WIND: Suzlon planning $1.3 b wind project in Australia
Wed, Aug 31, 2011 | Updated 01.35PM IST
31 Aug, 2011, 11.30AM IST, PTI
MELBOURNE: Wind power company Suzlon Energy is planning a $ 1.3 billion project in regional South Australia to power 225,000 homes a year.
According to an ABC report today, Suzlon Energy Australia said the $ 1.3 billion wind farm will be built 20 kilometers South-West of Ardrossan, a small town on the East Coast of the Yorke Peninsula.
It said up to 180 turbines will generate 600 megawatts of energy and deliver power to 225,000 homes in Adelaide via an undersea cable.
The project is expected to create 500 construction jobs and 50 ongoing jobs will be completed by the end of 2015, it said.
Suzlon Energy Australia Commercial Director Chris Judd said the company was approached by local landowners last year to develop the project.
“It’s basically been a landowner-developed project and this has been a dream of theirs for over seven years now, so the beauty of this project is that it does come with some seven years of homework and data, etc., behind it to help justify its economics,” he said.
Suzlon is also involved with wind farm projects at Hallett, North of Adelaide.
Premier Mike Rann said the Yorke Peninsula proposal will add to South Australia’s green credentials.
It was reported that Rann met with the company, the biggest wind turbine supplier in India and the world’s fifth-largest, during a trade trip to the South Asian nation earlier this month, where he stated that Suzlon had “really been helping us in generating wind power”.
HYDRO: China building 4 HEP stations
Yangtze River Basis. Image via Wikipedia
China will invest 400 billion Yuan ($62 billion) to build four hydropower stations.
China Three Gorges Corp will be in charge of building the four hydropower stations — Xiluodu, Xiangjiaba, Wudongde and Baihetan — along the upstream portion of the Yangtze river.
Total installed capacity of the four power stations will be 43 million kilowatts and they will be able to supply 190 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually.
The Xiangjiaba hydropower station is scheduled to start operations in 2012, followed by Xiluodu station in 2013.
HYDRO: India to invest in 3 projects
Image via Wikipedia
A new joint venture entity — Chenab Valley Power Projects Pvt Ltd — will implement three projects having a total capacity of over 2100 MW. These are: Pakal Dul (1000 MW), Kiru (600 MW) and Kwar (520 MW).
Total investment to be made by the joint venture firm will be more than US$3 billion. NHPC‘s equity contribution will be around US$600million.
The three projects will be funded in a debt-equity ratio of 70:30.
In December, 2010, Jammu & Kashmir State Power Development Corp, NHPC and PTC India had inked a promoter’s agreement for setting up the new entity.
Jammu & Kashmir State Power Development Corp and NHPC would have 49 per cent stake each in the joint venture firm, while the remaining shareholding would be with PTC India.
Out of NHPC’s installed capacity of about 5,300 MW, over 1,600MW comes from J&K.
The company is presently operating four projects in J&K, having a total capacity of 1,680 MW. These are: Salal (690 MW), Uri-I (480 MW), Dulhasti (390 MW) and Sewa-II (120 MW).
The state-run firm plans to add another 690 MW of capacity by commissioning five projects — Chutak (44 MW), Uri-II (240 MW), Chamera-III (231 MW), the first unit of Parbati-III (130 MW) and Nimmo-Bazgo (45 MW) — by March, 2012.
Currently, NHPC — the country’s largest hydro electric power producer — is engaged in the construction of ten projects at various locations in the country, having a total installed capacity of 4502 MW.
Daily Business Beat Article:Alstom to Establish Wind Power JV in China — sinocast
CRANES: Kandla Port India
Chinese Suppliers US Report
A different China has emerged for western parts makers, who no longer see the country as a low-cost source of components. North American suppliers sought footholds in China for reasons that turned out to be the wrong ones. Pressured by U.S. carmakers, they wanted to achieve the “China price,” the then-new global benchmark for low-cost production. Western parts makers put together strategies to import parts from China for North American OEM customers.
But China evolved far differently. Just listening to the suppliers at last month’s Shanghai auto show, one could hear executives beginning to sound exasperated about the pressure of trying to meet the demands of customers.
Western suppliers aren’t interested in sourcing components from China; they are working flat-out to keep pace with the world’s largest market. They can afford to spend little time thinking about China as anything other than a vast market that must be served.
Chinese companies are highly fragmented, with inadequate economies of scale with their lack of size resulting in little R&D capability. But there is an effort underway to consolidate China’s supplier industry.
Some Chinese suppliers are trying to strengthen themselves by making acquisitions overseas.
