Tawanai

Via TelecomPk.net

In 2008 I wrote about VNL and its efforts to create low power base stations. Here’s an update about their work which appeared at Technology Review.

An Indian telecom company is deploying simple cell phone base stations that need as little as 50 watts of solar-provided power. It will soon announce plans to sell the equipment in Africa, expanding cell phone access to new ranks of rural villagers who live far from electricity supplies.

Over the past year, VNL, based in Haryana, India, has reengineered the traditional technology of the dominant cellular standard, called GSM, in order to create base stations that only require between 50 and 150 watts of power, supplied by a solar-charged battery. The components can be assembled and booted up by two people and mounted on a rooftop in six hours.

One such station–dubbed a “village station”–can handle hundreds of users. Groups of such village stations feed signals to a required larger VNL base station within five kilometers. In turn that larger station, which is also solar-powered, relays signals to the main network. The village station can turn a profit even if customers spend on average only $2 a month on the service, instead of the $6 required to make traditional systems cost-effective, the company says.

“We’ve scaled down the cost, the energy, and the equipment so that almost anybody can deploy it,” says Rajiv Mehrotra, VNL’s CEO. “It lends itself to many business models that can serve the bottom of the pyramid,” a reference to the roughly 1.5 billion rural people who do not have access to electricity grids around the world.

To date, some 50 VNL base stations have been installed in the Indian state of Rajasthan, introducing thousands of people to cell phone service for the first time. An African rollout is imminent, the company says, without elaborating. The initial batch of 50 stations support voice and data transmission–but not initially text-messaging, a decision mainly based on the fact that many new users may not be able to read or write.

Besides enabling basic communication, cell phones can provide enormous financial opportunities for rural people, especially if those people adopt services that provide banking and lending via cell phone. More than half of India’s 1.1 billion people lack any access to basic financial services, and instead pay usurious rates to local loan sharks. Furthermore, while microlending can lift people from poverty, only about 150 million people worldwide use such services. Expanded cell networks, together with banking programs geared to the rural poor, could change all of that.

Clean Technology, Consumers, Innovation

As part of our new technology series, this post looks at use of nano particles to improve solar energy performance. This report comes via Technology Review.

Inexpensive thin-film solar cells aren’t as efficient as conventional solar cells, but a new coating that incorporates nanoscale metallic particles could help close the gap. Broadband Solar, a startup spun out of Stanford University late last year, is developing coatings that increase the amount of light these solar cells absorb.

Solar antenna: The square at the center is an array of test solar cells being used to evaluate a coating that contains metallic nanoantennas tuned to the solar spectrum. Credit: Brongersma lab, Stanford

Based on computer models and initial experiments, an amorphous silicon cell could jump from converting about 8 percent of the energy in light into electricity to converting around 12 percent. That would make such cells competitive with the leading thin-film solar cells produced today, such as those made by First Solar, headquartered in Tempe, AZ, says Cyrus Wadia, codirector of the Cleantech to Market Program in the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. Amorphous silicon has the advantage of being much more abundant than the materials used by First Solar. The coatings could also be applied to other types of thin-film solar cells, including First Solar’s, to increase their efficiency.

Broadband believes its coatings won’t increase the cost of these solar cells because they perform the same function as the transparent conductors used on all thin-film cells and could be deposited using the same equipment.

Broadband’s nanoscale metallic particles take incoming light and redirect it along the plane of the solar cell, says Mark Brongersma, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and scientific advisor to the company. As a result, each photon takes a longer path through the material, increasing its chances of dislodging an electron before it can reflect back out of the cell. The nanoparticles also increase light absorption by creating strong local electric fields.

Energy, Innovation, Solar, research

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Energy Energy

Federal Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources on Friday told National Assembly that the government was making serious efforts to end the load shedding of gas from next year. During question hour, he informed the house that the government was giving incentives to the oil and gas exploration companies for ending load shedding from the country.

Pakistan and Iran are expected to sign an agreement on Iran-Pakistan (IP) Gas Pipeline Project in Turkey during March 8-10, 2010. After signing of the project between the two countries, it would be completed within a period of 3-4 years. This would resolve all issues relating to gas load shedding in the country due to smooth supply of gas from Iran on regular basis, he added.

Responding to a question, he said the government is working on a project to import Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to meet the domestic requirements. It would also be instrumental in checking shortage of gas. He said that the load management of natural gas was formally observed for the first time on December 1, in 1982. However, due to lack of proper planning in the past the problem could not be resolved. Load management of gas could only end permanently after matching of supply and demand.

Gas, Natural Gas, Pakistan, Petrol

The strategic fuel reserves have alarmingly dwindled to just seven days for thermal powerhouses, and the government-owned oil marketing company, the Pakistan State Oil (PSO), is virtually penniless now as its outstanding dues, which mainly power sector owes to it, have surged to over Rs100 billion.

“The furnace oil reserves have fast depleted to just seven days from 25 days. If this situation continues, the whole country would plunge into darkness after one week,” a senior official at the Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry told The News.

“The PSO has written three letters in latest correspondence, each to the Finance Ministry, the Petroleum and Natural Resources Ministry and the Water and Power Ministry intimating them about the appalling oil reserves stocks and its fiscal constraints, which are impeding the import of further fuel in the country,” the official added.

It is pertinent to mention that the PSO has scrapped the import of fuel oil tender because of cash constraints. The public sector oil marketing company in a letter to the Pepco written on February 9 says the entire oil import plan has been disturbed because of the unavailability of the required liquidity.

