TN focuses on the true power of solar – to subsidise 2000 solar powered irrigation pump sets of 5HP by 4 Lakh Rupees

Posted on May 17, 2013 by

The Agriculture Department will distribute the 2,000 pump sets of 5hp fitted with solar tracking device during 2013-14.

Each unit is estimated to cost about Rs 5 lakh and the State Government will provide 80 per cent subsidy – Rs 4 lakh. The farmers will bring in the balance for which they can obtain loans from cooperative banks, she said.

The Rs 100-crore programme will also be linked to support the micro-irrigation facilities for various crops. The objective will be to address the challenge of water shortage and power constraints. The irrigation pump sets can be used in bore wells, deep bore wells, open wells and surface water bodies.

This programme will be an extension of the support being given to micro irrigation.

Small and marginal farmers get 100 per cent subsidy for setting up drip irrigation and other micro irrigation facilities. Other farmers get a 75 per cent subsidy.

The Tamil Nadu Government has also announced plans to distribute 500 solar powered irrigation pump sets in the Cauvery delta districts with 80 per cent subsidy.

The Tamil Nadu Energy Development Agency, the nodal agency for promoting renewable energy, will soon distribute these pump sets.

Source: The Hindu

 

Related articles

 

Posted in Crystalline, Off-grid, PV, Renewables, Rural Lighting, Solar

Nuclear Headache: Task of Decommissioning Plants Is One of The Greatest Tasks of the Century which will take almost as long – The reason why Nuclear is not a renewable solution nor a viable solution at all!

Posted on May 15, 2013 by
Japanese journalists visit the site of the Lubmin nuclear power plant, decommissioned 23 years ago, which is currently being dismantled in Germany. Japanese journalists visit the site of the Lubmin nuclear power plant, decommissioned 23 years ago, which is currently being dismantled in Germany.

The dismantling of Germany’s nuclear power plants will be one of the greatest tasks of the century as the country moves to phase out atomic energy. It will take at least until 2080 to complete the job. But what happens if energy utility companies who own the facilities go bust before the work is done?

When politicians put far too much pathos into their speeches, people should be on their guard — with a notable exception. There is one issue where no comparison is overinflated and no superlative appears exaggerated: Winfried Kretschmann, for instance — the governor of the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg and a member of Germany’s Green Party — spoke of “theological timeframes” that now need to be decided upon.

His counterpart from Lower Saxony, Stephan Weil of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD), refers to a different time horizon for his actions: the Schöningen Spears, a number of 300,000-year-old Paleolithic hunting weapons that archaeologists found in his home state. And the co-floor leader of the Green Party in the German parliament, Jürgen Trittin, reminded his fellow politicians that this was about “finding a site for the most dangerous waste that mankind has ever produced.”

The ‘Last Contentious Issue in Peaceful Nuclear Energy’

The issue is nuclear waste and its safe disposal. Germany will have to build a storage facility deep underground that can survive the ravages of wars, revolutions and even another ice age. Indeed, the remains of the nuclear age will have to be kept in a final repository for 1 million years — longer than the human race has existed.

That is, at least, the aim of the draft legislation that prompted such reverential rhetoric from politicians in the opposition and the government when it was presented last month in Berlin. Under the direction of German Environment Minister Peter Altmaier, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), the bill lays out a plan for determining the location of a final repository for the highly radioactive waste from Germany’s nuclear power plants. Currently, politicians are still haggling over the details of the proposed law, which Altmaier says will remove “the last contentious issue surrounding the peaceful use of nuclear energy.”

What the representatives of the people would rather not talk about, though, is the decommissioning of Germany’s nuclear power plants. They were once the cathedrals of industrial progress. But now their cooling towers and domes have become widely visible symbols of human folly.

According to the latest calculations by the German Environment Ministry, the operation and decommissioning of the country’s reactors will produce 173,442 cubic meters (over 6.1 million cubic feet) of low to medium-level radioactive waste that has to be stored underground. On top of that, there are 107,430 cubic meters of radioactive detritus from government institutions.

It’s a monumental task that the Germans won’t complete until 2080 “at the earliest,” says nuclear expert Michael Sailer from the Öko-Institut, a non-profit research and consulting association for sustainable technology in Berlin. “After all, these are conservative estimates without any leeway for setbacks.”

No Smooth Sailing

But it doesn’t look as if things will go smoothly. On the contrary, the phasing out of nuclear power is accompanied by the agonizing challenge of decommissioning existing reactors: Eight nuclear power plants that were rapidly taken offline at the behest of the German government in the wake of Japan’s Fukushima disaster have to be dismantled concurrently, followed by an additional nine facilities by the end of 2022.

