The Tres Amigas Facility will be the first of its kind in the world and would be profitable allowing sale of power between the Three Grids.This unique initiative has received support from numerous stakeholders like utilities,transmission operators,Green Energy Suppliers etc.Extreme Power has been selected to provide Energy Storage Facilities and Energy Management Technology for this project.If this project gets built it will lead to the building of similar such facilities in the rest of the world and be a big boon in the quest of Mass Adoption of Green Energy.Note this Project seems to deserves a DOE Grant much more than the Billion Dollar Loans to Abengoa and Solyndra.

Nuclear Energy currently accounts for 21% of the electricity supply and would be replaced by renewable sources by that timeframe.However utilities which have a huge amount to lose want the reactors to stay.They are using the common language of anti-Green lobbies that it would lead to Job Losses and Energy Insecurity.They don’t think that Renewable Energy can replace the cheap Nuclear Power.This is the same argument being used by the opponents of California’s AB32 Law.Like the Solar Feed in Tariff Controversy earlier in the year,this fight too promises to be an interesting one though I think the Nuclear Lobby will lose.

Ontario had ample opportunity to learn from past experience and its Renewable Energy Subsidy Policy is on the whole quite good.However one part of the FIT program which gave a very generous 80.2c/KwH to micro installations of solar projects under 10 KW was faulty.It led to 160 MW of project applications which were ground mounted with very high production as they used trackers.There was no discrimination between roof and ground mounted micro installations leading to this problem.Note its not possible to install trackers on roofs which can increase the energy by 30-35%.The large number of applications were not factored in by the Ontario Power Authority (OPA) which proposed to retroactively cut those tariffs by 27% for ground plants.

Now Blackstone has decided to gamble on India’s Power Deficit Story by investing $300 million for an undisclosed stake in the company.With investment plans of $6.5 billion and parent company sinking under loads of debt,Moser Baer Projects desperately needed equity which has been provided by Blackstone.Its previous track record in Solar and Optical Media does not inspire a lot of confidence.But India’s 8-9% Growth Rate is like a Rising Tide which will lift all sorts of Boats.Blackstone is perhaps gambling more on that rather than on Moser Baer.

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) Technology is akin to putting Lipstick on a Pig (read Coal Power Plants).This Technology which has been hyped as the Green Answer to Coal’s Dirty Polluting Ways has never been proven on a commercial scale .Note the British Government promising CCS with every new Coal Plant.Despite numerous large pilot projects,the Technology remains immature.Even China which gets 80% of its electricity from Coal Power Plants and is the biggest emitter of GHGs,remains skeptical of this technology.

India’s Business and Political Elite continue to mock the Indian Legal System through loopholes and expensive lawyers.I had written earlier in a post of how Satyam Scandal Kingpin Ramalinga Raju enjoyed luxurious facilities at hospitals despite his jail term.He had managed to avoid questioning by the authorities through excuses of bad health and now he […]