LATEST IN POWER SECTOR

PowerGrid FPO in November second week

The state owned utility firm, Power Grid Corporation is expected to issue its
follow-on public offer in the second week of the November. The chairman and
managing director of the firm, S. K. Chaturvedi has made this announcement
in his statement on Wednesday. This issue will reportedly follow the initial
public offer of Coal which is one of the biggest equity offering.

The share price of the company rose by 1.6% on this news in the Nifty even if
Nifty fell by 0.63% on that day. The government wants to bring the state
owned companies on to the market to take advantage as soon as possible.

The chairman of the utility firm said “we are hoping to raise Rs. 8600 crore by
bringing the FPO in the November but Rs. 4300 crore of the total funds will go
to the government and rest of the fund will come to us”.

Mr. Chaturvedi said this in his statement on the sideline of a power

conference arranged by the Indian Electricals & Electronics Manufacturer
Association (IEEMA) and PowerGrid. The company has planned to use the
fund gained by FPO in its new projects in various part of the country.

Suzlon makes a rebound on the new order

The energy major in the country, Suzlon has recently made a perfect
comeback on the bourses after reporting early loss in its share price. The
stock price of the company rose by .35% standing at Rs. 56.75 at 10.05 AM
IST.
It is to be mentioned here that the stock of the company moved northwards
after reporting that it has won a order of 202.2 MW wind power project from
the Kolkata based Techno Electric Group. The valuation of the contract is
expected to be somewhere around Rs. 1150 crore mark.

While the stock price of the company fell by close to .79%, the news of this
bagging of the contract made the stock price move up quickly.

On the other end, the sensex moved up by 128.98 points or .65% to

20,035.08. It may be noted here that the stock price of the company has
outperformed the markets over the past one month and it has gained close to
14.45% as compared to the 8.17% jump registered by the markets.

For the record, the equity capital of the large cap wind turbine maker stands
at close to Rs. 349.8 crore.

US worried about nuclear liability

US companies want to contribute through business of Indian nuclear arena

and the Obama administration is trying to encourage a scenario where such a
thing can be developed.

As per the views of industry related people and experts of US, the legislation
that has been passed by both the Houses of Parliament in India as well as
houses in US, is under risk if at all an accident in case of supply of raw
material happens. Suppliers and technology if deter from participation will
also impact the whole nuclear liability of India.

Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, Robert O.
Blake said, "We continue to encourage the Indian government to provide
domestic and international suppliers, including, of course, American
suppliers, the opportunity to help India to meet its ambitious nuclear power
generation goals."

Also there is rising concerns that many of the provisions of the legislation is
not in accordance with the international standards. Blake, however, is hopeful
that the two governments can sit together and can find out an amicable
solution.

The N-issue is also being raised during the ongoing meetings of the foreign
ministry officials of both the nations.

Nuclear accountability Bill goes after international principles: MoS

Declaring that the civil nuclear liability Bill has been outline as stated by
internationally-accepted principles in civil liability jurisprudence, Union
Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan expressed that
the recompense -related harms that completed the Bhopal gas victims run
from pillar to post shall not be frequent as a legislation will be in area to get
care for such subjects.

Expressing at an interactive meeting planned by the Indian Merchants’

Chamber on Saturday, Chavan further expressed that the Bhopal disaster
shall not be frequent. The first consideration at the back the Civil Liability for
Nuclear Damage Bill was the quick damages to fatalities in case of any
accident.

He acknowledges the bill as an iconic legislation that shall serve as a

prototype for additional industries as well.

Moreover there was a requirement to explain a accountability regime for all

stakeholder in situation of any annoying event, he expressed more and
added that the Bill placed the liability completely on the machinist of the
nuclear plant, at Rs 1,500 crore, and in outstanding cases at a utmost of Rs
2,100 crore and the Bill will not put any cap on whole return that may be
approved to victims.

Any sum further than the Rs 2,100-crore cap shall have to be tolerated by the
administration.
U.S. Exim Bank to finance $900m Reliance Power project

Reliance Power received a $900 million loan from the US Export-Import Bank
for establishing a coal-fired power plant in India.