There is still no roadmap for the decommissioning. To make matters worse, critics say that they see initial indications of eroding safety standards for decommissioning licenses as authorities struggle to cope with the mountains of nuclear waste. Two locations are planned for the final storage. Environment Minister Altmaier’s proposed legislation calls for a deep geological repository for highly radioactive waste to be located by the year 2031. For a long time, the salt dome in Gorleben in the western state of Lower Saxony was designated for this purpose, but that controversial plan has been scrapped and the search must now begin anew.

The Konrad mining shaft, an old iron ore mine near the central German town of Salzgitter in the same state, has been selected for storage of low to medium-level radioactive rubble from decommissioned reactors and is currently under development. The startup date recently had to be postponed from 2019 to 2021. In the meantime, the waste is piling up at intermediate storage facilities, for example, in Ahaus in the western state of North Rhine-Westphalia and in Greifswald in the eastern state of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, where the radioactive scrap is cut into manageable sizes that are suitable for storage. The mountain of radioactive waste has already grown to an impressive 100,000 cubic meters.

Since the storage situation is becoming more precarious, operators are trying to have their old facilities carted off in increasingly larger sections. For instance, in the southern German town of Obrigheim and the northern German town of Stade, massive steam generators from the reactors have been removed in one piece. Due to a lack of space, some of these huge components have even been shipped to Sweden.

Part 2: More Waste than Germany Can Store?

As if there weren’t already enough outstanding problems, a new type of nuclear waste has emerged for which there is still no final destination: graphite waste and depleted uranium that can’t be sent to the Konrad mining shaft.

Instead, these materials that have been thoroughly contaminated with radionuclides will most likely have to be buried in a future final repository for highly radioactive waste. Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) estimates that there are up to 105,500 cubic meters of such waste. Until now, awareness of this problem has been largely limited to nuclear experts.

This could have unpleasant consequences for Germany. “In the worst case scenario, there won’t be enough space for this type of highly radioactive waste in the storage facility,” warns independent nuclear expert Wolfgang Neumann of Hanover. “Then we’ll have to look for a third final repository,” he concludes. The German Environment Ministry is also keeping this option open, although officially only two sites are planned.

Germany’s four main energy companies apparently see no problem, though, in the decommissioning of nuclear power plants, at least that’s the conclusion drawn by a reference study that they commissioned from an engineering company called NIS-Ingenieursgesellschaft. Until recently, the results of this study have been kept under wraps by the German Environment Ministry. Following a number of insistent requests by Green Party parliamentarian Sylvia Kotting-Uhl, she finally received a copy of the report in which the experts play down the problem. The “decommissioning of Germany’s light-water reactors” is “assured,” they wrote, adding that the impact on people and the environment is “negligible.”

The engineers see the decommissioning timetable as a simple enough matter, at least in theory. First, the fuel rods have to cool off during what is known as the post-operational phase. Then there are two possibilities: Either decommissioning begins immediately or the reactor is mothballed. “Safe containment” is the name of the process by which the remainder of the reactor is left standing for up to 30 years until the radiation inside the building is further reduced.

A Business Model Erodes

But critics of Germany’s nuclear industry are pushing for a quicker solution. They fear that the operating utility companies may be bankrupt before the power plants have been dismantled. Their concerns are not unfounded. After all, Germany’s Energiewende — Germany’s plan to phase out nuclear energy and massively increase its reliance on renewable sources — is eroding the business model of the former electricity monopolists. At the same time, energy giants such as E.on have billions in debts. Industry insiders estimate that it will cost roughly €1 billion ($1.3 billion) to decommission a single nuclear reactor.

To avoid leaving it up to the state to absorb these costs, the owners of nuclear power plants are bound by law to put aside money in their annual budgets for the decommissioning phase. There is currently roughly €30 billion earmarked for this purpose. But critics note that these provisions only stand on paper. “If the company goes broke, the billions for decommissioning are also gone,” warns Green Party parliamentarian Kotting-Uhl.

The likelihood of this happening has increased with the reactors owned by Sweden’s Vattenfall company in Krümmel and Brunsbüttel, near Hamburg. The Swedish state-owned company has transferred the risk to its German subsidiary.

