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The 969MW Neelum-Jhelum hydropower project has been delayed, resulting in cost over-runs.

Ho Chi Minh City will invest around VND1.4 trillion or US$70 million in bio-technology from 2010 to 2015, with 89 percent of the amount coming from state budget.

Moser Baer has installed a 5MW solar farm, equivalent to powering 70,000 households, covering an area of 60 acres in Tinwari, Jodhpur district, India.

Tepco is not considering selling any power plants to compensate victims of its Fukushima Daiichi nuclear facility.

Kowepo has selected GE technology for the first integrated gasification combined-cycle power plant to be built in South Korea.

Wärtsilä has been awarded two contracts to supply power plant generating equipment to Bangladesh.

Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc's (9501.T) main lenders will begin talks this week to decide conditions to lend Japan's biggest utility, also known as Tepco, an additional 1 trillion yen ($13.01 billion), at the government's request, business daily The Nikkei said. Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group Inc (8316.T) unit Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp and other financial institutions have already infused funds in Tepco, including about 2 trillion yen in emergency financing last spring, the daily said. The government plans to inject 1 trillion yen in public funds to help Tepco pay for decommissioning reactors at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and have private sector financial institutions provide about 1 trillion yen in working capital financing, Nikkei said. Tepco and the government-backed Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund have indicated to financial institutions that they plan to restart the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in about two years, the daily said. If nuclear plants that have been idled since the March earthquake and tsunami cannot be brought back online, Tepco's earnings would take a hit because it would need to rely more on fossil fuel, Nikkei said.  

The Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and Vietnam Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex) reported their achievements and sought price increases instead of explaining issues on business losses and profits at the conference to launch 2012 industry and trade missions held on Jan 3 in Hanoi. Bui Ngoc Bao, Chairman of Petrolimex explained that in 2011, price impacts seemed to be stable but it was the year with a lot of sudden changes in petrol prices. Despite crude oil price was lower, imported product prices jumped to the record high. Compared with 2008, the price of diesel surged 40% while that of gasoline soared 17% in 2011. 2011 was the first year with the least number of times to adjust petrol prices, he added. There should have been over 11 new petrol price adjustments to catch market prices, but factually the number was 3 times only. Total business revenue of Petrolimex last year reached 177 trillion dong, state budgetary contribution at 24 trillion dong, loss of 2.5 trillion dong (the loss from forex rate spread accounted for 1.5 trillion dong). However, the firm’s pre-tax profit has not been announced because of a number of other reasons. So, Bao said, oil is estimated at $97 a barrel in 2012, equaling to 2011 but price pressure will likely increase. Regarding business, Petrolimex proposed Ministry of Finance’s approval to take account in line with the whole industry instead of the independent accounting between the holding company and affiliates. Meanwhile, Pham Le Thanh—General Director of EVN emphasized that his firm fulfilled the electricity supply plan and invested over 63 trillion dong in new power sources, subsidize more than 400 billion dong to the poor households. He also proposed to apply electricity price adjustments to call for investment without elaboration on average income of 13.7 million dong/month per EVN employee as posted recently by the press. At the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung requested Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang to have direct talk with people about the trade of electricity and petroleum and disclose electricity and petrol prices, losses and profits of two giants. As reported by Ministry of Industry and Trade, the monthly average income of SOEs under the ministry in 2010 and 2011 was hereafter: 8.3 million dong and 8.6 million dong respectively at EVN, 7.5 million and 7.7 million dong at Vinacomin, 15.1 million dong and 16.2 million dong at PetroVietnam, 9.8 million dong (in both 2010 and 2011) at Sabeco. In other SOEs, the employee income ranged between 3 and 6 million dong per month.

The Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) and Vietnam Petroleum Corporation (Petrolimex) reported their achievements and sought price increases instead of explaining issues on business losses and profits at the conference to launch 2012 industry and trade missions held on Jan 3 in Hanoi. Bui Ngoc Bao, Chairman of Petrolimex explained that in 2011, price impacts seemed to be stable but it was the year with a lot of sudden changes in petrol prices. Despite crude oil price was lower, imported product prices jumped to the record high. Compared with 2008, the price of diesel surged 40% while that of gasoline soared 17% in 2011. 2011 was the first year with the least number of times to adjust petrol prices, he added. There should have been over 11 new petrol price adjustments to catch market prices, but factually the number was 3 times only. Total business revenue of Petrolimex last year reached 177 trillion dong, state budgetary contribution at 24 trillion dong, loss of 2.5 trillion dong (the loss from forex rate spread accounted for 1.5 trillion dong). However, the firm’s pre-tax profit has not been announced because of a number of other reasons. So, Bao said, oil is estimated at $97 a barrel in 2012, equaling to 2011 but price pressure will likely increase. Regarding business, Petrolimex proposed Ministry of Finance’s approval to take account in line with the whole industry instead of the independent accounting between the holding company and affiliates. Meanwhile, Pham Le Thanh—General Director of EVN emphasized that his firm fulfilled the electricity supply plan and invested over 63 trillion dong in new power sources, subsidize more than 400 billion dong to the poor households. He also proposed to apply electricity price adjustments to call for investment without elaboration on average income of 13.7 million dong/month per EVN employee as posted recently by the press. At the conference, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung requested Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang to have direct talk with people about the trade of electricity and petroleum and disclose electricity and petrol prices, losses and profits of two giants. As reported by Ministry of Industry and Trade, the monthly average income of SOEs under the ministry in 2010 and 2011 was hereafter: 8.3 million dong and 8.6 million dong respectively at EVN, 7.5 million and 7.7 million dong at Vinacomin, 15.1 million dong and 16.2 million dong at PetroVietnam, 9.8 million dong (in both 2010 and 2011) at Sabeco. In other SOEs, the employee income ranged between 3 and 6 million dong per month.

The State Grid Corporation of China's profit increased 18 percent year-on-year in 2011 on stronger business revenues.

A 10MW ground-mounted solar project in north west China has been constructed and connected to the grid.

The Mayitasi Wind Farm Phase I has been successfully connected to the grid for power generation.

TEPCO says  it found in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's No.2 reactor radioactive substances that could have resulted from continuous nuclear fission.

Shikoku Electric Power Co. halted the No.1 reactor at its Ikata nuclear power plant in Ehime prefecture for a three-month scheduled checkup.

Thailand's Delta Electronics aims to boost sales by 10 percent this year to $1.3 billion with new products, inlcuding those for solar energy.

From the commissioning schedule of ultra mega power projects (UMPPs) provided by the power ministry, it seems that the the projects are well on track with respect to their completion timelines. For instance, CEA has revised the timelines for all five units of the 4,000 MW Mundra UMPP so that the projects may achieve commissioning much earlier than was originally envisaged in the PPA schedule. For the 800 MW unit 1, CEA has pushed the commissioning date forward by nearly five months to February, 2012 as against the scheduled commissioning date of August, 2012. The CEA has similarly revised the commissioning dates for the remaining four units. The new dates for the four units are now May, 2012 (unit-II), September, 2012 (unit-III), November, 2012 (unit-IV), and February, 2013 (unit-V) as against the original schedule where the the units were expected to go on steam form February, 2013, August, 2013, February, 2014 and August, 2013 respectively. The Mundra UMPP has been set up by Coastal Gujarat Power Limited (CGPL), a wholly owned subsidiary of TPIL, which was incorporated as a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to implement the project. The five units of 800 MW each generate a total of 4000 MW power using supercritical technology.