Category — Coal & Clean Coal

The International Energy Agency predicts the U.S. will have 17 GW of solar capacity by 2020. Both India and China, starting from very low bases have ambitious plans to beat that number. India aims to build up to 20 GW of solar energy by 2020.

In December the country auctioned 620 megawatts of solar projects to 37 companies, such as Lanco Infratech Limited, KVK Energy Ventures, and Rajasthan Sun Technique, a unit of Anil Ambani’s Reliance Power Ltd.  Other companies selected  include Indian Oil Corporation (a public sector undertaking) , automaker Mahindra & Mahindra Limitd,  construction company Punj LLoyd Ltd. and Azure Power.

The auction awarded 470 megawatts of solar thermal capacity and 150 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity. For photovoltaic projects, energy from the sun is converted directly to electricity using semi-conductor like technology, while in solar thermal projects, the sun’s energy is first used to make steam which is then used to generate power.

The average bid for solar thermal projects was for 11.48 rupees per kilowatt-hour compared with the government rate of 15.31 rupees. Deepak Gupta, secretary of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said  that the average bid for photovoltaic plants was to sell a  kilowatt-hour of electricity at 12.16 rupees (27 U.S. cents) compared with the government’s proposed rate of 17.91 rupees. The global average rate solar thermal developers need to earn is about 28 U.S. cents (12.70 rupees) a kilowatt-hour, according to New Energy Finance data quoted in Business Week.

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, “At current capital costs of 150 rupees-160 rupees million for each megawatt, solar projects are only profitable if tariffs are at least 14 rupees/kWh,” said Narasimhan Santhanam, co-founder of Energy Alternatives India, a consultancy firm. The Journal also quoted Deepak Verma, chief operating officer at consultancy Emergent Ventures India,who  said “in order to build viable projects at these low tariffs, developers will have to cut corners and squeeze vendors.”

Returning Chinese expats, called sea turtles, have helped in the transformation of that Shanghai, Beijing, Shen-zhen and much of the country. We are now seeing evidence of similar threads with returning Indians.

New York educated engineer Gyanesh Pandey, returned to India after spending years with International Rectifier, a company that makes power chips. He and three friends with similar backgrounds, founded Husk Power Systems a company that has installed  65 small power units that serve a total of 30,000 rural households in the eastern state of Bihar. The company, partly funded by Silicon-Valley venture capitalist Draper Fisher Jurvetson, is currently installing new systems at the rate of two to three each week.

The technology developed by Pandey uses the waste husk from locally grown rice as the fuel. Rice Husk, an amorphous and low density fuel produces a gas with high tar content and was historically used in dual fuel systems where diesel was the primary input. Much of rural India is off the power grid; lighting and power to charge cell phones is provided by diesel generators.

Applying the idea of appropriate innovation to India, where labor is cheap, Pandey hypothesized that while dirty gas can clog the engine, if the engine is cleaned before the clog begins to hamper its operation seriously, you can build a sustainable product. They got their gasifier fabricated at a local workshop, procured a local CNG (compressed natural gas) engine from a small supplier and modified it to make their prototype.

According to an item this week on the New York Times website, “The company expects to have 200 systems by the end of 2011, each serving a village or a small village cluster. Its plan is to ramp that up significantly, with the goal of having 2,014 units serving millions of clients by the end of 2014.”

The India Expert does not know if Husk Power will transform rural India. But there are a thousand such innovators hard at work across India today and some of their innovations will transform not only India but parts of the developed world as well. Expect some impact in five years and significant impact by 2020.  You read it here first!

India’s federal Planning Commission projects an investment of $300 billion in electrical power between 2012-2017 which is the period covered by the “Twelfth Five Year plan”, according to member B.K. Chaturvedi

The commission estimates that India will see capacity addition of 100 gigawatts during the period; this cCapacity addition will result in investment of at least $100 billion. Chaturvedi says a similar investment of around $100 billion is expected in distribution and transmission during the next plan period. And, that overall investment, including generation work in progress currently, will come to $300 billion of the $1 trillion infrastructure development planned.

The bulk of this power investment will result in coal-fired power plants, but India is also investing vigorously in nuclear, solar, hydro-electric, gas and oil, bio-mass and more. This investment will be a combination of government and private spending and may include debt funded from foreign sources.

This opens up many opportunities for foreign companies across the ecosystem, despite serious challenges in succeeding in this sector in India.

While President Obama visits India, a series of mid-range co-operative arrangements were initiated.

1) India-US agreement to set up a joint Clean Energy Research and Development Center. It will be backed by $50 million by both sides over five years and work to complete joint research in solar, biofuels and energy efficiency.

2) A Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership. US will cooperate in India’s plans for a nuclear centre, to promote nuclear security and address threats of nuclear terrorism. To be based in Bahadurgarh, Haryana,  Memorandum of Understanding for co-operation in building the Center was signed by Dr. Srikumar Banerjee,  Secretary,  Department of Atomic Energy and Timothy Roemer, the US Ambassador to India. It will consist of four schools dealing with Advanced Nuclear Energy System Studies, Nuclear Security, Radiation Safety and application of Radioisotopes and Radiation Technology in areas of healthcare, agriculture and food.

3)  Establish an India-US Energy Cooperation Program. It will mobilize private sector expertise and resources to address clean energy-related issues both countries.

4) Agreement on technical cooperation to study India’s annual monsoon rains. Cooperation on weather forecasting for India’s crucial annual monsoon.

5)  India and the US will cooperate  on shale gas resources which will see US technology used to assess shale gas resources in India.

6) MOU on establishing and operating a Global Disease Detection Center in India, which will set up a laboratory in New Delhi designed to prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

Reliance Power awarded an $8.2-billion contract to the Shanghai Electric Group, one of China’s biggest power equipment manufacturers, to supply 36 coal-fired generators.

Reliance Power said in a statement the order included 30,000 MW of boiler, turbine and generator packages for its coal-powered plants. The company described the order as possibly the largest ever deal signed in the power generation sector in the world.