The letter says if the Pepco does not arrange substantial amount (at least Rs 25 billion) to clear the dues, the PSO will be forced to scrap the tenders. Refineries, which are running under the production capacity by 45 to 60 per cent in the wake of liquidity constraints, have also suspended the supply of products to the PSO as their outstanding dues have jacked up to the whopping figure of Rs 62 billion.

Via: The News

Fuel, Pakistan, Petrol

Pakistan State Oil (PSO), the country’s leading oil marketing company, has posted Rs 5.083 billion as profit after tax in the half year period ended December 31, 2009 as compared to after tax loss of Rs 10.049 billion recorded in the corresponding period in 2008.

Highlights

• Overall, the market share for PSO stood at 71.4 percent during the first half of FY10.
• Despite financial challenges and economic slow down, PSO maintained its leadership in the White and Black Oil market segments with market shares of 56.3 percent and 88.5 percent respectively.
• The reporting period witnessed the transference of 12 percent of the government of Pakistan’s shareholding to the employees of PSO.
• During the first half of FY10, the company signed a Fuel Supply Agreement with Northern Power Generation Company Limited (NPGCL), a subsidiary company of the Pakistan Electric Power Company (Private) Limited (PEPCO), for exclusively fulfilling Furnace Oil and HSD requirements of all the power stations of NPGCL.

Oil, Pakistan financial results, Pakistan State Oil (PSO), PSO

Associate Press of Pakistan reports that the Japanese government has agreed to provide a grant of Yen 480,000,000 (US $5.4 million) to Pakistan for “Introduction of Clean Energy by Solar Electricity Generation System” programme. An agreement to this effect was signed here on Thursday by Secretary, Economic Affairs Division, Sibtain Fazal Halim and Ambassador of Japan in Pakistan, Chihiro Atsumi on behalf of their respective governments.

Among others, Head of Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA), also witnessed the signing ceremony. Under the Clean Energy Initiative, two on-grid solar power generation systems (100 KW each) will be installed under grant-aid through JICA, one at Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC) and other at roof of Planning Commission’s building.

The project will promote clean energy utilisation and will help achieve emission reduction by installing the new system that would be connected to the national grid. The system is expected to reduce the gas emission, by replacing the part of electric power generated by fossil fuel and contribute to the climate change policy of Pakistan.

This project is first of its kind in the country, which would set precedent as a role model of defining procedures and strategy at the level for on-grid solar power generation. It is expected to become an effective measure to overcome the energy shortage and a motive for utilising solar power, for which there is big scope with relatively less investment.

On the occasion Chihiro Atsumi said that Japan was concerned about the challenges caused by the climate change in Pakistan which has been resulting in receding glaciers and lack of rain fall. During the Copenhagen conference held last month, Japan has committed to reduce the carbon emission, and Pakistan and Japan would try to utilise the solar energy to achieve this goal.

On the occasion, Secretary EAD said that Government of Japan has deep and diversified relations with Pakistan adding that Japan was the biggest donor partner of Pakistan and continued its support in education, health, energy, environment and disaster management.

Japan has also helped in capacity building and institution building in Pakistan, the Secretary added. Speaking on the occasion, Pakistan Engineering Council, Chairperson Rukhsana Zuberi expressed the hope that the launch of this project and the awareness created through media could lead to the solutions of energy problems. This system is economically viable and will also help in income generation, she added.

Clean Technology, Consumers, Energy, Investment, Solar Japan, JICA, Pakistan Engineering Council

Government of Pakistan awarded a contract to GDF Suez to supply 3.75 million tons per annum of liquefied natural gas (LNG) for a period of 20 years. This is the country’s first gas import project and efforts are still being made to allow Shell to import additional 2.5 million tons during the same period.

The project envisages supply of up to 500 million cubic feet per day of gas. The price of LNG imported from GDF Suez will be $1.8 billon lower than the rates offered by Shell in the first six years, the import price will be around $9.3 per MMBtu said, G A Sabri, senior petroleum ministry official.

GDF Suez will start supplying the gas to Pakistan by Oct. 2011 according to the initial six-year contact. . The company may also supply 1.5 million tons of LNG annually for the following 14 years under the contract, G.A Sabri said.

Via Ibrahimsajidmalick.com

Natural Gas, Pakistan contract, LNG

Technology Review reports that in a few years, the United States is likely to be the world’s largest market for solar power, eclipsing Germany, which has taken the lead as a result of strong government incentives in spite of the relative paucity of sunlight in that country. A number of factors could make growth possible in the United States–especially changes in legislation that give utilities incentives to create large solar farms.

Last year, the U.S. solar industry got off to a slow start, but sales rebounded in the second half of the year, largely because of a drop in the prices of solar panels of up to 40 percent, partly caused by an oversupply due to the recession. Revenues for many solar companies were likely flat, but the megawatts of solar installed in the United States overall grew by 25 to 40 percent last year, says Roger Efird, the chairman of the Solar Energy Industry Association and the managing director of Suntech America, a branch of Suntech Power, the largest maker of crystalline silicon solar panels in the world.

This year, Efird says, solar installations could double, reaching a gigawatt of capacity. “That’s a big number,” he says. “If you are in the solar business, you were talking watts 15 years ago, you were talking kilowatts 10 years ago, and you have trouble even talking megawatts today.”

Energy, Solar

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Energy Energy