Green Alpha

Tata Group Invests In Swiss Clean Tech Firm Flisom

2009-09-24T10:24:00.000-07:00

Flisom uses a compound CIGS technology that is coated on a polymer foil.
Flisom is a spin-off of ETH Zurich. Would be nice to hear a similar story from India as well. But for that we need more investment into basic sciences and fundamental research.

http://www.vccircle.com/500/news/tata-group-invests-in-swiss-clean-tech-firm-flisom

"Tata Group, one of India’s diversified business conglomerates, has invested in Swiss firm Flisom--which produces flexible, thin-film solar cells at a low-cost technology—for an undisclosed sum."

IIT-B looks to Solar Thermal

2009-09-17T02:21:00.000-07:00

The project, which will last for five years, is expected to start in another two years.

http://www.dnaindia.com/academy/report_iit-b-looks-to-solar-power_1290554

To help facilitate cost-effective solar thermal power generation, IIT Bombay plans to develop a megawatt-scale solar thermal power facility, which is being sponsored by the ministry of new and renewable energy.

Global Cleantech 100 - world's most promising cleantech companies

2009-09-09T22:07:00.000-07:00

2 companies from India in the Top 100.

d.light design, New Delhi, India
Jain Irrigation Systems, Jalgaon, India

http://www.guardian.co.uk/globalcleantech100/by-country

Institutional investor from India funds 7.4-MW Solar PV Project in Germany

2009-09-04T22:30:00.000-07:00

While the identity of the investor can be speculated, interesting to note that projects in Europe are being preferred to India.
Capital availability for Renewable Energy projects in India should not be a problem, given the right incentive and policy roadmap.
As somebody said - India is a poor country with many rich people.

http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/09/sinosol-builds-7-4-mw-solar-pv-project?cmpid=rss

Sinosol AG is building a 7.4-megawatt (MW) photovoltaic project close to Augsburg in Southern Germany. The project is being funded by an institutional investor from India. On a surface of approximately 17 hecatares more than 35,000 polycrystalline PV-modules will be installed.

Both parties have agreed on the takeover of a power plant portfolio in Europe with a total size of 65 MW.

Sinosol is the project developer and EPC contractor. Construction for the project in Nordendorf started on August 4. After a construction period of four months the PV-plant will be finished and grid connected before the end of 2009.

The project in Nordendorf is a pilot project for further joint activities of Sinosol and the institutional investor from India which is planning to build an international PV portfolio of 200 MW until the end of 2010.

Both parties have agreed on the takeover of a power plant portfolio in Europe with a total size of 65 MW. The agreement covers PV parks that will still be grid connected in 2009 as well as power plants that will be erected in 2010 by Sinosol Group.

MNRE incentives for CSP - Dish technology

2009-08-15T21:53:00.000-07:00

Solar thermal space is gradually heating up.

http://mnes.nic.in/solar-steam-systems.htm

Two types of solar steam generating systems; one based on fixed receiver E-W automatically tracked concentrating technology (Scheffler) and the other on fully tracked receiver on dish technology (Arun) are under promotion in the country. Whereas the fixed receiver technology is in promotion for last many years and about 40 systems covering over 12,000 sq. m of dish area have been installed, the fully tracked technology is under pilot scale demonstration and only six dishes with area 1920 sq. m have been installed as on date.

Incentive for Scheffler Dish

50% of the cost of system, subject to a maximum of Rs. 5000 per sq. m of dish area to non-profit making institutions/organizations and 35% of the cost subject to a maximum of Rs. 3500/-per sq. m to commercial/industrial organizations (profit making and claiming accelerated depreciation) is available from MNRE. There is no restriction of any number of proposals to be supported by MNRE to industry and commercial organizations, 80% accelerated depreciation is available in addition to Govt. subsidy.

Incentive for Arun Dish

Rs. 12.00 lakhs per dish to a maximum of 2 dishes installed at one place. Only 20 dishes could be supported at present under the scheme. Proposals for 6 dishes have already been supported so far.

