Staff Reporter

China has increased its solar power development target for 2015 by 50% to 15 GW.

According to India's Central Electricity Authority, a total of 5,40,469 villages have been electrified as part of the ongoing rural electrification programme in the country.

Electricity consumption by increased by 5.2 percent in NOvember compared to the sawe period last year.

West China's Gansu Province is regulating small-scale hydropower projects to protect fresh water resources.

India's transmission sector has shown a credible performance, achieving much more than the targeted stringing of transmission lines, for the month of November, this year.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday said India would enhance ties in a host of areas such as energy with Russia.

Assam government power minister Pradyut Bordoloi projected the state as a safe and secure destination for investment in the power sector.

Medco Power sold a 51 percent stake to Saratoga Capital to help fund its plan to quadruple its power generating ability in the next four years.

India plans to start up a Russian-built nuclear power plant within weeks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Friday, expressing confidence that the government can ease safety concerns that have prompted protests by local residents. After talks in Moscow with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, whose country is eager to build more nuclear power plants abroad, Singh said the first two reactors at the Kudankulam plant were close to being activated. The power station in the southern state of Tamil Nadu is one of several planned power projects that are seen as vital to plugging huge electricity shortages that have damaged economic growth. However, protests by local people against the power station gathered pace after the Fukushima accident in Japan in March. "We are confident that we will be able to persuade some of these people that their concerns are adequately taken care of, that our nuclear plants are safe and sound and there is nothing to worry about with regards to their safety," Singh said. "I am therefore confident that in a couple of weeks we should be able to go ahead with operationalising Kudankulam, and thereafter, by a period of six months, Kudankulam 2." The two countries have been in talks to build two more reactors at Kudankulam. Russia's Itar-Tass news agency cited the head of state nuclear power firm Rosatom, Sergei Kiriyenko, as saying Russia would provide India with a multi-billion dollar loan for the project, though no agreement was signed on Friday. Russia is keen to exploit its nuclear know-how, having already built two reactors in China and one in Iran that was plugged into the network in September. Rising tensions over Tehran's nuclear programme were on the leaders' agenda. Both countries urged Iran to cooperate with U.N. efforts to ensure it was not seeking nuclear arms, Russia and India said in a statement, but agreed that sanctions could be counterproductive. here

State-owned power major NTPC is going to set up its biggest solar (green) power station of 50 megawatts next year at an estimated cost of around Rs 700 crore in the electricity-starved state of Madhya Pradesh. “We are setting up our biggest solar power project at an estimated cost of around Rs 700 crore in Rajgarh district next year. NTPC will sell the entire power generated from this project to Madhya Pradesh,” NTPC official said today. “The government will soon ink a power purchase agreement with NTPC to procure energy from this project,” the official said. According to NTPC officials, it has kick-started the process of setting up 5 Mw and 15 Mw solar stations in Orissa, Himachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh, but the company’s biggest non-conventional energy project would be set up in Madhya Pradesh. “In all, we are working on generating over 100-Mw solar power energy projects across the country right now,” they said.