On 1 May 2013, South Australia's water minister, Ian Hunter, announced that a brackish-water desalination plant to deliver improved water quality to the town of Hawker, in the Flinders Ranges 100km north of Port Augusta, had been approved for construction. A final report to the state House of Assembly on the same day said that the reverse-osmosis plant would provide 500 m³/d with a target salinity of <60 ...

Suzlon Energy Ltd., India’s largest wind-turbine maker, said plans to build a plant in South Africa are “advanced” as President Jacob Zuma’s government prepares to accept renewable-power proposals in a third round of bidding. “We are looking forward to submitting a new bid,” Silas Zimu, chief executive officer of Suzlon’s local unit, said today in an interview at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town. “We e ...

An offshore wind farm is expected to be built on Dalian Island in Pingtan county, Fujian province, next year by China Guangdong Nuclear Power Holding (CGNPC) with an investment of 4.5 billion yuan ($731.25 million). Tang Jiansheng, vice-general manger of CGNPC, visited Pingtan and discussed details of the project with local government authorities. "Pingtan boasts rich, clean energy resources and has great p ...

The EU have confirmed plans to impose a strict anti-dumping tariff onto Chinese solar panel manufacturers. The news came shortly after a conference at the European Commission. The tariff will be between 37.2 and 67.9%, with an average of 47.6% levied against the companies that did not co-operate in EU investigating into dumping. This action is to counter Chinese dominance in the European market, gained by u ...

China's state auditor said Friday that it had uncovered major policy violations at China Huaneng Group Corp, the nation's top power producer, including the building of power plants without approval. The utility group had started construction on 16 large projects, including the Huangdeng Hydropower Station, as of the end of 2011 without prior approval, the National Audit Office said in a series of reports po ...

India plans to defer fines for solar-thermal power developers that failed to complete $1 billion of plants in time as it seeks to spur investment in the industry. Reliance Power Ltd. (RPWR), Godawari Power and Ispat Ltd. and Lanco Infratech Ltd. (LANCI) are among companies that failed to finish seven projects totaling 470 MW by May because of a lack of water and equipment and financing problems, said Minist ...

The Tamil Nadu government on Thursday said the Japanese government had come forward to fund the upcoming power sector infrastructure in the state to the tune of Rs 7,000 crore. These will be taken up by the subsidiaries of the ailing Tamil Nadu State Electricity Board (TNEB). Apart from this major development, the state announced its intent to invest up to Rs 7,000 crore in developing a new hydro-electric p ...

National Power Supply (NPS), which is specialized in manufacturing, designing and development of power supply systems, revealed that the company has joined the natural-gas-fired power plant bid set for Independent Power Producers (IPPs), with combined capacity of 5,400-megawatt, which is scheduled to feed in power by 2020. Sitthiporn Rattanopas, NPS chairman, said that the company would join the bidding pro ...

Panasonic has developed a tiny, low-power chip for sensor networks and Internet-connected appliances, which it says is the first to support a broad range of frequency bands. The new chip, which measures about 5 millimeters square, can send and receive signals for over 20 years on a 1,200mAh battery, if used to transmit twice a minute, the company said. It maintains the device is the first such multiband chi ...

Researchers in Japan have developed a novel polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cell (PEFC) that shows high durability (>400,000 cycles) together with high power density (252 mW/cm2) at high temperatures of 120°C under a non-humidified condition. In a paper published in Scientific Reports, the open access journal of the Nature Publishing Group, they suggest that the study “opens the door” for the next-gene ...