Meanwhile, western companies continue to make investments and acquisitions and form partnerships. Johnson Controls is forming a joint-venture in the city of Changsha to produce interiors for Guangzhou Automobile and Fiat. TRW says it plans to open a technical center in Shanghai in 2013. Michelin recently signed a joint venture agreement with Double Coin Holdings Ltd. to produce tires for cars and light trucks in China.
(credited to supplier business news & analysis)
HYDRO: Chili clears 2.75GW Project
A $7-billion (U.S.) project to dam two of the world’s wildest rivers for electricity has won environmental approval Monday from a Chilean government commission, despite a groundswell of opposition.
The commissioners – all political appointees in President Sebastian Pinera’s government – concluded a three-year environmental review by approving five dams on the Baker and Pascua rivers in Aysen, a mostly roadless region of remote southern Patagonia where rainfall is nearly constant and rivers plunge from Andean glaciers to the Pacific Ocean through green valleys and fjords.
Monday’s vote – 11 in favour and one abstention – could prove to be pivotal for the future of Chile, which has a booming economy, vast mineral wealth and a determination to join the elite group of first-world nations.
With its energy-intensive mining industry clamouring for more power and living standards improving, some analysts say Chile must triple its capacity in just 15 years, despite having no domestic oil or natural gas. Chile imports 97 per cent of its fossil fuels and depends largely on hydropower for electricity, creating a crisis when droughts drain reservoirs or faraway disputes affect energy imports.
Supporters say the economic benefits of the dam project justify carving roads through the heart of Chile’s remaining wilderness and running 1,600 kilometers of transmission lines to power the capital, Santiago.
The dams together could generate 2.75 gigawatts, nearly a third of central Chile’s current capacity, within 12 years. The Aysen region will receive less expensive energy, jobs, scholarships and $350-million in infrastructure, including seaports and airports, said HidroAysen’s executive vice-president, Daniel Fernandez.
But people in the sparsely populated area are divided. Only three dozen families would be relocated, but the dams would drown 5,700 hectares, require carving clear-cuts through forests, and eliminate whitewater rapids and waterfalls that attract ecotourism. They also would destroy habitat for the endangered Southern Huemul deer: Fewer than 1,000 of the diminutive animals, a national symbol, are believed to exist.
“They should advocate for the citizens, but it seems that what really matters here is drawing foreign investment,” said Tortel Mayor Bernardo Lopez, who says 600 people in his community depend on tourism.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer for the U.S.-based National Resources Defense Council, appealed to Mr. Pinera to call off the project.
“It’s the most beautiful place, I believe, on the planet,” said Mr. Kennedy, who kayaks there every year. “I don’t know any place like Patagonia.”
Investors have spent $220-million on the project so far, but opposition has grown to 61 per cent of Chileans according to the latest Ipsos Public Affairs poll, and the government is concerned about a backlash.
Protests were planned for downtown Santiago, and more than 1,000 people gathered outside the hearing in the regional hub of Coyhaique, chanting and carrying signs. Some threw rocks at commission members when they arrived, and clashed afterward with hundreds of police, who responded with a water cannon. Several protesters were bloodied in the melee.
Mining and Energy Minister Laurence Golborne had urged opponents to turn to the courts instead. Interior Minister Rodrigo Hinzpeter sent in extra police.
“The most important thing is that our country needs to grow, to progress, and for this we need energy,” Mr. Hinzpeter said before the vote.
Chile’s decision has lessons for a world confronting a future without inexpensive fossil fuels and questioning nuclear safety. The country has abundant renewable-energy potential, from dams on its many rivers to year-round sun in its northern deserts, wind along its long Pacific coast, numerous geothermal sites and biomass from its large agricultural industry.
But Chile gets less than 5 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources other than hydroelectricity, has done little to encourage efficiency, and lacks a strategy for securing future supplies, although a government commission will make such recommendations by September.
While a growing number of countries are modernizing networks to enable countless individuals with rooftop solar panels to contribute electricity, Chile’s grids aren’t even linked.
It’s another legacy of dictator Augusto Pinochet: To encourage development and undo his socialist predecessor’s attempts at land reform, he made waterways the property of the state energy company and eliminated regulations to protect competing interests. The rules remained even after the company was privatized and sold to foreigners.
As a result, Chile’s rivers are the tax-free, private property of the Spanish-Italian Endesa energy company, which now has huge influence and few incentives to modernize the system in ways that would encourage competition. Colbun SA, a Chilean electricity generator, also is participating in the HidroAysen project.
