Ujwal DISCOM Assurance Yojana (UDAY)—a flagship scheme of the Government of India that ran from November 2015 to March 2019—was aimed at reducing the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses of state-owned distribution companies (DISCOMs) by 6%, from 21% in FY15 to 15% in FY19. However, only 50% of the target (18.2%) was achieved by the end of FY19, and there is still a long way to go to achieve the target.

The use of energy from a rooftop photovoltaic (RTPV) system for charging electric vehicles (EV) is environmentally advantageous and forms a true approach towards green mobility. Further, if solar energy is generated in close proximity to the EV charging points, it results in lower transmission losses and helps mitigate detrimental effects of sudden rise in EV demand on the grid.

In India, low birth weight (LBW) is still a largely unmapped territory. This was one of the concerns raised by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) in a report recently. While the World Health Organization (WHO) has set a target of reducing LBW globally by 30% by 2025, the absence of data at a granular level threatens to derail India's efforts at salvaging the situation.

Application of pressure is known to be an effective tool for tuning structural and electronic properties of transition metal dichalcogenides. In this work we present evolution of PdPS with pressure using Raman spectroscopy and synchrotron x-ray diffraction up to 26 GPa, complemented with first-principles theoretical analysis of PdPS under pressure up to 36 GPa.

Overachieving solar targets is resulting in new challenges for Karnataka. It is not only making the state power surplus but also impeding the development of new solar projects in Karnataka. Karnataka has emerged as one of the top-performing states with a solar capacity of 7,295 MW (as of Dec 2019) against the MNRE's (Ministry of New and Renewable Energy) state target of 5,697 MW by 2022, and state government's own target of 6000 MW by 2021.

This project explores a general case methodology for designing mini-grids through a pilot project implementation, to provide a sustainable, economically viable and reliable supply of power to remote areas that face zero-to-poor energy access.                                                                                                                                                                

India has deployed roughly 300 MW of rooftop solar (RTS) capacity in the first quarter of 2020, taking the overall RTS capacity to 5.74 GW. Yet, the installed capacity falls abysmally short (14%) of the ambitious RTS target of 40 GW by 2022. To make matters worse, the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown brought the RTS sector to a halt — creating a lot of uncertainty. Thus, a strategic and robust plan is essential to revive this segment, as the nation returns to normalcy.

CSTEP launched the Empower series of blog articles to simplify the power sector for non-technical readers. Through the series, we hope to explain how every step of the electricity journey affects the consumer. In the first article, we introduced you to the many actors involved in the electricity journey. In this article, the second of the series, the author explains the costs involved in generation of electricity (the first step of the journey) that is finally reflected in the consumers power bill.

Agriculture is both the cause and victim of water scarcity. Excessive use of water threatened the sustainability of livelihoods dependent on water and agriculture, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization.