News

The government of Pakistan has sought financing from China for the mega $13 billion Diamer Bhasha Dam.

China will remain the world’s leading renewable energy market at least until 2020.

The massive costs of coping with the aftermath of the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant nuclear disaster has left its operator with limited funds to convert to alternative energy sources.

With power shortage increasing continuously in the face of rising consumer demand, the government has decided to seek financing from China for the mega $13 billion Diamer Bhasha Dam with power production capacity of 4,500 megawatts and also take loans from domestic commercial banks by offering guarantees.According to sources, Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf will place a request before his Chinese counterpart during the visit on September 10 for financing the Diamer Bhasha Dam, for which multilateral donors including the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) had sought no-objection certificate (NOC) from India due to the dam "being situated in a disputed territory". The decision to approach China was taken in a meeting held at the Planning Commission last month as Beijing had wide experience of building large dams, a senior government official said. During the meeting, different options were considered for arranging capital for the dam, which is vital for wiping out most of the gap between electricity demand and supply in the country. In the meeting, the government officials also decided to borrow money from banks with 50% guarantees to be provided by the central government and the remaining by the Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda).

The largest hydroelectric project on the Upper Mekong River Basin officially began generating power yesterday. The Nuozhadu dam near Pu'er will be China's fourth largest hydropower plant when finished in 2014, energy website RedNet is reporting.The embankment dam rises 261.5 meters above the Mekong River, or Lancang River  in Chinese. Construction on the dam is not complete and only one of a planned nine 650 megawatt generators is currently in operation.When fully operational the power plant will produce an estimated 24,000 gigawatts of electricity annually. In practical terms, that is enough energy to power New York City for seven months. Project engineers at the power plant's September 6 opening ceremony said energy generated by Nuozhadu will save more than nine million tons ofcoal per year.The 61 billion yuan (US$9.6 billion) project broke ground in 2004 and is part of China's sprawling Western Development Strategy.One of the key goals of this policy is to utilize the region's numerous rivers for power production. Much of the electricity will be sent to larger, more energy-hungry cities on the east coast. Some of the power generated by the dam will be sold to Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam.The project broke ground in 2004 and the reservoir behind the dam began filling last year. When completely full, the new Nuozhadu reservoir will have a surface area of 320 square kilometers and hold water equivalent to 11 Dianchi lakes.Nearly 43,000 people must be relocated to make way for the slowly f illing lake. Those efforts began in 2011 and will continue through this year.https://gokunming.com/en/blog/item/2788/yunnans_largest_hydroelectric_dam_goes_online  

Entrepreneurs in Bangladesh want solar power to be included in the national grid to utilize nearly 200 mw capacity solar plants that are underutilised.

Six South Korean frims have expressed interest in joining PNOC-EC in building two coal mine-mouth power plants in Isabela and Zamboanga Sibugay worth $400 million.

Indonesia's PLN will purchase between 50 and 70 megawatts from Sarawak to power some regions in West Kalimantan for five years.

Bangladesh will build another nuclear power plant in the Southern region after the Rooppur nuclear power plant.

Phasing out nuclear power plant is cheaper than having a 15 to 25 percent mix.

Hanergy launched a thin-film solar cell manufacturing base and a photovoltaic power station in Qinghai Province.

Tepco president Naomi Hirose said the utility can't afford to invest in alternative energy sources since the three reactor meltodown at its Fukushima nuclear power plant last year.

US financial services giant Morgan Stanley has invested US$300 million in Zhaoheng Hydropower Co Ltd, the largest foreign investment yet in China's renewable energy sector.