EESL signs MoU with NDMC to install Smart Meters across 75,000 Delhi households.

Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a Super Energy Service Company (ESCO) under the administrative control of Ministry of Power, Govt of India, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) to replace 75,000 conventional electricity meters with smart meters, which will enhance consumer convenience and rationalise electricity consumption in the Capital....

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Mercedes-Benz: Plan for all-electric cars by 2030 not viable

Luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz has urged the government "not to rush with the all-electric vehicles push" and thus "foreclose better technological options" for future generations as the rest of the world is racing to run on hydrogen and not electricity.

 

Image Credits: WHEELS.ca

The car manufacturer also called for adopting a less ambitious plan of promoting e-cars arguing that a nationwide electrification of the auto industry is just not commercially and technologically viable. 
Read More at The Economic Times

40% of vehicles in India to become electric by 2030: SIAM

At least 40% of all vehicles in India may become electric by 2030, and 100% by 2047, according to a proposal made in a white paper, released by industry lobby Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) on electric vehicles.

The Union government wants domestic vehicle manufacturers to produce only electric vehicles by 2030. Siam, though in its letter, has proposed to move all vehicles used for public transport services to electric by 2030.

Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), a company floated by the ministry of power, has placed an order for 500 electric vehicles with Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra. The delivery of these vehicles has already started.

This article originally posted on Livemint.com 

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Are you getting your electricity bills on time?

Recently I read a case of Gurgaon, about electricity consumers getting their electricity consumption bills too late, say after three months in "Times of India". In this case, residents of Sushant Lok 2 and sector 56 were receiving their bills at almost three months, which is too late. DISCOM usually bills their domestic consumers bi-monthly across India. 

Usually DISCOM's meter readers, they are mostly employees of DISCOM takes meter reading by physically visiting consumer's door steps, prepare bill on sight and serve it to consumer. Now a days, Hand Held Equipment (HHE) is used by entering present meter reading. Past reading is usually stored in HHE's memory. When meter reader enters present meter reading against consumers account in HHE, electricity bill gets calculated in HHE as per tariff program. Electricity bill slip is printed in HHE and pasted on already printed bill which is served to consumer for making payment. 

The matter of concern is DISCOMs now a days are facing crunch of meter readers due to slower recruitment drives and in exercise of reducing manpower. In this scenario of lack of sufficient employees for meter reading work, DISCOMs officially appoints NGOs, Small Companies etc on usually annual terms as meter reading contractor and get meter reading done through their man power. It has been observed in most cases that, such contract system does not fetch encouraging results in terms of accuracy and time maintenance of meter reading process. Meter reading is a crucial activity for all DISCOM, as entire revenue income of DISCOM against electricity sell is dependent on accuracy and time maintenance of meter reading process. 

Late billing causes consumers to pay electricity bills at higher up tariff slabs, because consumers usage pattern is fixed and they are billed every two months falls within fix tariff slabs and they have become used to pay electricity bills accordingly. But if energy bill preparation gets late as above, consumer's consumption for excess days might get enter into next higher tariff slab, ultimately raising bill amount too high for them. Such incident creates grievances among consumers against DISCOM. 

In this high tech days where most consumers are having access to smartphones and internet and having world class customer care service experiences from banking, telecom and e-commerce sectors, DISCOMs still are facing such issues lagging behind them in providing satisfactory customer care services, which needs to be addressed by making processes technically advanced and high tech which might be beneficial both for consumers and DISCOMs.

Costa Rica has received its entire electricity needs from renewable energy sources in 2016.

Almost all Costa Rica's electricity was produced by renewable energy in 2016, continuing its reputation as a “verdant gem” among a pile of “black coal rocks”.

The Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said that around 98.1 per cent of the country’s electricity came from green sources.

These included large hydropower facilities, fed by a myriad of rivers and heavy seasonal rains, geothermal plants, wind turbines, solar panels and biomass plants.

The country used carbon-free electricity for more than 250 days last year with a continuous 110-day stretch from 17 June until 6 October.

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Gujarat Electricity Regulatory Commission has issued Tariff Orders for financial year 2016-17, for 4 Nos. of DISCOMs of Gujarat, i.e.

MGVCL (Madhya Gujarat Vij Company Limited),
UGVCL (Uttar Gujarat Vij Company Limited),
DGVCL (Dakshin Gujarat Vij Company Limited)&
PGVCL (Paschim Gujarat Vij Company Limited)

today on the petition filed by these DISCOMs for truing up of their financials for 2014-15, and determination of tariff for fiscal 2016-17, under the multi-year tariff regulations, rationalized tariff for various category of consumers.

Image: Indianexpress


 As per press note on website:

- Tariff for residential consumers reduced by 10 paise/unit
- Residential consumers of the villages located within the geographical jurisdiction of UDA shall be billed 25 paise/unit less compared to present energy charges.
- Tariff for LTMD category consumers reduced by 10 paise/unit after rationalization
- Tariff for HT category consumers reduced by 14 paise/unit after rationalization
- Various conditions related to night time consumption of electricity relaxed

Get Press Note and Tariff Orders

Coal-based power plants

On 15 May 2015, the Government of India came out with a draft notification on emission standards for coal based thermal power plants, opening it up for public comments. Till the time, there had been no specific emission standards for thermal power plants, except in respect of Particulate Matters which was also very high when compared to global standards.

There has been a series of publications in recent years by civil society groups like Greenpeace, Urban Emissions, Centre for Science and Environment on thermal power plants which have made headlines in India.  Some of the country’s premier engineering institutes have also came out with an extensive review on atmospheric pollution from coal based thermal power plants in India, such as this from the  Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi in May 2014.

Raichur Coal based Thermal Power Plant. Pic: Tanzeel Ahad

 

A simple Google search on the health impact of thermal power plants in India will yield millions of results. A recent scientific publication in a highly rated open source journal PNAS showed how the per- hectare yield of rice and wheat have decreased over the last decade owing to the increasing concentration of aerosols produced as secondary pollution from thermal power plants.  The problem was grave and pressure from civil society as well as attention from research institutes made it imperative for the Government of India to come out with the first ever draft notification on specific emission standards for coal-based thermal power plant.

The Centre for Science and Environment which recently published the green ratings of thermal power plants in India has welcomed the move of the Government and expressed satisfaction with the new norms proposed. “We believe these lower standards are acceptable given technical and economic limitations in installing pollution control equipment in older units” said Priyavrat Bhati, CSE’s Director for Green Ratings Project through the official press release.

The Narendra Modi-led government has been much criticised for diluting the environmental law of the country in order to accelerate industrialisation and the compliments for the draft standards make one curious to explore if it is indeed going to be effective in reducing emissions and providing cleaner air................................................................................

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