Sustainability Outlook Headlines

India inks climate change adaptation deal with neighbours

 Realising that consequences of climate change in Himalayas can no longer be ignored, India along with Bhutan, Nepal and Bangladesh has signed a declaration for wide-ranging collaboration on energy, water, food and biodiversity issues to addresss the threat to their ecosystem.

World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a leading conservation organisation, said in a statement that the deal signed at Bhutanese capital Thimphu could lead the way to similar climate adaptation plans being implemented to cover other threatened ecosystems.

"The success of our initiative will not only have direct... Read more..

SunEdison gets $110mn investment

SunEdison, the Indian unit of US-based MEMC Electronic Materials Inc., has arranged $110 million (around Rs. 560 crore) in financing for its two solar power plants in Gujarat and Rajasthan.

The investors are Larsen and Toubro Infrastructure Finance Co. Ltd, Overseas Private Investment Corp. and Infrastructure Development Finance Co. Ltd.

The plants, which will have a combined capacity of 50 megawatts (MW), will be operational at the end of the year and generate a total of 84,000 hours worth of electricity in a year.

Audit firm KPMG estimates India will need nearly $110... Read more..

Decline in gas supplies makes power utilities reconsider plans

  A shortage of natural gas in India has reduced efficiency at existing power plants using the fuel and put in jeopardy investment of at least rs 35,000 crore in new projects.

Falling short: Essar Energy’s Vadinar refinery. The supply of natural gas in the country stands at 160 mscmd, against demand of 220 mscmd.

Plant load factor—a key measure of efficiency at electricity generating units—of gas-fired projects declined to 57.93% in September compared with 67.16% in April.

The supply of natural gas in the country, including imported fuel, stands at 160 million standard... Read more..

Areva Selling 300 Megawatts of Solar-Thermal in 2011, Goyal Says

 Areva SA (CEI), which entered the solar- energy market last year by acquiring Ausra Inc., expects to have contracts to sell as much as 300 megawatts of solar-thermal systems by the end of the year.

Opportunities in the U.S., Australia, India, the Middle East and Africa may yield an additional 450 megawatts of contracts by the end of 2012, Jayesh Goyal, vice president of North American sales for the company’s Areva Solar Inc. unit, said today in an interview.

The orders come as falling prices for photovoltaic panels are prompting developers such as Solar Millennium AG to... Read more..

'India cautious about expansion of energy relations with Iran' - Economic Times

India's reluctance to go ahead with multi-billion IPI gas pipeline and some other steps being taken by it recently indicate that New Delhi is now cautious about any expansion of energy relations with Tehran, a Congressional report has said.

Noting that India has generally been considered friendly toward Iran and unlikely to impose any national sanctions on Tehran, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in its latest report on Iran informed US lawmakers that many experts were surprised when India's central bank, in late December 2010, announced that it would no longer use a... Read more..

Floating photovoltaic cells for energy

 With plans to bring about energy efficiency in the country, city-based energy and environment consultancy Enzen Global Solutions signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with a French company, Ciel et Terre, for setting up floating photovoltaic projects in select states of India, here on Tuesday.

The event was part of the five-day ‘Environment Business and Research Delegation to Bangalore-India’, which will be on till November 18, organised by the European Business and Technology Centre (EBTC) and the Bangalore Chamber of Industry and Commerce (BCIC).

Speaking to The New... Read more..

Macquarie, SBI Invest in India’s Soham Renewable Energy

 Macquarie Group Ltd. and State Bank of India’s infrastructure fund agreed to invest 1.25 billion rupees ($25 million) in Soham Renewable Energy India Pvt., a Bangalore-based developer of small hydropower projects.

The funds will cover Soham’s equity requirements to complete five more hydropower projects by 2014 and also to start buying licenses for partly constructed or completed plants, the company said in an e-mailed statement.

It plans to raise debt from State Bank of India, ICICI Bank Ltd., Andhra Bank, Axis Bank Ltd., and IDBI Bank Ltd., it said.

Soham previously... Read more..

Green energy leap can tide over power crises

 A research study by Pune-based World Institute of Sustainable Energy has said that renewable energy capacity addition plans must be revised by the Centre and the states.The authorities must take multiple measures to prioritize lending to the renewables sector and a revised realistic renewable energy resource assessment to achieve renewable energy targets set in the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).

The power crisis in October forced state power utilities to enforce power cuts. Industries in Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and... Read more..

Green Infra Completes First 10-Megawatt Solar Plant in India

 Green Infra Ltd., a renewable energy project developer backed by India’s Infrastructure Development Finance Co., completed its first solar plant.

The 10-megawatt plant in Rajkot in the western state of Gujarat, boosts Green Infra’s total operating capacity to 174 megawatts, the New Delhi-based company said today in an e-mailed statement.

It plans to construct another 150 megawatts of renewable capacity by March, it said. Green Infra was set up by IDFC’s private equity arm in 2008 and bought BP Plc’s Indian wind- energy portfolio of 100 megawatts the following year.

Solar power at Rs 5 a unit could be possible by 2014

 Plummeting prices of polysilicon, a raw material used in solar modules, could make power from solar photovoltaic plants as cheap as Rs 5 a unit or less by 2015 against Rs 12 a unit as estimated today.

Polysilicon, made out of refined sand, was selling at $475 a kg in March 2008. Today, it is selling at $33 a kg, and the industry expects it to fall further to $20 a kg, as global capacity doubles to five lakh tonnes by 2014.

Accordingly, solar module prices have also been falling. What used to be sold at $1.7 a watt a year back (or Rs 8.5 crore a MW) is now at around $1 a watt... Read more..

Real-time SMS alert for farmers on impact of climate variation on crops

 Farmers now get an alert on their mobile phones of sudden climate variations that can harm their crops. This is one of the innovative projects taken up by the central government to help farmers adapt to climate change in the country’s 100 most vulnerable districts, climate-wise.

Dr B Venkateswarlu, director of Hyderabad based Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture said the Rs 350 crore project has been launched with an aim to educate farmers about the adverse impact of climate change on agriculture.

In this project, sensors have been installed in farms which... Read more..

Teams for tackling bio-medical waste

The State government has embarked on setting up an institutional framework for disposal of bio-medical waste at the district level. 

 
Under the proposed framework, the Forest, Ecology and Environment department will constitute a team of six persons at all district centres. The team would be initially trained in bio-medical waste management in Bangalore under the supervision of the Environment Management and Policy Research Institute (EMPRI). They will later be assigned with the responsibility of training the staff at healthcare establishments in respective districts.

... Read more..