Sustainability Outlook Headlines

BASF India’s Dahej site certified for the production of sustainable oil palm products

Two more BASF Group’s (“BASF”) production plants have received the Supply Chain Certificate of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), as announced on the occasion of the RSPO’s fifth annual European Roundtable in London. The certification of the two plants i.e. Dahej (Gujarat, India) and Gebze (Turkey), helps further strengthen BASF’s operations network for certified palm products. At 20 locations around the world, now including Dahej, BASF manufactures certified ingredients for the cosmetic,... Read more..

Goyal launches weather portal to help discoms with supply planning

Minister of power, coal, new & renewable energy and mines Piyush Goyal on Friday launched a weather portal for the power sector developed by Power System Operation Corporation Limited (POSCO)and India Meteorological Department (IMD) at a meeting of the forum of regulators.

Day to day weather variations impact factors such as load demand, energy production, transport, distribution management and energy... Read more..

Apple Plans to Move to 100 Percent Renewable Energy in India

Apple plans to run all its business in India on 100 percent renewable energy in the next six months, Gadgets 360 has learned. According to sources, this was one of the things that the company told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is presently on a tour of the United States.

On Sunday, PM Modi met with the heads of 20 of the leading US technology firms, including Tim Cook of Apple, Sunder Pichai of Google,... Read more..

Rural Electrification Corporation to raise $300 million selling green bonds

Rural Electrification Corp, the nodal public sector company to finance power projects in rural India is planning to raise $300 million by selling bonds to overseas investors as early as next week, two people familiar with the deal said.

The bonds are so called green bonds and will be used to finance environmentally friendly projects. These bonds will be the first such by REC under its $1 billion medium term... Read more..

Government benchmarks tariff for Bhadla solar park at Rs 3.43 per unit

The Centre has benchmarked a tariff ceiling of Rs3.43 per unit for upcoming auctions for the solar power park in Bhadla, Rajasthan, in acknowledgement of the steep fall in tariffs in recent tenders.
 
The Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) has mentioned in the tender document, “it shall enter into power purchase agreement with successful solar power developers for a period of 25 years. The maximum tariff payable to the project developer is fixed at Rs3.43 per unit for 25 years”. Business... Read more..

New catalyst paves way for carbon neutral fuel

Australian scientists have developed an efficient catalyst that converts carbon dioxide into synthetic natural gas in a clean process using solar energy, paving the way for carbon neutral fuel.
The study by researchers, including those from University of Adelaide in Australia, could make viable a process that has enormous potential to replace fossil fuels and continue to use existing carbon-based fuel technologies without increasing atmospheric CO2.
The catalyst effectively drives the process of... Read more..

Govt advises RINL to foray into renewable energy, reduce dependence on fossil fuels

Union Minister of Power, New & Renewable Energy, Piyush Goyal has advised RINL to make a foray into solar and renewable energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels to generate thermal power. 

Goyal, who is also the minister for Coal and Mines said the government will provide necessary support and incentive to industries which will come forward to set up solar power plants in the country. ... Read more..

Yes Bank signs green finance charter with European development finance institutions

Yes Bank, India’s fourth largest private sector bank, and FMO (the Development Bank of the Netherlands), along with DEG (the Development Bank of Germany) and Proparco (the Development Bank of France), organized an investment symposium on ‘The Opportunity of Green Finance in India’, today, where the four banks signed a charter to champion green finance in India. Through the charter, the four banks committed to mobilize green investments, seize opportunities in India’s sunrise sectors, and contribute to... Read more..

Record level of wind power produced in Gujarat on higher capacity

On Tuesday, Gujarat saw its highest ever levels of power generation from wind energy, thanks to high wind velocities on its coast and steadily increasing generation capacity. Wind power generation in the state reached a record 3,460MW on June 20, 2017. The rise also come as a major relief to GUVNL, which is currently getting less from private companies under power purchase agreements (PPAs).

Confirming that... Read more..

Chennai Metro to draw solar power, save ₹1.5 crore a year

The Chennai Metro Rail Ltd, a joint venture of the Central and Tamil Nadu governments, intends to install solar power plants at its stations and the Koyambedu maintenance depot to provide 6 MW of electricity.

Bengaluru-based CleanMax Solar will put up and own the solar plants and sell the power to Chennai Metro. The price at which the energy will be sold has not been disclosed, but a press release from... Read more..

Latest PIC32 family increases performance while reducing power consumption

The latest PIC32 microcontroller family from Microchip Technology Inc. expands Microchip’s eXtreme Low Power (XLP) technology to 32-bit products. The PIC32MX1/2 XLP offers current PIC32MX customers an easy migration path to achieve higher performance at much lower power, enabling both increased functions and longer battery life in portable applications. The PIC32MX1/2 XLP family increases performance in small pin-count devices with little code rework for existing customers.
Microchip’s XLP technology is... Read more..

Hero Future Energies eyes renewable assets of Equis energy

Hero Future Energies, the renewable energy arm of the Pawan Munjal led Hero Group is evaluating options for its biggest bet yet in the burgeoning clean energy segment. The company backed by IFC, the private sector investment arm of the World bank is eyeing the renewable energy portfolio of Singapore based Equis Energy, sources familar with ongoing negotiations told ET NOW on the condition of anonymity. Credit Suisse & JP Morgan have the sale mandate for the proposed transaction. 

... Read more..