Consequently, Kotting-Uhl is calling for a national decommissioning fund for nuclear power plants and legislation requiring companies to pay into it. Models for such an initiative can be found in Switzerland and Sweden. But Environment Minister Altmaier rejects the notion. He fears that the companies could use this to buy their way out of their responsibilities. If the decommissioning turns out to be more expensive than planned, the state could be forced to pick up the tab for the difference. Regulations on insolvency insurance could help, but there’s not enough time to introduce them before the German general elections in September 2013.

In addition to financial worries, officials in Germany are very concerned about the issue of which engineers and nuclear physicists will ultimately be responsible for moving the waste to its final underground destination. “Ever since the 1990s, we have observed a rapidly declining number of students” in this area, complains the head of Germany’s Federal Office for Radiation Protection, Wolfram König.

“The German federal government and the states have to turn around this trend,” he says, and promptly makes a promise: “Anyone who starts studying can count on having a job until they retire.”

Translated from the German by Paul Cohen

Source: Spiegel

 

Posted in Nuclear | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,

1000 jobs at SMA on the brink?

Posted on May 15, 2013 by

The solar technology manufacturer SMA is fully caught by the crisis in the solar industry. Sales in the first quarter of this year is so slumped that is being given to massive job cuts.

Specific figures are not yet known by the company. According to reports, 1,000 employees could lose their jobs, 5500 people worldwide work with SMA currently .

At a meeting which were now employees informed about the difficult situation . Back in March was CEO Urbon from a “best balanced result” in 2013. A loss can not be ruled out, he said.

Whether the transaction could actually be broken in half, as is speculated among employees, says SMA overlooking the 23 May Kassel scheduled General Meeting of Shareholders not. If it were a “massive drop in sales,” said SMA spokeswoman Anja Jasper on Wednesday, but did not provide any figures.

This also applies to the envisaged staff cuts.  Whether fixed-term contracts may not be renewed  or the voluntary severance program continues, the staff offers financial compensation if they opt for a leave of SMA, will soon be negotiated. The company will do everything possible to reduce further with new products and increase the productivity consequences of declining demand in the market, Anja Jasper said.

Oliver Dietzel, First Representative of IG Metall, said on request only, between management, union and works council discussions on proposals had been taken to reduce costs. Union of circles, it has aworkforce reduction could be necessary in view of the crisis in the industry , so as not to jeopardize the entire enterprise SMA.

Background: 4500 employee in Germany

The manufacturer SMA Solar Technology has currently 5,500 employees worldwide, including 4,500 in Germany, by far the most work in the locations in Niestetal and Kassel.

2012, the Company recorded € 1.5 billion already a declining revenue (in 2010 there were nearly two billion euros). Were earned in 2012 only 75 million euros, in 2010 the figure was 365 million euros. 2013, should the situation in the world market leader, serving 25 percent of the global inverter demand, continue to deteriorate.

Inverters convert the direct current from photovoltaic systems into grid-compatible alternating

Source: HNA.DE

Note: This is a translation from a German Source

Related articles

 

Posted in Inverters, Solar | Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Cumulative deployment of various Renewable Energy Systems / Devices in the country as on 31st March 2013

Posted on May 13, 2013 by
New & Renewable Energy
Cumulative deployment of various Renewable Energy Systems/ Devices in the country as on 31/03/2013
Renewable Energy Programme/ Systems Target for 2012-13 Deployment during
March, 2013		 Total Deployment
in  2012-13		 Cumulative achievement up to 31.03.2013
I.   POWER FROM RENEWABLES:
A.   GRID-INTERACTIVE POWER      (CAPACITIES IN MW)
Wind Power 2500 416.55 1698.80 19051.45
Small Hydro Power 350 80.12 236.93 3632.25
Biomass Power 105
350		 1.20* 114.70* 1264.80*
Bagasse Cogeneration 36.50 352.20 2337.43
Waste to Power                     -Urban 20 - 6.40 96.08
-Industrial - - -
Solar Power (SPV) 800 240.02 754.14 1686.44
Total 4125.00 774.39 3163.17 28068.45
B.    OFF-GRID/ CAPTIVE POWER        (CAPACITIES IN MWEQ)
Waste to Energy                   -Urban
-Industrial		 20.00 - 13.82 115.57
Biomass(non-bagasse) Cogeneration 60.00 28.06 88.65 471.15
Biomass Gasifiers                 -Rural- Industrial 1.50 - 0.672 16.792
10.00 1.48 7.50 141.58
Aero-Genrators/Hybrid systems 0.50 0.22 0.46 2.11
SPV Systems (>1kW) 30.00 16.86 34.45 124.67
Water mills/micro hydel 2.00 (500 Nos.) - 1.35 (270 nos) 10.65 (2131 nos)
Total 126.00 46.62 146.90 882.57
II. REMOTE VILLAGE ELECTRIFICATION
No. of Remote Village/Hamlets provided with RE Systems - - - -
III. OTHER RENEWABLE ENERGY SYSTEMS
Family Biogas Plants (No. in lakhs) 1.25 0.33^ 1.10^ 46.55^
Solar Water Heating – Coll. Areas (Million m2) 0.60 0.60 1.41 6.98