MNRE calls for EOI for projects based on Combustion, Gasification

2009-08-04T21:37:00.000-07:00

It is interesting to note that even MNRE proposes that gasification systems are mainly suitable for projects below 1MW capacity. Above 1MW, combustion or co-generation route is being suggested.

http://mnes.nic.in/tenders/current/eoi-mips.pdf

As part of this Project, the Ministry is contemplating for establishment of Model Investment Projects (MIPs) in the different parts of the country. The Biomass Conversion Technologies that are proposed to be deployed are – Combustion, Gasification and Cogeneration using different type of captive and distributed biomass resources. The aim of these projects is to demonstrate the viability of new investment and financing models for mainstreaming the biomass power sector and is also expected to act as the “Best Practices” for faster replication in other States.

In the biomass sector (other than the sugar mill sub sector), the MIPs has been categorized into less than 1 MW and greater than 1 MW of installed plant capacities. While MIPs with less than 1 MW are to be based on gasifier technology, others may be based on cogeneration or combustion technologies.

Punjab launches scheme for harnessing solar energy

2009-07-24T11:08:00.000-07:00

One more state follows the lead of NDPL.

http://www.thehindu.com/2009/07/23/stories/2009072352360300.htm

The Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) has come out with the comprehensive plan to provide financial support to all government institutions, private commercial establishments, industries, housing complexes to install SPV systems from 1 KW capacity to 100 KW capacity. As the government has offered 33 to 40 per cent subsidy, Mr. Khanna said the SPV system would pay back the cost incurred in 5 to 6 years. This system doest not require maintenance and has a life of about 25-30 years. A 100 KW capacity system would save around 50,000 litres of diesel per year, he said.

Exotic Solar Cells Get Cheaper

2009-07-08T22:27:00.000-07:00

Any progress on developing low cost solar cells with better efficiency is welcome. The use of organic solvents / coatings and elimination of expensive co-evaporation technique that involves vacuum, is also a good step in the right direction. But the key bottleneck is going to be availability of elements like Indium, Selenium etc which are considered to be rarely available in earth's crust. This would impose limits of how far the industrial production can go and what the costs are going to be.

On the other hand, Silicon is the 2nd most abundunt element of earth and consitutes roughly about 23% of the total. So low cost solutions to produce Solar grade silicon cheaply on a large scale could be a better option. But that would require a breakthrough in silicon processing.

There are a few labs in India, which also are working on organic methods, but most of the work I have seen is pretty basic. Hence it may be unlikely that we will see anything significant coming out of India in this domain in near future.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=solar-cells-cheaper-copper-indium-diselenide

Hou and his colleagues report in this week's Thin Solid Films the development of a low-cost processing method for solar cells made from copper, indium and diselenide. Those cells, they say, will have the potential to be produced on a large scale for a number of applications, including placement on backpacks or clothing.

NDPL's bright idea: Get your own solar power

2009-07-06T21:58:00.000-07:00

Few points to be noted:

If we add the Balance of Systems costs, the total cost of the system may be closer to 2 lakh to 2.5 lakh. Which means the payback would be even greater, in true economic sense.
Solar PV is probably the most expensive form of renewable energy available as of today. It is primarily used in India for off-grid applications where grid connectivity is relatively expensive.
Silicon prices have been falling of late and are expected to fall significantly in near future. New technologies for Solar cell fabrication are being researched in developed economies, with lot of money being spent on developing low cost solutions.
Installation based incentives (IBI) have been majorly exploited by Wind farm developers in India, with depreciation tax benefits being the key driver than power generation.
40% subsidy on solar panels is significant and the actual utilisation of panels needs to be monitored.
Focus on energy efficiency could provide a much larger amount of energy at much lower cost, than a one-time lock-in into a massive Solar PV system, in the current scenario.

