TSH to reap benefits from carbon credits (Malaysia)

February 20, 2008 (The Star Online) – As the world’s second largest crude palm oil producer, Malaysia has great potential to reap revenue from certified emission reduction (CER), or carbon credits. According to Aseambankers, palm oil milling, which produces organic waste, create opportunities to generate CERs. It named plantation player TSH Resources Bhd as one of the beneficiaries of CERs in Malaysia.

“Thanks to its biogas power generation, the group qualifies to sell carbon credits, potentially generating an estimated 300,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in carbon credit points per annum,” Aseambankers said in a recent report.

The research unit added that TSH had already secured annual sales of 150,000 CERs to a European buyer.

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Choppy certified emission reductions market to hit India most

February 20, 2008 (Economic Times) – Politics and jittery equity indices are making the global carbon credit markets nervous. Carbon credit prices have plunged in the last few weeks. This could be troubling for major supplier India, which sold 20 million carbon credits in 2007, and has a larger number in the pipeline. The bad news is there is little likelihood of things settling down any time soon.

India is already in danger of getting outpriced in the global carbon credit market, with China and Vietnam offering certified emission reductions (CER) at lower, more fixed prices. The price of carbon credits, or CERs, fell to e14 last week, down from e17 in December. Though they are now at e15.50, it not certain how soon they would claw back another e2.

Q-Cells 2007 sales rise, to start Asia production

February 19, 2008 (Reuters) – German solar cell maker Q-Cells reported strong full-year results and said it plans to invest more than 1 billion ringgit ($263.2 million) in its first production site in Asia.Q-Cells, which said on Tuesday it had become world’s largest solar cell producer by volume, said it plans to build a factory in Malaysia to take advantage of new growth markets and protect against currency fluctuations.

Solar companies around the world are expanding production capacity rapidly to meet growing demand for green energy to counter global warming.

Q-Cells said 2007 sales rose 59 percent to 858.9 million euros ($1.26 billion), which is more than its own target of least 800 million euros.

Lanco plans wind turbine facility in India

February 14, 2008 (Live Mint) – Infrastructure company Lanco Infratech Ltd is planning to set up one of the country’s largest wind turbines manufacturing facilities, to take advantage of shortage of wind turbines in the global and domestic markets, according to chairman Lagadapati Madhusudhan Rao. Lanco proposes to set up wind turbines facility close to Mangalore in Karnataka.

“We have tied up with a German engineering company for wind turbine technology. Currently prototyping of 2MW wind turbine is going on,” said Rao, who declined to name the German firm.

Lanco plans to set up a wind turbine manufacturing facility with an installed capacity of 500 units of 2MW turbine each a year at an investment of close to Rs500 crore, said Rao.
Work on the wind turbine manufacturing facility has been initiated and Lanco expects commercial launch of turbines sometime by September next year, added Rao.

SolarWorld plans to construct factory for solar modules in South Korea

February 9, 2008 (BusinessWeek) – SolarWorld AG is planning to invest EUR 60 million in the construction of a factory for solar modules in South Korea. The site will initially have a capacity of 120MW, twice as high as the figure planned in October. The factory’s capacity will then be doubled at a later date. Solarworld is planning this project together with Solarpark Engineering, its South Korean joint venture partner. This is the companies’ first site for the production of solar modules in Asia. The new factory is to become operational at the beginning of 2009.

New South Wales deflects calls for solar subsidies

February 19, 2008 (Sydney Morning Herald)- The Sun King has had a vision, but the NSW Government has its own ideas. Zhengrong Shi, the Australian-trained solar energy scientist who has in seven years gone from an academic position at the University of NSW to become the richest person in mainland China, yesterday called on the Government to intervene in the state’s energy market and subsidise solar panels on houses.

Dr Shi urged the Premier, Morris Iemma, to adopt a system of “feed-in tariffs”, in which people who generate solar energy at home can sell it back to the state grid at more than the market rate. Variations of the system work successfully in most European nations, Canada, Japan and China, leading to large increases in the number of people using solar power.

“It’s high time to promote renewable energy” in Indonesia

February 16, 2008 (Jakarta Post) – The idea of introducing nuclear power to Indonesia is nothing more than a vehicle for a few needy individuals to gain public attention. Any moderately educated engineer will agree that Indonesia’s need for electricity is widely decentralized so nuclear power or large coal power plants are the ideas of people lacking technical understanding.

It should be common knowledge that “the transmission of electricity over long distance comes with huge loss.” There are very few countries in the world with better chances than Indonesia to realize enormous decentralized energy generation at low cost or even free for the country.

Indonesia has a potential 27,000 MW of geothermal sources requiring low investment of which currently only 837 MW are in use. Why? Because Pertamina, PLN and the government have not, over the past 30 years, managed to give the many waiting investors investment security.

India’s carbon market is booming

February 15, 2008 (Financial Express) – India’s carbon market is growing faster than even information technology, bio technology and BPO sectors as 850 projects with an investment of a whopping Rs 65,000 crore are in pipeline. The revenue from 200 projects is estimated at $2 billion till 2012, according to Prodipto Ghosh, member of the Prime Minister’s Council on Climate Change. Ghosh was speaking at the ‘Carbon Credit Conference: The way beyond CDM’ here on Friday.

Sharp, KEPCO planning on Japan’s largest solar power plant

February 15, 2008 (Power Engineering) – Sharp and Kansai Electric Power Co. (KEPCO) are planning to jointly build Japan’s biggest solar power generation plant in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture. The new plant will have a total electricity generation capacity of 10 MW, informed sources said. For the plant, Sharp and Kansai Electric are planning to lease a 20-hectare site within the prefecture’s 280-hectare industrial waste disposal site in Sakai. The two companies aim to complete construction around autumn 2009.

Sharp will install its solar power generation panels. Kansai Electric will purchase electricity generated at the plant. A 5 MW facility in Sharp’s Kameyama Plant in Mie Prefecture, western Japan, is currently Japan’s largest solar power generation plant.

West Bengal (India) to have grid-connected solar power plant

February 14, 208 (IANS)- State-owned Power Finance Corp Ltd (PFC) Thursday inked a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with West Bengal Green Energy Development Corp Ltd (WBGEDCL) to set up India’s first grid-connected solar power plant. The 2-MW photovoltaic plant would come up at Dishergarh Power Station Complex near Asansol in Burdwan district of southern West Bengal.

“The unit will come up over 8.3 acres of land with an investment of more than Rs.410 million. The state government will take about Rs.400 million from the PFC to execute the project,” West Bengal Power Minister Mrinal Banerjee told reporters here.