THE emerging trend of countries progressing towards smart cities is ever-growing. The all-encompassing aim of a smart city is to enhance the quality of living for citizens through smart technologies. And with an estimation that 66 percent of the world’s population will be living in cities by 2050, the importance of creating an improved system is crucial. Through the enabling of local development and harness ...

Voith signs contract for Henan Tianchi pumped storage plant He Nan Province, China: In December 2017, Henan Tianchi Pumped Storage Co., Ltd. (Tianchi PSP) and Voith Hydro Shanghai Co., Ltd. (VHS) signed a contract to purchase equipment at the Henan Tianchi pumped storage plant site. Voith will supply four 300 MW Francis reversible pump turbines and generators and also auxiliary equipment. The power plant wi ...

Was it truly worth Chinese Premier Li Keqiang traveling all the way to Phnom Penh for the second Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) summit? As the MLC leaders’ meeting closed on Wednesday, there appeared few new or positive developments on how the regional body would respond to the many environmental and other issues affecting the Mekong River, known in China as the Lancang. Li said an agreed new five-year ac ...

CLEAN WATER, sanitation, healthcare, transport, lighting, cooking, heating–these are energy driven elements essential to human wellbeing and a country’s economic activity and social development – yet not accessible to the world’s energy poor, the majority who are living in Asia and the Pacific. Today, more than 700 million people in the region have no access to electricity. With the threats of climate chang ...

Large-scale solar PV is leading the charge as all renewable sources of electricity race towards competitiveness with conventional generation, a milestone that IRENA says is set to be reached by 2020. Noting that the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) from utility scale solar has fallen by 73% since 2010, IRENA forecasts that cost to half again by 2020. The impressive numbers were delivered as a part of IR ...

If energy utilities want to forge a place in Australia’s evolving energy ecosystem they need to create a strategy for providing PEV solutions, writes Charlie Richardson. Alongside the many insights into the National Electricity Market (NEM), the Finkel Review found that the uptake of plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) combined with a decarbonised grid could help to achieve significant emissions reductions in ...

Nexif Energy (Nexif), a leading independent power producer in Asia and Australia, announced that it has signed an engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract for its 110 megawatt (MW) cogeneration project in Thailand’s Rayong Province. Nexif acquired the project in June 2017 and is making rapid progress towards achieving financial close in the first quarter of 2018. “We are encouraged by the pr ...

Sri Lanka’s LVL Energy Fund will invest in South Asia and Africa due to limited growth potential in the island due to the lack of stable policy and transparent energy pricing. LVL Energy Fund raised Rs1.2 billion with a public offering of a 20.6% stake in the company in December 2017. A share was priced at Rs10, which was 2.04 times net asset value as at end March 2017. The share traded on the Colombo Stock ...

According to Indonesia’s Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, as of December 2017, renewable energy contributed to 12.62% of total national electricity supply in Indonesia. This exceeds the 2017 state budget target of 11.96%. The renewable supply comes from both state-electricity firm PLN and a selection of private companies, according to the Jakarta Post. PLN, or Perusahaan Listrik Negara, is the Indones ...

As car manufacturers battle to dominate the lithium-ion-powered e-vehicle scene, Hyundai has decided to go against the flow by unveiling its newest hydrogen fuel cell SUV at CES 2018. On Monday, the South Korean automaker, Hyundai, introduced its latest car model at CES 2018 in Las Vegas. However, instead of equipping it with the now popular lithium-ion car battery, the company’s newest utility vehicle is p ...