Given the above, a careful analysis of the entire proposal is required. We should neither create a distorted system like artificial subsidising of Diesel fuel nor allow large players to exploit the power crisis to push expensive solutions which may not suit the needs of the comman man.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Cities/Delhi/NDPLs-bright-idea-Get-your-own-solar-power/articleshow/4739191.cms

"Discom NDPL is planning to give its consumers the option of setting up solar (photovoltaic) panels on the rooftop. The decision will be implemented as soon as a proposed 40% rebate on solar panels by Delhi government comes through and Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) fixes the tariff for the power produced from these panels."

Off Topic - The New Intellectual

2009-06-28T09:15:00.000-07:00

In any age and society, there are men who think and work, who discover how to deal with existence, how to produce the intellectual and material values it requires. These are the men whose effort is the only means of survival for parasites of all varieties: the mindless-power-seeking looters, the passive-death-worshipping mystics and the human ballast. The ballast consists of those who go through life in a state of unfocused stupor, merely repeating the words and the motions they learned from others. But the men from whom they learn, the men who are the first to discover any scrap of new knowledge, are the men who deal with reality, with the task of conquering nature, and who, to that extent, assume the full responsibility of cognition: of exercising their rational faculty.

The Founding Fathers of America were neither passive, death-worshipping mystics nor mindless, power-seeking looters; as a political group, they were a phenomenon unprecedented in history; they were thinkers who were also men of action. They had rejected the soul-body dichotomy, with its two corollaries: the impotence of man's mind and the damnation of this earth; they had rejected the doctrine of suffering as man's metaphysical fate, they proclaimed man's right to the pursuit of happiness and were determined to establish on earth the conditions required for man's proper existence, by the "unaided" power of their intellect.

India's Draft Solar Power Plan Sees 200,000 MW Installed by 2050

2009-06-28T08:34:00.000-07:00

200 GW is an ambitious target to say the least. However this needs to be viewed with further scepticism:

3 MW to 200 GW is a 32% CAGR over 40 years. This means large sustained investments with a long term vision - not something that one would associate with Indian government.
The "Solar Mission" document itself was leaked to a newspaper. So much for policy discretion.

http://www.greenpeace.org/india/press/releases/india-ambitious-solar-mission-plan-greenpeace

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/06/india-draft-solar-power-plan-200000-mw-installed-by-2050.php

According to the leaked document, India's "solar mission" will include measures for rapidly expanding the use of small-scale photovoltaic panels, solar lighting systems, and commercial-scale solar plants, in order to drive down costs and encourage domestic solar manufacturing. The efforts would occur in both rural and urban areas and target residential as well as commercial users. The plan also proposes scaling-up centralized solar thermal power generation, with the aim of achieving cost parity with conventional grid power by 2020 and the full necessary energy infrastructure by 2050.

With India's installed solar capacity currently at only 3 megawatts, this would be the most ambitious solar plan that any country has laid out so far. The scope of the initiative would also match and ultimately far exceed India's plans for nuclear power generation.

Specifically the plan aims to have 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020, expanding to 100,000 MW by 2030 and 200,000 by 2050. Funding This All Might be the Most Ambitious Part Which not only is "ambitious" but also going to be expensive to implement: Worldwatch cites Greenpeace's Energy [R]evolution report in saying that by 2050 India could generate 69% of its electricity and 70% of its heating and cooling needs from renewable sources, but that will require an investment of $154 billion.

In the leaked draft, government investment would amount to $18-22 million, with presumably the balance to be made up through international financing mechanisms.

German firms lead massive North African solar project

2009-06-27T12:51:00.000-07:00

There are multiple hurdles that can be foreseen in this project:

Technology Risk - CSP as a technology has not been implemented on a very large commercial scale across the world. There have been a few projects in Spain and US based on CSP technology, but CSP remains a technology that has not been completely proven on a large commercial scale.
Financial Risk - It is uncertain given the state of the credit markets, if a project of this scale and size can be executed within a decade. Even with implicit sovereign backing, firms may find it hard to raise project finance in time to complete the power plant construction.
Economic Risk - Investing massive sums of money in building infrastructure, which would quickly become a "sunk cost", could be a risky proposition.
Business Model Risk - So far renewable energy, especially Solar has been modeled as a distributed source. Given the high cost of Solar relative to grid electricity, Solar has been mainly preferred for off-grid applications where no incentives are available and for grid applications where strong incentives like feed-in tariff are present. In that sense creating a centralised system like CSP for Solar, implies a new business model and hence business model risk.
Political Risk & Sovereign Risk - Most of the North African countries suffer from political and economic instability. While land costs may be cheap, country risk becomes a significant element, given the project size and life. While this country risk can be hedged to an extent, by options like purchasing insurance, an intelligent trade balance etc, full protection may not be possible.

However, inspite of all the risks mentioned above, the signal that players of significant muscle are serious about renewable energy is evident.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jun/16/solar-power-europe-africa

Deutsche Bank, E.ON, RWE, Siemens to finance €400 billion CSP plan that would power Europe with clean electricity from Africa. Solar power originating in the deserts of North Africa could power Europe with clean electricity, if a consortium of 20 German companies has its way.

The businesses, which include major names in European energy, finance and manufacturing, are expected to assemble next month, according to Guardian News and Media. The ambitious and costly €400 billion ($553.44 billion) plan, called Desertec, sets out to power 15 percent of Europe’s electricity by solar energy from Africa within a decade.

The players—including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, and energy companies RWE andE.ON—are expected to meet July 13 in Munich to form the agreement. The companies haven’t provided details about their involvement in the project. According to Guardian News, other attendees will include German government ministries, global think tank The Club of Rome, and a Zurich-based non-government organization of leading scientists, managers and politicians who support sustainable development.

The expensive project is planned to move forward despite the economic crisis, and is aimed at keeping Germany as a leader in solar energy. Germany fell behind Spain in the global market for solar with 1.5 gigawatts installed in 2008, compared to Spain’s 2.51 GW (see Spain leads 2008 solar market).

The Desertec project would build concentrating solar power plants in several North African locations. Morocco, Libya and Algeria have been cited as potential spots that are politically stable and where land is also inexpensive. The energy would be sent via high-voltage direct current transmission lines to Europe, which has been deemed technically possible, but expensive.

From Lab to the Market

2009-06-15T12:49:00.000-07:00

This is a conceptual problem I have been thinking for sometime now:

Given the situation that exists in India, what is the best way to take a technology from the lab to the market?

There are multiple angles to this problem:

What has been the historical performance of India in commercializing the technologies developed in various labs? What are the lessons that we can learn from the past?
What would an efficient mechanism to transfer a technology from lab to market, with the generated value being distributed fairly among the various stakeholders? The stakeholders would include the scientist in the lab, the entrepreneur, the venture capital players, government etc.

Learnings from the 1st week

2009-06-13T12:36:00.000-07:00

Learnings from the 1st week of the Trip:

A 1 MW 70 foot diameter wind turbine, has a blade tip velocity greater than Rajdhani express.
Offshore Wind is one of the next big opportunities. However the technology has not yet been proven on a commercial scale.
Utility scale Solar Thermal power generation is at least 5 years away in India.
IISC Bangalore is planning to setup a 10MW Solar Thermal plant in Bangalore.
IIT Bombay is targeting a 1 MW plant in the same space.
Mumbai is hot and sticky, so always have a bottle of water nearby.
"Paradise" on earth can be dangerous. :-)

I will write in more detail about the Suzlon trip and the Solar PV course at IIT Bombay, shortly.

Powering Telecom Towers using Clean Energy

2009-06-09T12:12:00.000-07:00

Indian telecom sector is one of the big success stories of recent times. Both the GSM and CDMA players have been adding millions of subscribers every month and India continues to be a high growth market globally for telecom. Since urban penetration is moving towards a point of saturation, rural India is the next big target for a lot of telecom companies. Which basically means there will be thousands of telecom towers installed all across rural India in the next few years. (By some estimates this number is close to 30,000 towers.)

