Staff Reporter

The Sri Lankan government has proposed an MoU to India on nuclear disaster management, according to Power Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka.

Hydro Tasmania will carefully consider the financial impact of the proposed GenTrader model recommended by the Expert Panel.

China Sunergy recently delivered its first shipment of "CSUN Made in France" modules.

India's energy grid can look forward to an additional 40MW of electricity, this from solar power.

Mitsubishi's major wind power project in the USA has hit the doldrums.

The TEPCO and Marubeni joint venture is exploring 10 renewable energy projects in the Philippines.

Japanese joint venture firm TeaM Energy has been exploring at least 10 areas in Luzon and Visayas for prospective renewable energy projects. In a briefing with reporters, TeaM Energy president Federico E. Puno noted that his company’s interests are generally focused on hydro, biomass and geothermal energy developments. The sites it has been evaluating for prospective RE projects include those for mini-hydro in San Juan, La Union; Tabuk-Kalinga; Tuba-Benguet; and Mountain Province. The larger-scale hydro targets are in Tuba, Benguet’s site at the tailings pond of Philex Mining Corporation. Incidentally, the company is currently a capacity off-taker (buyer) of TeaM Energy’s excess capacity in the Sual plant. The rest of the hydro prospects are in various sites in Luzon and Visayas. Geothermal developments, according to the company chief executive, are eyed for the sites being evaluated in Mountain Province and Mount Natib in Bataan Daclan, also in Benguet province. The company has listed two biomass sites being studied in Unisan, Quezon and San Ildefonso, Bulacan. Puno noted that they are currently “awaiting feasibility study from proponent” for the Quezon prospect; while a meeting with another interested party is being scheduled for the Bulacan target. “There were areas that we’ve already looked at, but we have already abandoned some of them because the potential had not been viable for development,” the TeaM Energy chief executive stressed. For the hydro developments, some areas are currently the subject of feasibility studies; while others are already at the process of awarding turnkey contracts leading to the actual construction of the projects. TeaM Energy is among those expressing interests to join the bandwagon of RE investments; but it is one which would be willing to bet on these projects even without the support of feed-in-tariffs. The company noted that it can work on cornering its own market for such developments as long as the other hurdles, such as the sustainability of fuel for biomass projects, can be sufficiently addressed.  

JinkoSolar has opened its Asian headquarters in Singapore to  manage sales, logistics, financing, project development and customer service for the country.

Reliance Power plans to invest more than $1.18 billion to develop solar power projects in Rajasthan over the next two years.

Th latest official Chinese projections suggest that electricity demand will grow at well below the recent double-digit level in coming years. But the country could still require twice as much generating capacity in 2020 as in 2010.

The cost of Solar energy depends on the “fuel” availability, the taxes in the country, the financing cost and it is understood in two ways: replacing other fuels or as a financial investment – similar to a long term bond with fixed interest.

Even though some Chinese solar suppliers – Suntech Power is a notable example – have frozen capacity expansions due to slow growth in demand, China is reportedly pushing its top solar companies to expand.

The Indian government is intent on introducing gas pricing policy reforms to incentivize natural gas production, its prime minister Manmohan Singh said March 23.

Japan is pressing its case as a buyer of LNG from North America.

As a consequence of the devastating March 2011 disaster, the Japan power sector vulnerability was revealed and has ever since been a critical component to reassess. That the sector needs a serious overhaul is no surprise to anybody directly or indirectly involved.

The long-term outlook for the solar PV industry as a whole looks bright in Rabobank’s view, even though the next couple of years are likely to be turbulent, especially for manufacturing companies.