11th plan target could not be met due to environmental problems

The Planning Commission and Power Ministry are believed to have reached a consensus over fixing the capacity addition target at 90,000 MW for the next five years. Earlier, Power Ministry had proposed a target of adding 76,000 MW in the current 12th Five Year Plan (2012-17), keeping fuel constraints in mind. On the other hand Planning Commission wanted the target to be 1,00,000 MW, as the power demand is very high.

AHMEDABAD: International Finance Corporation (IFC), a member of the World Bank Group, is helping Ahmedabad-based Self-Employed Women's Association (SEWA) provide energy-efficient cook stoves and solar lanters to its members. IFC will provide a partial credit guarantee for a $5 million loan that an Indian private sector bank is providing to SEWA-sponsored Grassroots Trading Network for Women.

Under the initiative, women from various villages in Gujarat will be provided a loan to buy the combination of stove and lantern, at Rs 2,800 and Rs 1,800 respectively.

Direct cool refrigerators, geysers and colour televisions will be next in the list of appliances for which energy efficiency labelling is to be made mandatory by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), a body under the Union Ministry of Power.

These three are among 10 appliances for which energy efficiency rating norms, denoted by stars, are voluntary. More stars meant more energy efficiency. Such labelling is mandatory for air-conditioners, frost-free refrigerators, distribution transformers and tubular fluorescent lights.

Scotland's University of Edinburgh on Wednesday opened a centre to research the use of carbon to retrieve oil otherwise hard to extract from reservoirs, a method which could unlock three billion barrels of trapped North Sea oil worth 190 billion pounds ($300 billion).

A number of developers of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects have already suggested using the method, also known as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) that has been used in North America for decades, to enhance the economic viability of their plants which are expensive to finance.

The Narendra Modi government's bid to generate funds to promote clean energy by introducing a Green Cess on every unit of conventional electricity generated in the state has not gone well with major industrial players of the state, who have now challenged the constitutional validity of the government's move in the Gujarat High Court.

Acting on the individual petitions by the companies the High Court has restrained the state government from initiating any proceedings or recover any amounts by way of cess on generation of electricity from the petitioners till June 15, when the next hearing in the matters was scheduled.

NTPC Ltd, India’s biggest power producer, said it plans to spend as much as $15 billion (Rs 82, 521 crore) over a decade to secure overseas coal supplies as prices of the fuel tumble to a 19-month-low.

The utility may sign five- or 10-year contracts for the first time to import as much as 150 million metric tonnes of coal, Chairman Arup Roy Choudhury said by telephone from New Delhi on Tuesday.

The draft energy bill plans major changes to the market, causing concern that consumers' bills could rise and renewable energy is being neglected

The biggest reforms to the UK energy sector in two decades were set out on Tuesday, prompting warnings from consumer groups and green campaigners that they would raise bills and penalise renewable energy while boosting nuclear power.

The sweeping reforms, detailed in the draft energy bill, grant the government powers to intervene in the market on a scale not seen since the industry was privatised.