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European restrictions on clean investments beyond 2012 proving challenge to Asia’s carbon market, says an expert.

ASEAN countries need to work with each other in order to achieve energy security, said Prof. Christoph Menke of the University of Applied Sciences in Trier, Germany.

Asia’s leading the global fight against the climate change at least in the clean development mechanism (CDM) market.

More than 10 percent of the China's electric cables were found to be substandard on sample checks on three major kinds of products.

A nuclear power plant will be built in Bangladesh with the help of Russia.

Find out the answer from Ambassador Burhan Gafoor, chief negotiator for climate change in Singapore.

New regulatory developments pose threats to global carbon market trading.

Rolls-Royce has signed a US$22 million contract to supply eight Bergen B32:40 16V reciprocating engine generator sets to Baraka Patenga Power Limited.

The Fukushima disaster has meant overhaul in Japan's energy policy.

Japan is expected to avert power outages this winter through energy conservation but new problems will arise in summer as its entire fleet of reactors could be kept idled.

Out of the 86 thermal power stations monitored by the Central Electricity Authority, 44 stations have reported critical level of coal stocks.

The Confederation of Indian Industry called for reforms in the power sector, particularly pointing out the need to curtail transmission and distribution losses .

Vietnam's small and medium scaled hydropower plant projects with the designed capacity of less than 30 MW have not pushed through because of lack of capital.

India was advised to go ahead with its civil nuclear power projects to balance against the impact of high oil and gas prices.

State-run NTPC’s power projects in West Bengal, Bihar and Orissa are the worst-affected in the eastern region due to the ongoing coal supply crisis as actual generation at these plants is much lower than targeted. “Problem in the eastern region power plants of NTPC is mainly due to coal shortage and coal-handling problems,” a Central Electricity Authority (CEA) official said. The coal at these project sites is supplied by Eastern Coalfields Ltd, a subsidiary of state-owned Coal India. “Eastern Coalfields is supplying coal to NTPC’s eastern region plants… Coal transportation, which is through railways, is a problem, therefore, the hiccups,” the official said. As per CEA data released on October 22 this fiscal, the generation target of a combined 30,597.58 million units from these plants for the April 1-October 22 period was missed, with production of only 25,970.75 million units, a 15.12 per cent shortfall. On October 22 alone, NTPC had set a power generation target of 154.42 million units, but was only able to produce only 139.50 million units, translating into a shortfall of about 15 per cent vis-a-vis the target, according to the data. “Generation at the eastern region plants is lesser than targeted because of coal supply constraints at Kahalgaon, Farakka plants,” an NTPC official said. NTPC has four plants in the eastern region – the 2,100-Mw Farakka (West Bengal) unit, 2,340-Mw Kahalgoan (Bihar) plant, 3,000-Mw Talcher Kaniha facility and 460-MW Talcher thermal project in Orissa. “Coal India assigned the job of supplying fuel to eastern region power plants to Eastern Coalfields Ltd, thinking that it would be able to excavate more coal for NTPC plants,” the official added. The situation has arisen because the coal mines allocated for the eastern region projects — with a total capacity of seven million tonnes — are situated in ‘no-go’ areas, where the Environment Ministry has banned mining on the ground that it will adversely impact the environment. “One of the mines has been given the green signal and the second one is yet to obtain the go-ahead. The first will start mining now,” the official said. According to the company, the expansion of the Rajmahal mines that feed NTPC’s Kahalgaon and Farakka projects from 10 million tonnes to 17 million tonnes is also long overdue. “Fourteen million tonnes more coal is required,” the official said, adding that the coal requirement at Kahalgaon had gone up after the commissioning of three 500 Mw units. Rajmahal Coalfields is working to complete the expansion project before the end of the ongoing XI Five-Year Plan (2007-12).  

The Asian market for wind energy is disappointing with main drivers China and India seen to post barely flat growth in terms of annual installed capacity, says an expert.