Sustainability Outlook Headlines

India’s carbon emission increased by 1.57% in 2013

India’s total carbon emission marked an increase of 1.57%, from 15.39 million tonnes in 2012 to 15.63 million tonnes in 2013, the government told the Lok Sabha on Monday. 
 
While replying to questions, civil aviation minister Pusapati Ashok Gajapathi Raju said the rise in carbon emission was attributed to the introduction of new routes for airlines and an overall increase in aircraft movement. However, he also said, “The total emission of 15.63 million tonnes in 2013 represents less than 1% of India’s anthropogenic emissions, which is significantly lower than the corresponding... Read more..

Task forces for Smart Cities set up by Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu

City-wise task forces have been set up by Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu for drawing up concrete action plans for development of Ajmer, Allahabad and Visakhapatnam as Smart Cities. 
 
The Task Force will have representatives of the ministries of Urban Development and External Affairs, respective state governments and cities and the United States Trade Development Agency (USTDA), said a senior Urban Development Ministry official. 
 
Setting up of these Task Forces is in pursuance of the decision taken at a recent meeting between Naidu and the US Secretary... Read more..

Telangana to call bids for 1,000-Mw solar PV projects

The Telangana government is in the process of inviting bids for setting up 1,000 Mw of solar photo-voltaic (PV) power generation farms through a reverse bidding process, said Aravind Kumar, principal secretary (energy).
 
“During the last development of 505 Mw solar projects, the price discovery was Rs 645 per unit. Keeping this as a base price, we are planning to invite the tenders for 1,000 Mw, through a reverse bidding process, within a month. These projects, with a cumulative capacity of 1,505 Mw, will be commissioned by March 2016,” he said.
 
Reverse auction... Read more..

As Delhi chokes, pressure grows for Indian climate action

Torrents of thick black smoke billow up toward the smoggy skies as Kunti Desai feeds a coal-fired furnace to make tar for a Delhi road. Desai, whose hands and face are blackened by the soot, realises her job adds to the already noxious air in the city, which often outdoes Beijing as the most polluted in the world. But, she says, "this smoke brings me money".
 
"It is more important to feed and send my kids to school than to worry about the air," adds the mother-of-two, who earns $40 a month.
 
Delhi`s air is a toxic cocktail made up of dust and fumes from thousands... Read more..

Clean Energy Co-Operation Between India and US

India and USA have undertaken new initiatives to enhance clean energy cooperation as follows: 

1. Launched Innovative Finance Forum. 
2. Established PACESetter Funds to support innovative clean energy access projects. 
3. Both the countries desire to expand current Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Development (PACE-D). 
4. Renewed commitment to expanding Partnership to Advance Clean Energy Research (PACE-R). 

A Joint Indo-US PACESetter Fund has been established with a contribution of US$ 4 million (INR 25 crores) from each side for providing... Read more..

India says clean energy a $160 billion opportunity over five years

India's renewable energy industry is likely to generate business opportunities worth $160 billion in the next five years, the Economic Survey said on Friday, the day before a budget that is set to boost clean energy funding.
 
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is banking on renewables to fight climate change rather than committing to emission cuts like China. He has set ambitious clean-energy targets including raising solar capacity fivefold to 100 gigawatts (GW) by 2022.
 
"It offers a very good opportunity for businesses to set and scale up industry, leapfrog... Read more..

Climate change gets a boost; environment ministry budget trimmed

In sync with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's commitment on climate change, the government on Saturday ramped up budget allocation a whopping sixteen-fold to boost India's mission to climate change and adaption, even as the overall allocation to the environment ministry was trimmed by four percent.
 
Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, who presented the union budget Saturday, allocated Rs.1,681.60 crore to the ministry for environment, forests, and climate change for 2015-16, which is about four percent lower compared to 2014-15.
 
Serving to undergird India's strong... Read more..

Students power sustainable housing project with eco-design

Set atop a hillock in the village of Ganeshwadi in Kolhapur, is a farmhouse constructed near a lake. Although it looks like any other house in the village, if you observe closely, you'll see that the house is constructed with nothing but plastic bottles, fly ash bricks and beer bottles. This eco-friendly house is a project designed and constructed by final-year students of the Kolhapur Institute of Technology's (KIT) Environment Department. An innovative project towards building sustainable housing and green buildings, it is not just environment-friendly but also cost-effective.
 ... Read more..

India's Suzlon bets on surge in clean energy demand to fuel turnaround

A surge in demand for renewable energy in India coupled with a capital injection from the country's second-richest man will help wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy turn profitable after six years of losses, its chairman said.
 
Suzlon has been under pressure for a few years due to a slowdown in global sales and a surge in costs to service debt taken on in acquiring a German company in 2009, forcing it to restructure $1.8 billion of debt after a bond default22222 in 2012.
 
"Next financial year we will be in profit ... 100 percent," Tulsi Tanti told Reuters on Tuesday... Read more..

India is building 100 'smart cities' across the country

After Cyclone Hudhud pounded India's southern port city of Visakhapatnam last October, snapping bridges, swamping farmland and wrecking fishing boats, many breathed a sigh of relief.
 
The lives of tens of thousands of residents had been spared as a result of a well-rehearsed mass evacuation to shelters - a lesson learned from long experience with floods, sea surges and strong winds from storms whipped up in the Bay of Bengal.
 
But as the city of 2 million people, commonly known as Vizag, gears up to become one of India's first "smart cities", officials admit much... Read more..

Green solution to bio-waste

A way from the public gaze, South India’s first plant producing CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) from waste from hotels and poultry farms has completed its first year of operations. The plant is supplying 600 kg. of CNG to the Bengaluru’s restaurants every day.
Tucked in Huskur village, 14 km west of Doddaballapur, the plant named Maltose Agri Products Private Ltd. (MAPPL), not merely takes away some amount of city’s waste, but also turns it into energy and averts release of hazardous methane into the atmosphere. Currently operating with three waste digesters, it will have ten of them on... Read more..

India's $250M Off-Grid Solar Market Boosts the Case for Battery Storage

Battery storage is being tapped as a supplement to the $250 million market for off-grid power in India.
 
A report out this month from the London-based Climate Group and the Goldman Sachs Center for Environmental Markets concludes storage will be an important component of solar home systems in the country, sales of which are expected to grow at 60 percent a year between now and 2018. 
 
The report, titled The Business Case for Off-Grid Energy in India, identifies solar and storage as a tool for lifting 360 million Indians living off-grid -- around 50 percent of... Read more..