Staff Reporter

Good thing the government is keen to help the company that supplies power to 29m customers in Japan.

The new steam turbine for geothermal power plants has a rating of up to 60 megawatts.

Emerson will provide a 120,000 square foot data centre to the Malaysian IT services provider.

Some of the Russian supplied machineries meant for Kudankulam were found damaged even before their installation, according to a top nuclear engineer.

Coal stocks at India’s thermal power plants are critically low on the eve of Diwali, and will not improve unless coal supplies are stepped up significantly, a senior power ministry official said. However, coal-sector authorities said dispatches to power plants had increased. Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal has directed coal companies to give top priority to power plants compared to other customers, but power stations are running with very thin stocks and supplies are not enough to build stocks to a comfortable level. “The critical stock with power projects is a matter of great concern. The coal supply is sufficient for hand-to-mouth existence. There is no coal on railway sidings. Stock would not improve unless we get at least 30-40 additional rakes everyday. The silver lining, however, is that we are receiving 100 per cent coal supply now and projects are operating at full capacities,” a senior power ministry official said. Many plants, including units run by leading energy companies such as NTPC, Reliance Power, Sterlite and Damodar Valley Corp had coal stocks for less than seven days, a condition that the Central Electricity Authority says is “critical”. Latest CEA data shows that number power projects with critically low stocks of coal increased to 48 on Monday from 44 two weeks ago. Thirty plants had “supercritical” stock that would last less than four days. There are 89 coal based electricity generation stations in India that have a capacity of 86,000 mw. NTPC’s Singrauli, Mejia, Vindyachal and Damodar Valley’s Kodarma projects and few other projects with about 9,000-mw had no coal stock as against a normative requirement of 15-20 days. On an average coal plants have stocks for barely seven days. The power ministry official said coal stocks would continue to deplete unless about 190 rakes are dispatched to power sector alone. The coal ministry said a total 147 rakes were dispatched to power projects on Monday. In addition seven rakes and another 1,77,000 tonnes of coal was dispatched through exclusive transportation ties ups. A coal ministry statement said a total of 181 coal rakes were dispatched to all consumers including power plants on Monday. “The coal companies have been advised to ensure priority movement of coal to the power stations of the country and their coal availability is improving,” a coal ministry statement said. The overall average rail loading from Coal India Ltd was 156 rakes per day, of which 127 were dispatched to power stations. During the last three days, 146 rakes have been dispatched to the power stations in northern India. Heavy floods, strikes at mines and the Telangana agitation has crippled mining and loading operations in several states had depleted coal stock at power plants in the beginning of this month.  

Hydropower helped push bilateral trade between India and Nepal bilateral up to 38% from US$ 1985 million in 2009-10 to US$ 2700 in 2010-11.

ABC has increased support for small enterprises by taking various measures such as granting more loans, reducing costs, exploiting potential and launching new products.

 

Kiran Energy Solar Power Pvt. raised US $50 million from three private equity firms for its 20-megawatt solar plant project in Gujarat.

The governments of Kerala and Orissa will form a Special Purpose Vehicle for implementing 2,000 MW thermal power plant propject in Orissa at an estimated cost of Rs. 8,000 crore. This will be completed in three phases of 650 MW each.

Vietnam Development Bank has signed a credit agreement worth US$1 billion with Export-Import Bank of the U.S. to fund a major wind power development plan in the Mekong Delta in 2011-2015.

The public has been reassured that the Vietnam's electricity price increase won’t be decided in the last months of the year.

Construction of a dam across the Song Bac River for a hydropower plant in northern Ha Giang Province's Quang Binh District is now underway.

The government of Vietnam should have policies that reward producers of electricity from wind and other natural resources, suggests the general chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy.

The VND33 trillion Mong Duong 1 Thermal Power Plant in the northern province of Quang Ninh is now being constructed by the Electricity of Vietnam.

There is increasing safety risks from Chinese nuclear power plants as existing facilities age and a large number of new reactors go into operation, according to the country's environmental minister.