 

*  Includes 1.20 MW of Gasification
^ Provisional

Posted in Biomass, Crystalline, Geothermal, Hydro, PV, Renewables, Rooftop, Rural Lighting, Solar, Solar Thermal, Thin Film, Waste, Wind | Tagged , , , , , , ,

Methodology (Draft) for Implementation of 750 MW New grid connected Solar Power projects Under JNNSM Phase-II, Batch-I (Initial Draft*)

Posted on May 13, 2013 by

Solar Energy Corporation of India (A Govt of India Enterprise)

This documents is prepared based on draft guide lines issued by MNRE for selection of 750 MW New grid connected Solar Power projects Under JNNSM Phase-II, Batch-I and may undergo changes. Further this document is intended for stakeholders’ consultation purpose only and suggestions/Feedback may be mailed to corporate.seci@gmail.com. SECI reserves the right to accept or reject suggestions/ feedback received on this document. Further SECI will not issue any clarification/conformation on various suggestions/feedback received.

Read the full document here

Please also mail your suggestions to ritesh [ @ ] natgrp.net and we will forward a consolidated list to SECI by the 20th of May 2013.

 

Posted in Crystalline, JNNSM, Phase II, PV, Renewables, Solar, Solar Policy, Thin Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Greenhouse Gases Hit Threshold Unseen in 3 Million Years of 400 PPM

Posted on May 12, 2013 by

Residents cross a flooded street on a row of tables in Wuhan, central China’s Hubei province, on May 29, 2012. Photograph: AFP via Getty Images

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed a threshold not seen for 3 million years, exceeding 400 parts per million for the first time since researchers began tracking the data.

The main greenhouse gas blamed for global warming averaged 400.03 parts per million at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Mauna Loa monitoring station in Hawaiion May 9, the agency said yesterday.

The level is considered a landmark by scientists and environmentalists, who say carbon emissions caused by burning fossil fuels are warming the planet and must be reined in before they cause irreversible changes to weather, sea levels and Arctic ice cover. NOAA’s data stretches back to 1958.

“We are in the process of creating a prehistoric climate that humans have no evolutionary experience of,” Bob Ward, policy director at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics, said in a telephone interview.

The last time CO2 levels were this high was at least 3 million years ago, he said. Then, “temperatures were 2 to 3 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial times, the polar ice caps were much smaller, and sea levels were about 20 meters (66 feet) higher than today.”

Carbon Market

The atmospheric reading comes three weeks after the European Parliament rejected a plan to shore up prices in the Emissions Trading System, the world’s biggest effort to ratchet back greenhouse-gas pollution. The system attaches a cost to CO2 released by burning fossil fuels, giving manufacturers and utilities an incentive to reduce emissions.

Carbon permits traded on the EUETS fell 41 euro cents to 3.38 euros ($4.38) a ton yesterday. Analysts such as David King, former chief science adviser to the U.K. government, have said industry won’t eliminate carbon for less than 100 euros a ton. The price has fallen almost 90 percent since peaking at about 31 euros in 2006.

Carbon dioxide can stay in the atmosphere for as much as a century, so levels now may cause warming for decades. The concentration has now increased by more than 40 percent from the pre-industrial mark of 280 parts per million, which is abbreviated to ppm.

Data Series

The Mauna Loa data is important because it represents the longest set of continuous measurements of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Charles David Keeling, a geochemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, began taking readings there in 1958.

Keeling’s measurements provided the first physical evidence of the steady rise in CO2 in the atmosphere as a result of burning fossil fuels, confirming part of Swedish chemist Svante August Arrhenius’s theory from 1896 that burning fossil fuels may cause global warming.

The United Nations in 2007 said stabilizing the gas at 400 ppm to 440 ppm may lead to a temperature gain of as much as 2.8 degrees Celsius (5 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s at odds with the goal set out by climate treaty negotiators from more than 190 nations, who have agreed to shoot for limiting the temperature increase to 2 degrees. The global average has already risen by about 0.8 of a degree since pre-industrial times.