“It makes no economic sense. The big energy demand is coming from the northern part of the country and the metals industry, and in those regions you already have available resources,” Mr. Kennedy said. “The Atacama desert is ideally suited to solar thermal production. It’s got the altitude, 365 days of sunlight a year and power lines that already exist, and in most cases you’re only a few miles from the industries you’re powering. The only reason these dams are being built is because of the political clout that Endesa has over the Pinera government.”
MR. Fernandez said HidroAysen will help Chile to receive the cheapest, cleanest electricity possible. Several Chilean energy experts also dismissed solar as uncompetitive and years away from relevancy, and warned that the only alternative is dirty and imported coal. Chile recently approved Latin America’s largest coal-fired plant, to power a mine near the northern deserts. Two other coal plants received the okay on Friday.
Mr. Kennedy’s counterpoint is a huge $2.2-billion, 2.6-gigawatt solar project being built in the Mojave desert with private money and U.S. government guarantees. It already has 20-year contracts to supply California’s utilities starting in two years, much quicker than HidroAysen. “This is proven technology that is being used all over the world,” he said.
Monday’s dam decision may only intensify the debate. Environmentalists predict more damage from the transmission lines, which face a separate environmental review in December. Their construction could open remote Patagonia to much more development, and the area’s abundant water could attract even more dams once the lines are built.
But last month’s poll, which also showed 84 per cent opposition to nuclear energy, suggests Chileans care more now about the environment, said Douglas Tompkins. The poll had a sampling margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Mr. Tompkins, a clothing entrepreneur, and his wife, Kris, have used much of their fortunes from the Esprit, North Face and Patagonia companies to create Parque Pumalin, where 10,000 tourists a summer visit a nature reserve running all the way from the Argentine border to the sea. The couple have objected to letting the lines cut through the park; Mr. Fernandez cited technical reasons, not political ones, for a 160-kilometre undersea detour.
The battle shows Chileans can no longer trust the free market alone, Mr. Tompkins said: “The electric law in Chile is so skewed to the power companies, virtually guaranteeing inefficiencies and monopolies, that it is counterproductive to the interests of citizens and certainly counterproductive to the health of nature.”
But HidroAysen’s “benefits outweigh the drawbacks, from the development perspective,” said Maria Isabel Gonzalez, who used to run Chile’s National Energy Commission.
“This project is necessary for the country. It’s not ideal that they’re the same ones who already have an important percentage of the generation of the central grid – this isn’t acceptable, but it’s what there is,” the lobbyist said.
“Chile is still a poor country, with 2.5 million poor people, and to overcome poverty we need energy, and for that reason we need to develop our own resources, the most competitive ones. … It would be very selfish on the part of the rich countries to say, ‘Look how they’re destroying these uninhabited pristine areas.”‘
HYDRO: Arunachal Hydro Scam…
Arunachal Pradesh chief minister Dorjee Khandu’s death in a chopper crash could bury a ‘hydro project signing scam’, dealing a fiscal blow to several corporate houses.
Between 2006, and December 2009, the Arunachal Pradesh government signed more than 150 pacts with hydropower developers to generate 63,000 MW of power.
As per a clause in the agreement, the developers — many without power sector experience — paid an upfront premium per megawatt the government had fixed arbitrarily.
The ‘MoU virus’— as union environment minister Jairam Ramesh calls it — saw private players paying a premium of Irs.150000/MW for projects of 100-499mw capacity, Irs.200000/mw for 500-999 mw projects and Irs.300000/mw for 1000mw or more.
However, the projects were far from transparent and only 12% of them were allotted through competitive bidding. A Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India report cast doubts over the project-signing spree and pointed out that the advance processing fee deprived the government of interest income of Irs.31million.
Khandu’s “dream” of making Arunachal Pradesh “India’s power capital” had met with resistance at home too. “The government under him played with nature,” said Vijay Taram of Forum for Siang Dialogue, an anti-dam NGO.
Other anti-dam NGOs also accused the Khandu government of ensuring a kickback. Green activists said documents on the ‘hydropower scam’ in Arunachal Pradesh ran into 400 pages. An activist opposing the NHPC’s Lower Subansiri dam said, “We have written letters to the CBI and NIA seeking a thorough probe, but they have been unresponsive.”
Argentina supports bill requiring companies to distribute 10% of profits to workers
A day before Tuesday’s round of talks between Argentina’s organized labor (CGT) and the Industrial Union (UIA) to consider the possibility of a ‘social pact’ to help contain prices (inflation), the government expressed support for a law sponsored by unions that requires companies to distribute 10% of profits to workers.
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