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.

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.

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).

India ranks ninth overall on Ernst and Young LLP's most recent renewables attractiveness Index. Though solar energy has received much attention from the government, this article takes a look at how the nation has fared in other renewable energies important for environment sustainability.

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® 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.

A thermo-economic evaluation of a steam Rankine cycle and an ORC for similar operation conditions and power outputs suggests the promise of organic working fluids for high temperature ORCs. Key conclusions are:

1. The thermal efficiency of steam Rankine is only marginally better than that of the ORC.

This study evaluates options for deployment configurations of current CSP technologies that may decrease the LCOE or exploit other attributes of the technology that could make it a more attractive investment in India (e.g., shift the time of availability).

• Solar field area & storage capacity was varied to assess impact on techno-economic performance of the two solar technologies.

• PV yielded a minimum LCOE of 0.12 USD/kWh and a CUF of 0.27.

• s-ORC yielded a minimum LCOE of 0.19 USD/kWh, with a CUF of 0.56.