Speaking at a seminar on sustainable energy for economic growth organised by the Southern India Chamber of Commerce and Industry, state power minister Natham R Viswanathan, said that the state’s wind generation capacity was 6,067 Mw. Of this, nearly 300Mw is not used due to evacuation problems.

To strengthen the grid that carries electricity generated from wind, the government is planning to set up sub-stations and transmission lines at a cost of Rs 3,000 crore. “We have private players in generation. Now we are planning to involve them in transmission and distribution too,” he said.

Viswanathan invited companies to invest in Tamil Nadu without fear of power shortage. He said that the state will have surplus power after 2012. He said that in the next five years, 23,000 Mw will be added to the grid. The power demand in the state was growing at 7 per cent, but there was no proportional growth in the generation sector. The installed capacity is 10,237 Mw and generation is 8,000 Mw. The demand is 10,500 Mw. “Our government has formulated short, interim and long term plans to solve the power crisis in the state,” he said.

Tamil Nadu Electricity Board (TNEB) chairman Hans Raj Verma has asked private players to set up coastal power generation plants in the state. Verma said Tamil Nadu had a long coastline and many ports, so it would be easy to import coal from Indonesia and Australia. He said the proximity of the sea would ensure that the thermal plants did not face shortage of water. “Tamil Nadu does not have a coal mine, but coal can be imported as we have good ports,” said Verma.

He said private firms can play a role in wind power evacuation. Tamil Nadu has a wind power generating capacity of 6,012 Mw and there is still potential for producing more. But the challenge is to carry the generated power to distribution points without wastage. “If the grid infrastructure can be strengthened, we can utilise every unit generated,” said Verma.

State energy secretary Ramesh Kumar Khanna said 4,640 Mw will be added to the grid by the end of 2012. The state is also gearing for a capacity addition of 8,900 Mw. Khanna said the state will soon come up with a renewable energy policy which would include solar power. “We are also trying to reduce transmission loss from 18.5 per cent to 18.1 per cent,” he said.
Times of India

The NALCO board approved the project at a recent meeting, they said. “The project is a part of NALCO’s green initiative to promote sustainable development by harnessing unconventional energy sources,” chairman-cum-managing director B L Bagra said. “The project, planned with a capacity utilisation factor of 22 per cent, is scheduled to be completed in about eight months. The power generated will be sold to the Andhra Pradesh state grid,” he said.

The project will also enable NALCO to meet its obligation under a recently promulgated regulatory requirement to generate 5 per cent of its energy consumption from renewable sources or buy renewable energy certificates (RECs). Earlier, NALCO had signed an MoU with Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd (NPCIL) to set up a nuclear power plant under a joint venture, company sources said.

NALCO is also implementing different environment-oriented projects under the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), conforming to the norms of the Kyoto Protocol. The CDM projects were being taken up at NALCO’s smelter, captive power plant and refinery, where better technology will be used to further reduce greenhouse gases. The projects have been cleared by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, they said.
Agencies

The hacker, who calls himself Bigr R, made the claims Saturday, posting screenshots of the facility’s management interface, screenshots of an FTP server and project management system, as well as Web server info and configuration data from a Cisco router.

But NextEra Energy Resources, the company that manages the 200 megawatt Fort Sumner wind facility, says there’s no evidence that it’s been hacked. “We have investigated the claims of a potential computer hacking and found that the information provided as proof of hacking is largely publicly available information, which by itself would not be adequate to launch a successful attack against the named SCADA system or wind site,” said Steve Stengel, a company spokesman. “We have not seen any evidence of a breach.”
SCADA or supervisory control and data acquisition computer systems are used to manage industrial production at places such as factories, chemical companies and utilities.

Stengel did not say exactly what information that the hacker posted had previously been made public and what was not.

PNM, he New Mexico utility company that uses the plant’s energy said Sunday that it knew of no incidents affecting the company’s Fort Sumner facility.
In an email interview with the IDG News Service, Bigr R, said he was a former employee of NextEra’s parent company, Florida Power & Light. He said he used a bug in the Cisco Security Device Manager software used by NextEra to break into the site. “They gave to it public IP, so it was easy to hack into it through the Web,” he said. “They used default passwords, which I got from one of administrators. Then I obtained level 15 priv. (superuser), and understood the topology of SCADA networks. Then it was easily to detect SCADA and turn it off.”

