added about 1,068 MW of new wind energy capacity in FY13, until December.

"In the last few years , the wind... Read more..

Households not sorting waste before disposal; contractors doing a poor job

They were set up across several parts of the city with much fanfare in 2009 but the green and blue dustbins that were meant to facilitate waste segregation are being used like ordinary bins now.

Even at the household level, waste segregation is a failed initiative. Of Delhi's three municipal zones, one has issued a tender for waste collection and segregation as recently as last week. The other two corporations blame the project's failure on lack of cooperation from residents and underperformance by private concessionaires.

Meanwhile, the city continues to generate over... Read more..

Ikea to Double Renewable Energy Investment to $4 Billion by 2015

Ikea Group, the world’s biggest furniture retailer, will double its investment in renewable energy to $4 billion by 2020 as part of a drive to reduce costs as cash-strapped consumers become more price sensitive.

The additional spending on projects such as wind farms and solar parks will be needed to keep expenses down as the company maintains its pace of expansion, Chief Executive Officer and President Mikael Ohlsson said in an interview in Malmo, Sweden.

“I foresee we’ll continue to increase our investments in renewable energy,” said Ohlsson, who is due to step down... Read more..

FMCG companies like HUL, Dabur woo ragpickers to clean up sachets & lighter plastic packaging

An unlikely partnership between profitable FMCG companies like Hindustan UnileverBSE 1.66 % and DaburBSE 0.20 % and penniless ragpickers is now offering a hint of a fix to India's 12,000 tonnes a day plastic junk pile-up.

In an early pilot, HULBSE 1.66 % is trying to create market value for discarded sachets and lighter plastic packaging so that ragpickers find incentive to collect them from the streets. It has also partnered with a company in Chennai to turn such flexible plastic waste into fuel oil at a viable cost. HUL's factory in Pondicherry has been using this fuel to... Read more..

Four years on, no headway in waste management project

There has been no headway in the solid waste management (SWM) project in the city despite availability of funds under the 12th Finance Commission. The Rourkela Municipality has received Rs 4 crore in the last four years.

Earlier efforts of the civic body to find a suitable place for SWM have met the dead end. It had identified a plot in Balughat and started dumping garbage there after constructing a boundary wall. However, nearby residents complained about the stench and the Odisha State Pollution Control Board (OSPCB) also rejected the site stating that the waste may spill into the... Read more..

Sun cities? Rajasthan solar projects under a cloud

For a state considered a frontrunner in the solar energy sector, Rajasthan is falling behind in the 'race for the sun'.

Its efforts to develop three solar cities in the state have been a damp squib even as cities in many other states have got their master plans approved by the Union ministry of new and renewable energy (MNRE).

The Centre has identified 54 places in the country for developing solar cities with three of them being in Rajasthan - Jaipur, Jodhpur and Ajmer.

While nine cities have submitted master plans, Rajasthan is yet to make up its mind on when... Read more..

Govt. urge power companies to use renewable energy sources

The government is pushing power companies to start distributing a certain percentage of renewable energy, like solar power, from this financial year, but the discoms say they need more time and that solar power is likely to lead to higher power tariffs in the short run.

To ease pressure on the already exhausted conventional sources of energy, discoms in the capital have been asked to purchase or generate a certain amount of solar energy.

According to officials, as per rules all state electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs) have to ensure that all discoms draw a... Read more..