Apple Inc plans to power its main U.S. data center entirely with renewable energy by the end of this year, taking steps to address longstanding environmental concerns about the rapid expansion of high-consuming computer server farms.

The maker of the iPhone and iPad said on Thursday it was buying equipment from SunPower Corp and startup Bloom Energy to build two solar array installations in and around Maiden, North Carolina, near its core data center.

Once up, the solar farm will supply 84 million kWh of energy annually.

These regulations may be called the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (Terms and Conditions for Tariff determination from Renewable Energy Sources) Regulations, 2012.

In a rare initiative, a farmer of Haryana, Ramehar Singh of Silani village in Jhajjar district, has installed a 50-KW capacity poultry litter-based biogas power plant at his poultry farm using poultry waste as feed material.

Showing the way to other farmers by his enterprise by running his 65 KVA (50-KW) biogas plant for 14 hours a day for the last three months, this self-reliant farmer now saves about `1 lakh per month. Confident of meeting his power needs, he has got his state electricity board connection disconnected.

Rapid urban growth in developing countries has created an unprecedented demand for energy services. Cities face the enormous challenge of improving energy access to urban communities in order to improve education, health and basic socioeconomic conditions. These eight case studies demonstrate innovative, successful approaches to delivery of energy services to the urban and peri-urban poor. The case studies focus on electricity and clean fuels, and are taken from India, Brazil, Colombia and Bangladesh.

National Institute for Interdisciplinary Science and Technology (NIIST) here has developed a compact digester for treating biomass wastes at origin.

NIITST is a constituent laboratory under the Council of Science and Industrial Research (CSIR).

The digester doesn't cause environmental pollution but recovers biogas. It also converts biomass wastes to compost slurry with a higher content of stable solids.
SOIL MANURE

The stabilised compost slurry from this biogas plant is excellent soil manure for agriculture applications.

This study presents biogas production from fruit wastes at ambient temperature using anaerobic batch digester (500 ml). Co-digestion of fruit wastes were carried out with rice bran and cow dung. Biogas production from different samples was as follows: Sample A (fruit waste), 363; sample B (fruit waste, 75% + cow dung, 25%), 405; sample C (fruit waste, 75% + rice bran, 25%), 315; and sample D (fruit waste, 50% + rice bran, 25% + cow dung, 25%), 381 ml. From chromatographic studies, sample B has maximum methane content (80%) and sample C has maximum carbon-di-oxide content (50%).

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) released the draft Terms and Conditions for Tariff Determination from Renewable Energy Sources Regulations, 2012 in November 2011, specifying technical parameters for tariff determination for renewable energy projects set up during the Twelfth Plan period. The draft regulations are a welcome step as they offer tariff visibility for the upcoming plan period and, therefore, help renewable energy developers in determining future expansion strategies.

CFLs replace 1,799 bulbs, 76 streetlights installed. Bibipur, a small hamlet in the district, has hit a new milestone with a larger awareness and proper use of solar energy in the village. With the replacement of 1,799 bulbs with CFLs, the village has been provided with 76 solar streetlights in less than two years.
All this has been achieved perhaps due to the efforts of the village panchayat led by its young sarpanch. Winner of a district-level award in energy conservation, the village has been vying to win the state’s top honour in this field in 2012.

Considering importance of electricity from socio-economic perspective, the Electricity Act 2003 contains supporting provisions for rural electrification and de-licensing rural power supply. The government also launched the Rajiv Gandhi Grameen Vidyutikaran Yojana (RGGVY) in 2005 to provide free electricity connections to 2.34 crore rural population below poverty line (BPL) in over one lakh un-electrified villages.

Bharatiya Janata Party’s poster campaign for the MCD elections has green agencies seeing red. The party’s latest posters asking for power to be generated from waste has drawn the ire of NGO Chintan, which says BJP’s agenda is anti-public.
“The party has not yet understood the basic scientific concept of

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