Planning for Physical Distancing May Be Challenging, but It Could Solve India's Housing Woes

By now, it is evident that India’s current housing conditions make it challenging to practice lockdown and self-quarantining effectively. For starters, our high population density and low open space per capita in urban areas make outdoor social distancing practically impossible.

Lockdown and the power equation

The advent of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic had forced India to resort to a lockdown. To contain the spread of COVID-19, nationwide lockdown had been announced in phases since 24 March. This has adversely affected the power sector, hitting the demand and collection, and hence, the financial health of distribution companies (DISCOMs).

Water-reduction potential of air-cooled condensers in coal power plants in India and anticipated trade-offs

Wet cooling towers (WCT) are widely used to reject the unutilized heat in coal thermal power plants (TPPs). But this comes at the cost of excessive water consumption. Adoption of air-cooled condensers (ACC), also known as dry cooling systems, in all proposed Indian TPPs would reduce their water consumption by 26% in 2030. However, power producers are reluctant to install ACC due to technical and economic disadvantages such as high capital investment and land footprint.

BESCOM transformers poorly maintained, can disrupt power supply

Bengalureans are familiar with frequent power cuts lasting several hours, sometimes through the day. Irregular power supply interrupts our daily routines, especially with respect to work since many of us are working from home these days. It could also damage household appliances like refrigerators, air-conditioners and TV sets. In the case of medium, small and micro industries, erratic power supply affects production.

CSP: A Long-Term Solar Technology

In the race to achieve India's National Solar Mission (NSM) targets, one important solar technology is slowly disappearing. Concentrated Solar Power (CSP), a solar thermal-based technology for power generation, which showed considerable technical potential, is being sidelined. It is losing out due to economics compared to its rival, solar photovoltaics (PV).

Evaluation of MUST System

Atria Power Ltd.'s Multi Utility Solar Thermal (MUST) system, which is expected to be set up at Bagepalli, Chikkaballapur district, Karnataka, will be a unique poly-generation unit, producing electrical power and potable water. It will also support a cold storage unit.

IH2®: Potential and Impact Analysis

IH2® is a waste-to-energy technology which converts a broad range of residues, including sorted municipal waste (up to 20% plastic content), agricultural residues to gasoline, jet fuel, and diesel-range hydrocarbon fuels. CSTEP performed the resource and impact assessment for large scale deployment IH2®. We estimated the agro-residues (for 10 states) and municipal solid waste (for 42 major cities) to examine the potential for adoption of IH2® technology.