Now the question is, given the erratic power supply situation in rural India, how will these telecom towers get powered? One usual suspect is the Diesel Generator, with the cost per KW being in the range of Rs.20-25. Even with the high cost, there are issues of fuel availability, quality characteristics of the electricity generated, operations and maintenance issues etc.

It makes sense to power these off-grid telecom towers with renewable energy sources like Solar, Wind or Bio-Mass. A hybrid between Solar and Bio-mass gasifier-run-turbine plant seems especially suitable, considering the clean energy generated, better characteristics of power etc.

This may be the first big breakthrough for Clean Energy application in India.

PS - I know a few companies who are trying to solve this problem, but lets see who wins the race.

Journey into the Indian Clean Energy Sector

2009-06-06T12:08:00.000-07:00

Today I start off on a 45 day long tour of India. In this tour, I will be meeting various stakeholders in the Clean Energy sector of India. This will include policy makers, venture capital and private equity players, scientists who develop cutting edge technologies in labs, green-eyed entrepreneurs etc. I am hoping to improve my knowledge of Indian energy sector by the end of this tour.

Though I have toured continental Europe before, this is the first time I have a chance to do an all-India trip in one go. Lets see what the ides of July have to bring !

Avancez, avancez !

Advice to Clean Energy Entrepreneurs

2009-06-03T11:57:00.000-07:00

I recently had the privilege of hosting Dr. B.C. Jain, the Chairman of Ankur Scientific, which is one of the leading biomass gasification companies in India. He is man of great accomplishment and yet so very humble. This is what he had to say to entrepreneurs in clean energy space:

Never put all eggs in one basket
Never stake your future on Govt. Programmes and Policies
Being ambitious – temper it with realism
Do not get carried away / your own make – believe world
Customer Feedback is the real thing. Listen to lead better.

Words of Wisdom from a Senior GoI Bureaucrat

2009-05-29T07:02:00.000-07:00

Today I attended a talk by a senior adviser to the Ministry of Power, Government of India.
The talk confirmed some of the initial hypothesis I had about Indian energy sector.

As per him, below are some of policy imperatives required to improve the energy sector in India:

Remove entry barriers & raise competition. Level the playing field in exploration, extraction, conversion, transmission & distribution of energy.
Institute reforms in pricing, taxing & subsidizing different forms of energy to promote optimal fuel choices and allocation of resources.
Ensuring lifeline level of energy access
Strengthen or introduce independent legislation
Augment & diversify energy options, sources and energy infrastructure.

The learned speaker also talked about the conflict between the interests of the politicians of this country and its people. It was depressing to hear that 2/3 rds of India does not have access to safe and reliable energy even after 60 years of independence. And the sad part is that if things remain the way they are, the situation may be the same for the next 60 years also.

Warren Buffet's Big Battery Play

2009-05-27T09:28:00.000-07:00

While it may take a few years to build large storage systems for grid connected power systems in India, there is a growing market for efficient batteries in the transportation sector. Given that India has an electric car maker in Reva and multiple electric 2 wheeler manufacturers, this could be a market to explore.

Betterplace - India. com?

http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/05/26/warren-buffets-big-battery-play

"We've never really had storage capability on utility systems," Sokol told me recently, by phone. "Given the progress BYD has made on the technology of batteries for electric vehicles, the question is, how do we ramp that technology up so that we can use it for multiple purposes in the utility world?

"Probably the most obvious is the ability to store intermittent renewable resources, such as wind or solar," Sokol said.

Put simply, cheap battery storage at scale would address one of the biggest drawbacks to wind and solar energy, which is that, unlike coal or nuclear power, they are unpredictable -- you can only make electricity when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.

Hola

2009-05-27T00:57:00.000-07:00

A wise man told me that you need to learn a new skill every 2 years, to be happy in life.
Following his advice, I started learning about Clean Energy in 2009.
I have also never written a blog before, so I decided two is better than one.

I will try to share some of the stuff that I learn on Clean Energy Investing in India.
Let us see where this takes us.

Avancez !