Security experts contacted Sunday said that it wasn’t possible to tell whether Bigr R’s claims were true. It’s also not clear that he ever really worked for Florida Power & Light, said Wesley McGrew, an industrial systems security researcher with McGrew Security. “It’s just really difficult to establish what’s going on either way,” he said

Agencies

The power purchase agreement for 15 Mw has been executed with the Tamil Nadu Generation & Distribution Company (TANGEDCO). Kolkata-headquartered TEECL provides engineering, procurement and construction services to the power sector in generation, transmission and distribution areas.
Agencies

“We are diversifying in renewable energy resources… We are going to set up 50 Mw wind mill in 4-5 states where wind energy is available. “… Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Rajasthan and some portions of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat have been shortlisted,” SJVN chairman and managing director R P Singh said.

According to him, tenders for the proposed wind power project are in advanced stage of preparation and the wind mills are expected to be in place next year. “By June… We will able to float the tender. So, hopefully, we want to complete the tender process by year-end. “If everything goes well, by next year, we will be able add to our company’s megawatt an installed capacity of another 50 Mw,” Singh said.

Without disclosing details, he said the company has “a good cash surplus” to fund its projects. The entity posted a profit of Rs 972.74 crore in 2009-10. SJVN is a joint venture between the Central government and Himachal Pradesh state government.

The company is also working towards setting up ten hydroelectric power projects in Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand as well as in neighbouring nations of Nepal and Bhutan. It currently has an installed capacity of 1,500 Mw.
Agencies

The JV firm, Satarem Enterprises India, would set up its first, modern wind power system, Windsat, which would have twice the capacity of normal wind power systems while utilising the same space, said Venkatesh Sivaraman, managing director, Satarem India.
We are planning to set up a wind power system to intially generate 50 KW of power, which could go up to 1 Mw in future,” he said.

The manufacturing facility would be set up in Coimbatore and units would be established in Chennai and Bangalore in five months, with an investment of Rs 7 crore. It is waiting for approval from the Centre for Wind Energy and Technology to commence the project.

Windsat system, consisting of a new generation of wind turbines, will have towers of different modules vertically integrated and electrically connected. The tower would also be equipped with an orientation system enabling the wind turbine to align with the wind direction. It has also initiated a study in Chennai on possibilities of converting municipal waste to energy, based on which it plans to tie up with the state government for setting up a facility to generate energy from waste.

It would initiate discussions with the state governments of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Punjab for the project after analysing the study report, which is expected to be ready by 17 March 2011, said Sivaraman. The company expects to generate a revenue stream for the business from cement and lime production, waste tipping fees and power generation.

Satarem AG is a global cement manufacturing firm with expertise in cement, energy and heat recovery business. SA India, established in 1974, is in textile brand development, retail management and logistics business.
Agencies

The company, with its assets mostly in India, said it had started building a 65 Mw wind project in the western state of Maharashtra, and that the Reliance Infra deal was to supply 200 Mw of wind power at a current rate of Rs 5.07 per kilowatt-hour. Greenko also signed a technology pact with General Electric Co for turbines designed for low-wind regimes and said it was reviewing other states such as Karnataka, Rajasthan and Andhra Pradesh for wind power opportunities.

According to the Global Wind Energy Council, India was ranked 5th in the world in 2009, with a wind energy capacity of 1,271 Mw, or 3.3 per cent, of the world total.

The company, which has a market value of 167.8 million pounds and operates hydro, biomass and gas-based plants, said it expects to achieve a 1 gigawatt operating capacity by the end of fiscal 2014.

The plant, to be set up at Jethana in Ratlam district, will have seven turbines with a capacity of 750 kW each aggregating to 5.25 Mw. After the commissioning of the new machines, Nakoda’s wind power capacity will increase from existing 6.75 Mw to 12 Mw, it said. Nakoda proposes to acquire wind mills from Global Wind Power (GWPL), a company floated by Reliance ADAG Group. The wind turbines are developed by GWPL in collaboration with Norwin Denmark, the statement said.

The company will enter into a power purchase agreement with Madhya Pradesh Electricity Board to supply around 112 lakh units annually at Rs 4.35 per unit for 13 years. The investment will have a positive impact on the balance-sheet of Nakoda, statement added. “We are happy to commence our second wind power project after the one in Tamil Nadu. With the project in Madhya Pradesh, we enter into new territory and hope to mark our presence across the country,” Nakoda chairman and managing director Babubhai Jain said.

The orders include delivery, installation and commissioning of the turbines, VestasOnline Business SCADA solutions, and service and maintenance agreements. Delivery of the turbines is expected in the fourth quarter of 2010, and according to Vestas, the company and the customer have already a proven track record in the coastal region of the Shandong province.

Vestas China president Jens Tommerup said that the company has had great results working with this customer not only in Shandong but in different areas of China, mainly because of its service that caters to the customer’s specific needs.