News

The government will get a $155 million loan from the Asian Development Bank to help improve and expand its electricity services.

The work will focus mainly on electric services to the poor and those in areas of conflict, the Asian Development Bank said.

In a fresh bid to strengthen the national power-grid with another 400 MWs, 159 licences have already been issued to prospective corporate stakeholders to carry on with renewable energy power generation, and interested parties are bound to complete their projects within a set timeframe of two years, a Ministry of Power and Energy press release said.

Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf told a press conference on Wednesday that the country's first ever windmill project in Jhimpir, Sindh, will become functional on April 19. This would mark an important beginning towards power production from alternative sources of energy. Built by a Turkish company, the project is part of a 50mw wind farm.

San Francisco: Californians could soon be powering their homes, and no doubt their hot tubs, from a space-based solar electricity programme.

The plan by the state

A TIMELY call by experts at a roundtable the other day for alternative energy sources, undoubtedly, remind the planners both in the public and private sectors of the urgency of expediting the adoption of renewable energy technologies for meeting the growing demands for electricity.

The United States and Mexico agreed on Thursday on a new partnership to fight climate change and promote environmentally-friendly forms of energy production, they said in a joint statement.

The push to add more renewable wind and solar megawatts to the US electric mix will force changes in the way the power grid operates to keep electricity flowing reliably, said an industry watchdog Thursday.

Motorists are to be offered up to 5,000 pounds to encourage them to buy electric or hybrid cars under a new government plan.

The plan also sets aside 20 million pounds for charging points and infrastructure to develop a network of what the government calls "electric car cities".

The incentives will be offered from 2011 when a new generation of electric cars is expected to become available.

Ireland's Electricity Supply Board (ESB) expects private industry to create 3,700 jobs over the next five years, largely on the back of investments in green energy, the utility group said on Thursday.

Piyush Pandey & M V Ramsurya MUMBAI