CEE Oct-Dec 2012

Jewellery House Ltd. The company won by quoting. Tariff of Rs 7 a unit, which is till date a record-low in the Indian solar power industry. Third this week The opening of bids for the 25 MW project is the third announcement by any State in the last five days. On September 27, Andhra Pradesh came out with its solar policy, which basically gave several exemptions from standard charges and refunds of taxes paid on project inputs. The next day, Gujarat announced a 25 MW roof top solar initiative. Courtesy: The Hindu Business Line Chennai, 02.10.2012. India is one of the fastest growing solar power markets worldwide. This development is driven by policies introduced by the Indian government which over the coming years wants to turn India into one of the most important "solar states". This is the environment in which the international solar industry is meeting for the fourth year running at India's largest exhibition and conference for the solar industry, lntersolar India. The Indian solar market is undergoing sweeping developments. While , according to figures published by the Ministry for New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), India had a mere 10 megawatts (MW) of installed photovoltaic capacity in 2009, this figure had risen to over 200 MW by the end of 2011. According to MNRE forecasts, the total photovoltaic (PV) output will exceed the two-gigawatt (GW) mark before the end of this year. The Indian government has even more ambitious goals for the future: According to the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), the target is for 20 GW of capacity to be installed by 2022, making India one of the most promising and fastest growing solar markets in the world . According to Dr. Debashish Majumdar, Chairman and Director of the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), India's thirst for energy will double by 2020. The solar industry has the ideal prerequisites to play an eminent role in meeting this demand. According the management consultancy Ernst & Young, 250 to 300 days of sunshine per year and 4 to 7 kilowatt hours of insolation per square meter make India one of the most promising locations for solar energy in the world . In addition, there is no lack of space for solar power plants. Just one percent of the country's surface area would be enough to fully cover the forecasted electricity demand with PV by 2031. India not only holds great potential for large– scale PV systems, but also for grid-independent solar systems and the small local power grids known as microgrids. With 400 mi llion potential customers, this market offers similar potential to the market for cell phones, which enabled one in two Indian households to own a cell phone within the space of just a few years. The consultancy Bridge to India estimates that the photovoltaic market for telecommunication systems alone will account for 2 GW within the next five years. In addition, there is demand for PV insta llations to provide electricity for basic needs, such as lighting and electrical appliances. Courtesy: Total Energy, Jul.- Aug. 2012, P20. A Supreme Court-appointed panel on 7.9.2012 told the apex court that the actual forest cover in the country had fall en below 2 per cent and urged the court to make them no-go areas. "The dense forest cover in the country is 1.89 per cent, most of it in national parks and sanctuaries. To call the rest 'forests' is stretching the meani ng of the word," amicus curiae Harish N Salve said on behalf of the Centrally-Empowered Panel (CEC) which assists the court in dealing with forest-related cases. The senior counsel attributed to a court order passed way back on February 14, 2000, in which the top court had barred even removing of deadwood from the reserve parks and forests without its specific permission. Salve claimed that even when the Forest Conservation Act was passed in 1980, dense forest cover was 20 per cent, much less than the ideal 33 per cent of the land mass, he told a three– judge special bench dealing with forest matters. "The dense forests have to be sacrosanct, no-go areas," he said, suggesting a uniform buffer zone area around every such park or reserve." He dismissed state suggestions for determining buffer zones on a case-to-case basis, hinting this left scope for misuse. He said that all activities such as mining leases, setting of hazardous industries, brick kilns, wood-based industries should stay banned inside the sanctuaries and parks. Other activities such as hotels and restaurants, commercial chopper services, hydel projects, irrigation projects, canals, 40