Knowledge Centre

The UK-India Business Leaders Climate Group (BLCG) is made up of some of the UK and India’s leading businesses and is chaired by Marks and Spencers chairman Sir Stuart Rose and Rajan Bharti Mittal managing director of Bharti Enterprises. Today, it launched a report identifying significant business opportunities in India for low carbon goods and services and set out for the first time a ‘Charter of Principles’ aimed at boosting UK-India low carbon investment and trade in both directions. “It’s absolutely vital that India and the UK work together to…

New Delhi: Large hydro power projects held up for want of clearances would get a leg-up soon. The Planning Commission and the Union ministry of environment & forests have reached an informal understanding that the projects found to have little potential for environmental damage under preliminary assessments can be allowed to take off without waiting for more comprehensive studies of the whole basin. Confirming this to FE, Planning Commission member BK Chaturvedi said broader studies often took too long and made projects commercially unviable. A fourth of India’s planned expansion…

Renewable generation in the country is set to get a major boost, with the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) planning to launch power exchange-based trading of renewable energy certificates (RECs) soon. RECs will be issued to renewable power generators by national load despatch centre (NLDC) against power supplied to discoms at their average pool purchase cost. Discoms in renewable power-deficit states can buy these instruments against their renewable power purchase obligations (RPO). Trading will create liquidity in the market and make cost economics of renewable power projects more attractive for…

New Delhi: With land acquisition and environmental clearances proving increasingly difficult for wind power projects, India is exploring the potential for offshore wind power generation. Deepak Gupta, secretary, ministry of new and renewable energy, told FE that a study is being undertaken with the help of Chennai-based Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET) to ascertain the feasibility of setting up wind farms in India’s offshore areas.”We expect to complete the study in 2-3 years,” he said. Apart from hurdles in acquiring 4-5 acres to generate one mega watt of wind…