The three primary routes for biomass to power are: Combustion, Gasification and Anaerobic Digestion. Combustion is easy to understand – instead of using coal or other fossil fuel, use biomass to produce steam that runs a turbine. Combustion of biomass for power could either be in the form of co-firing...

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...

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...

Azure power is the first commercial private power plant generating and supplying 1 MW power. For each unit of electricity pumped into the grid, the company gets Rs 15 from the Punjab State Electricity Board, of which Rs 6 is borne by the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy...

Several VCs/PEs/Companies have created funds which invest in clean technology or companies with partial clean technology operations, and have either invested, or are interested in investing in India. Some of these organizations and their investments are summarized as follows. Company Energy/Cleantech Specific Fund Activity/Investment Shell Group through their Shell Foundation...

The second EAI club meet of the year was held after a long hiatus on 8thMay, 2011 at the “Integree House”, Nungambakkam. People came together on a hot Sunday morning to create a very unique platform; to promote and catalyze clean renewable energy. The meet was represented widely by an...

Risk assessment is an essential part of decision making process for a lender or an investor. There are different types of risks at each stage of starting the module production venture and each risk has to be mitigated in different ways. Before making an investment decision in the solar PV modules...

Captive power generation is plagued with some issues. The main idea behind setting up solar based captive power plants was to get uninterrupted power supply and reduce the diesel cost. Industrial users who have the required resources to set up their own power plants for internal consumption can put up...

Biomass gasification utilizes renewable feed stocks for liberating the synthesis gas by thermal decomposition under high temperature conditions. Among the factors affecting the production protocol, cost economics play a critical role and is well pronounced in cases when the scale of operation is magnified. Entrepreneurs of gasification technology often make...

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...