‘Wrong Direction’

“We are heading in the wrong direction in terms of dealing with climate change,” David Nussbaum, chief executive officer of the environmental group WWF’s U.K. arm, said in an e-mailed statement. “There is limited time for governments to achieve the goal they have set themselves for agreeing a global deal that effectively tackles climate change.”

Negotiators at the UN talks are working toward agreeing on a global climate treaty in 2015 that would come into force from 2020. They’ll meet in Warsaw in November to lay the groundwork for those discussions.

The surfeit of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere already threatens the 2-degree target. At best, pledges by countries from the U.S. and China to the Maldives will cut predicted emissions in 2020 to 52 gigatons (52 billion tons) from 58 gigatons, the UN Environment Program said in November. It said the level consistent with 2 degrees of warming is 44 gigatons.

The UN’s 2007 report also said that atmospheric CO2 in the range of 400 to 440 ppm could lead to sea level rise of as much as 1.7 meters. That would threaten coastal cities from New York toLondon and Bangkok.

Nobel Prize

The world body’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, will publish its latest comprehensive report on climate science in four parts between this September and October 2014.

“There is no doubt that the average global temperature will continue to increase,” Joanna Haigh, a professor of atmospheric physics at Imperial College London, said in an e-mailed statement. “Unless swift action is taken to reduce CO2 emissions, the planet will warm by more than 2 degrees.”

Skeptics of man’s influence on warming temperatures note that while CO2 levels in the atmosphere have continued to rise since the 1990s, no year has been statistically warmer on average than 1998, with higher levels for 2005 and 2010 falling within the margin of error for that year, according to data compiled by the U.K. Met Office.

Happy Plants

“The Earth has had many-times-higher levels of CO2 in the past,” said Marc Morano, former spokesman for Republican Senator James Inhofe and executive editor of Climate Depot, a blog that posts articles skeptical of climate change. “Americans should welcome the 400 parts-per-million threshold. This means that plants are going to be happy, and this means that global-warming fearmongers are going to be proven wrong.”

That position is disputed by many researchers, said Melanie Fitzpatrick, climate scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists.

“This needs to be a wake-up call,” she said in a statement. “Reaching 400 parts per million represents a dire experiment with the climate system. As long as humans have walked the Earth, we’ve never seen carbon dioxide levels this high.”

Source: Bloomberg

Related articles
Posted in Events | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Domestic Content Requirement restricted to 300MW including Thin-film – India to Close Solar Import Loophole in Energy Auction

Posted on May 11, 2013 by

India plans to close a loophole before its next solar-power auction to stop companies from importing thin-film panels from overseas suppliers like First Solar Inc. (FSLR) for projects that otherwise must be built with local equipment.

The government will invite developers by the end of May to bid for 750 megawatts of solar capacity, Tarun Kapoor, joint-secretary at the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, said in a telephone interview. About 300 megawatts of that will be required to use locally made solar cells and panels, and may not import thin-film photovoltaic devices, he said.

Developers previously were able to skirt local sourcing rules on a portion of auctioned projects by opting for thin-film technology. Those devices, which tend to be cheaper, were exempt from the import restrictions on crystalline silicon panels made by companies such as China’s Suntech Power Holdings Co. (STP) Traditional crystalline panels are silicon-based, while thin-film technology coats panels with materials such as cadmium telluride.

“This time domestic content requirement will also include thin film,” Kapoor said on May 3.

The government will also extend grants to the solar industry for the first time, offering as much as 18.75 billion rupees ($348 million) to cover 30 percent of upfront project costs. Previously, it supported the solar industry by buying power at above-market rates.

The government is offering 25 million rupees per megawatt to projects that will range in capacity from 10 to 50 megawatts, according to auction guidelines released last month. Developers will submit bids specifying the amount of funds they seek, and those needing the least will win.

National Mission

Since India began auctioning licenses through its National Solar Mission in 2010, developers including Leon Black’s Apollo Global Management LLC-backed Welspun Group and billionaire Vinod Khosla’s Sunborne Energy Holdings LLC have built 1,686 megawatts of solar capacity and cut average costs of photovoltaic power by about 51 percent. The program seeks to reduce solar power’s cost to the level of other forms of grid-supplied electricity by 2017.

India aims to add 9,000 more megawatts of solar by 2017. By around September, it expects to hold another auction to award 800 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity, Kapoor said.

Source: Bloomberg

Related articles

 

Posted in Cells & Modules, CPV, Crystalline, JNNSM, Phase II, PV, Solar, Solar Policy, Thin Film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,