The USEIB apparently reversed a prior decision and refused the funding
request when its Board of Directors voted in majority to give a nod to the
loan for the 3,960 megawatt Sasan power plant in the state of Madhya
Pradesh.

Reportedly, the USEIB's earlier rejection to fund the project was due to
criticism of the power plant by environmental committees, whose argument
was that the project would emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and add to
global warming.

Even though the funding has been decided, a nod from the U. S. Congress for
the project is still awaited.

The bank's President Fred Hochberg is optimistic, and said the bank is glad at
Reliance's efforts towards the renewable energy project. This project is the
biggest financing supported by USEIB to any Indian corporation.

The aim of the loan is that Reliance Power will make use of the loan
guarantee to give support to the sale and export by Wisconsin-based Bucyrus
International for mining equipment.

Gas To Dominate Generation

Natural gas

Oct 01, 2010 | Martin Rosenberg

Natural gas continues to loom large over America's energy sector, with
abundant supplies affecting every aspect of the industry. Natural gas-fired
generation will represent 82 percent of generation capacity additions in the
power sector in 2013, the government has just reported. To better
understand the factors shaping the gas industry, EnergyBiz Insider recently
interviewed Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, the
second-largerst producer of natural gas and most active driller in the United
States, according to its website.

Can Electricity be Manipulated?

Power of Money

Sep 30, 2010 | Ken Silverstein

Critics of electricity deregulation are drawing a corollary between the

banking crisis and power companies, noting that big business simply can't be
trusted until it is tightly controlled. Utilities should not take their distrust
personally. The same applies to Big Oil, with a strong emphasis being put on
how the BP oil spill could have prevented if the government had just done its
job. Advocates of deregulation say that such a premise could not be further
from the truth.

Economic Downturn Hamstrings IT

Stimulus About to Kick In
Published In: EnergyBiz Magazine
September/October 2010

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AS THE ECONOMY ATTEMPTS TO EMERGE from one of the worst downturns in

recent memory the harsh economic climate is shaping utility IT investment
plans. Although some utilities believe that the worst is over, most believe
that 2010 will remain a challenging year.

Energy Central recently conducted brief interviews with more than 1,100 of
our readers. When asked how the current economic situation is affecting the
projects and initiatives that they are working on, only 17.4 percent said they
felt positively, and that they were through the worst and now have the
opportunity to grow. Nearly half of the respondents indicated that the current
economic situation was having a moderately negative impact with a
moderate hit to their budgets, and 16 percent communicated that the
economy was having a huge negative impact on their projects. Only 20.2
percent of the respondents had a neutral opinion. As one employee of a large
Midwestern investor-owned utility put it, “meeting customers’ needs despite
budget cuts, hiring freezes, and increased work loads” is a key business
challenge these days.

Energy Central, the parent company of EnergyBiz, also asked readers how
their 2010 technology purchases, infrastructure investment or capital
equipment budgets would compare with 2009 levels. Among the readers,
41.8 percent indicated that their 2010 budgets would be flat, and more than
30 percent indicated that budgets would be lower. According to Glenn
Steiger, general manager at Glendale Water and Power, “Trying to balance
our capital resourse requirements without adversely affecting rates in our
current economic condition” is a key challenge.

One thing the economic slowdown has done that may be beneficial to our
industry is that it seems to have created an atmosphere in which utilities are
making informed decisions regarding IT investments. Increasingly, utilities
are setting measurable goals as to the benefit the replacement or change
would bring to the bottom line, analyzing whether an IT purchase or change
would cause the utility to expend more effort to integrate it than the potential
benefit would justify, and examining whether certain technologies are
progressing at a rate with which the utility can keep pace. With many utilities
being driven to curtail major spending, more utilities are electing to pursue
cost-sensitive strategies that extend the life of their current assets versus
making whole-system replacements.

The sluggish economy has also led to what many consider to be a positive
development in the IT vendor community. Increasingly, vendors are moving
away from large, expensive, monolithic applications that can take years to
implement. Instead, they are moving toward multipurpose components that
will handle a single function for a large number of processes.
The cost advantage for utilities is clear – utilities will not need to duplicate
functionality. Likewise, vendors will be able to offer robust components to
every business process.

