Growth of renewable power in India needs unique drivers for its ever-growing energy needs. The expansion of the overall energy demand-supply gap due to the increase in the population’s standard of living. The demand-supply gap in power is currently at 8% and is one of the key drivers of renewable energy in the country. Pressure [...]

Well, it is old hat that India’s electricity demand is shooting through the roof and that our peak deficit is going to get from bad to worse (from 17 GW right now to something like 25 GW very soon…). One another dimension, we all have been hearing how solar PV based power production will work [...]

Indian VCs have not really done a good amount of investing in cleantech. Cleantech perhaps  is not really a VC game as it is more of an engineering related discplie that does not offer the types of scalabilitiees that VCs desire or the exit periods. VCs also do not understand cleantech well enough to take [...]

Biomass has been used as a source of energy right since mankind started its existence; In fact, one of the predominant energy sources today is biomass. Biomass as a source for power production is not entirely new either. Biomass has been used, in the place of coal, for steam generation at power plants, though in [...]

There is a significant amount of interest among PEs for investments in both traditional and renewable energy. PEs – not surprisingly – are not very keen on risky technology bets in renewable energy, but are OK with business model risks. Some of the PEs (such as IFC, ADB etc) are willing to take fairly long-term [...]

The use of biomass gasification for power production is not new, but its use has been so far been limited and its contribution to the overall power production has so far been negligible in India. The producer gas derived from biomass gasification can be used for either producing power (by use in a gas engine) [...]

This is my second and final post on L’Attitude 13’05. The first post is available at (Link) After the inaugural address by Dr. Kalam was the CEO conclave. The CEOs shared their ideas and success stories of how they got the people together, how they created a sustained business model and charted they way to [...]

Some of us at EAI had a great opportunity to attend L’Attitude 13’05 which was organized by the Great Lakes Institute of Management. Great opportunity because it was not a run-of-the-mill festivity but a 2 day jamboree (Jan 6-7 2011) centering on the theme of SUSTAINABILITY. All the events where centered on the theme TRIPLE [...]

I was invited by the CII to be part of a panel discussion at the TN Solar Convention held on 21 Dec at Chennai ( here’s a detailed post on the same – http://panchabuta.wordpress.com/2010/12/21/cii-organized-first-tamil-nadu-solar-convention-2010-at-chennai-india/ ). The panel discussion’s theme was “Financing and Market Development for Solar in India”. The discussion was part of a larger [...]

I had the opportunity to be present at and be a moderator of yet another interesting conference, this one on financing of power projects. Held at Le Meridien, Mumbai, 15-16 Dec 2010, this was organized by theenergybusiness conferences, a division of UBM. It was held at the nice Le Meridien, Mumbai (see the event site [...]

I was at Delhi last week two days. I spent two days last week at the TERI University in Delhi last week, attending an interesting conclave on renewable energy, part of an India-US research partnership. The event was organized by Marg Group (http://www.marggroup.com/ ), and had as its partners Great Lakes Institute of Management (http://www.greatlakes.edu.in/ [...]

I have been in Delhi last couple of days, and today I had to travel the length and breadth of Delhi for three meetings – from near the airport to Noida, to Oberoi hotel (Lodhi Road) and from there to Gurgaon, and back to the airport; and all within 7 hours. So was it any [...]

It’s not everyday I gallivant around my city…it’s not everyday (even during winter) that it rains heavily in Chennai…and it is a very rare day indeed when I see absolutely verdant localities with deers roaming right next to the road. And when all the three happen on the same day in the city we all [...]

Read an interesting article in today’s Financial Express (Nov 29) that the government of India is considering providing tax breaks to companies if they can prove that the total carbon content of their operations had been on the lower side. In this context, it is reported that the ministry of company affairs would direct the [...]

About a week back, I had gone to Coimbatore to present a brief lecture on green IT, at the VLB Janakiammal College of Engineering, on the outskirts of the city. The college itself is located in a pleasant setting, almost amid the hills, so I must say it was a wonderful experience being there. . [...]

Came across a news item in the Business Line that kind of woke me up to an important area of concern – losing productive soil to erosion. The news item says that “India is losing 5,334 millions tons of soil every year because of indiscreet and excess use of fertilizers, insecticides and pesticides over the [...]

Here’s a nice summary of DIREC. Published by the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) in collaboration with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India.. For those who missed the actual event, I’m sure this will be good stuff Link

Came across an interesting article in the Business Line newspaper (18 Nov 2010) that talked about India’s sanitation woes. What really got me reading the article was the mention that a much larger percentage of Indians had mobile phones than those who had toilets. It struck me as an astonishing fact. That also got me [...]

The third EAI Club meet was organized on the 21st of November 2010. It was held at the EAI office on Nungambakkam High Road. The meet was attended by an eclectic mix of experienced industrialists, energy consultants, energy auditors, aspiring entrepreneurs and other green enthusiasts. The vibrant mix of people elevated the third EAI club [...]

It was a nice feeling for me to read earlier today an article by Sanjeev Chada, the CEO of PepsiCo India, on how Pepsi is using its deep knowledge in areas like nutrition science and irrigation techniques to strengthen the links between agriculture, environment and  nutrition. In India the company has worked with farmers to [...]

A few months back, I had written about the status of offshore wind in India ( see: http://eai.in/blog/2010/04/india-offshore-wind-status-trends-potential.html ) where I had mentioned that very little work had taken place in this area, to the extent that we do not even know the exact potential for offshore wind in India. A start finally appears to [...]

IBM, which is at the forefront of the US electricity ‘smart-grid’ project, is eyeing the Indian market. On the heels of piloting a grid technology with Shanghai Electric Power last week, IBM plans to offer solutions for the Indian grid managers. (http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/11/11/stories/2010111152230500.htm ) “IDOP, an online, real-time outage-planning tool, integrates data from relevant departments and [...]

The DIREC hardly got over and the next interesting trade fair with the green theme is in – The India International Trade Fair. This year, the India International Trade Fair (IITF) will showcase energy efficient technologies and green products. Prototypes of various technologies which use renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, hydroelectric and [...]

Until a few months back, only those in the natural gas industry had heard about shale gas (more from  http://bit.ly/3gJNBm). But now, it will be surprising if anyone in the energy industry and related domains had not heard about it. From some quarters, I hear that it is a bit too early to sing the [...]

At EAI, we do a fair bit of work along the entire solar PV business value chain. This gives us the opportunity to interact with a number of machinery and equipment providers for the solar PV industry. One thing that strikes you when you look at the machinery and technology providers is that there are [...]