Although the industry appears to be concerned about the economy,

considerable IT spending remains in the utilities sector today. Much of that
investment is focused on smart grid initiatives. With the federal government
contributing more than $3.4 billion in stimulus funding to smart grid projects
and continued interest in smart grid initiatives and associated cyber security
remaining high, expect the purse strings to begin to loosen in the second half
of the year.

The biggest segment of IT spending is likely to involve advanced metering

infrastructure. A lack of firm, documented standards combined with access to
grant and stimulus funds seems to be making spending on hard infrastructure
the primary focus, while building applications in the smart grid area is a
secondary focus.

The challenges that utilities will face with the new smart grid endeavors are
many. Utilities will need to develop new products and successfully market
these new products to their customers.

Utilities will also need to replace legacy systems that reflect a historically
stable and static business environment and that lack the flexibility required
for smart grid initiatives.

Additionally, utilities will need to more effectively manage customer

communication and education.

These challenges are all driving utilities to look at their systems and the
development of a strategy that effectively manages the data and transforms
it into valuable information related to customer interactions.

Stimulus spending has just started to flow and it should pick up in the coming
months and into 2011. Most utilities that previously justified advance
metering infrastructure and smart grid projects will continue with those plans.
An uptick in IT spending should occur in the coming months, and it will drive
new information systems, architectures and business models.

JAPAN RISING SOLAR - At What Cost?

Posted At : July 28, 2010 4:08 PM | Posted By :
Martin Rosenberg
Related Categories: Business & Corporate,
Clean Power Investing, Electric Vehicles,
General, Solar

AEON Lake Town Center fashions itself as Japan`s largest mall and one of the
largest in Asia.

It also may well be the most energy efficient palace to shopping anywhere in
the world. It opened two years ago on the sprawling plains outside of Tokyo,
about a half hour drive from the center of city in off-peak traffic periods. The
place is gleaming. Fitting its image, one smacks into a Prius dealership
walking in one of the main entry ways. A soaring ovoid structure nestled next
to the building is topped with photo-voltaics, as are some high awning-like
projections from the main building.

The developer of the mail with 565 stores says the goal was to develop `the
most comfortable shopping center in the world.`

A spokesman for Kyocera, which made the PV planted on the facility, said
that in March 2009, the PV generated 41.8 megawatt hours of power, and
during the preceding six-month winter period, it cranked out 186 megawatt
hours.
The group of visiting American utility executives were duly impressed. But
when one member of the group, assembled by the Solar Electric Power
Association, asked about the relative cost of the power and the business
practicality of the investment, the Kyocera guy and a number of Japanese
officials could not come up with a clear answer.

Which was an answer in itself.

Particularly coming one day after the group`s visit to Ota City, where aided
with generous government support a neighborhood of 553 homes were
outfitted with solar panels, free to the residents involved in an experiment.
The object of t he effort that lasted from 2002 to2008 was to study in detail
the technical issues that are created when a small area densely equipped
with PV is integrated into a larger power grid. All the homes, with a capcity of
2,200 kilowatts, were connected to a single distribution line.

`We assume this is the prototype of the smart grid,` one executive said.

After a tour of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and

Technology, Koichi Sakua, director of its international affairs department, told
the group that Japan once was number one in photovoltaics. `We would like
to come back to that position.`

Japan`s government is investing what it can, but the sum is diminished as it

like other governments in the world deals with a debilitating long-term
economic slide. Private sector outfits like the owners of the AEON mall are
stepping into the breach.

So as a society, Japan has its shoulder to the wheel trying to figure out where
the next big break through will come cutting solar costs and solving the many
technological challenges of integrating it into the power system.

But as I walked through the venerable Tsukiji Fish Market in the pre-dawn
hours this morning in a jet-lag lingering fog, i couldn`t help but reflect on the
fact that this is a merchant nation. Every last person working the fish market
knows the value of each fish down to the smallest prawn. When will they
apply that fine-tuned sense of commercial value to the whale of an enterprise
waiting to be born worldwide - and help solar reach its full potential?

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