Why you can never find garbage in Sweden

    Even as Indian cities like Bangalore slowly transform into one huge garbage dump thanks to faulty civic planning, Sweden finds itself with a unique problem on its hands: there’s no garbage left in the country. The Scandinavian nation has been ‘importing’ trash from neighbouring Norway to feed its waste-to-energy programme that provides, through incineration, heat and electricity to thousands of households in the country with a population of 9.5 million.

    The story first broke on the American public radio organization Public Radio International and has since been picked up by a number of green blogs and websites. Sweden’s superefficient waste segregation and recycling systems have made sure only about 4% of the country’s waste ends up in landfills.
 

    So how did Sweden get so good at waste management, and what can other countries learn from it? Firstly, Sweden started putting effective systems in place from the early 1990s and took a holistic approach, through policy changes, engagement with industry and awareness programmes, to reach out to all stakeholders of Swedish society. Producers were made responsible for dealing with several categories of waste. Landfill bans and taxes were introduced, and targets set set for increased recycling. More than 90% of household waste in Sweden is recycled, reused or recovered.
 

    By law, companies are responsible for collecting the entire waste-stream stemming from their products, either on their own or through public or private contractors, writes Magnus Schönning in the Toronto Star. There is a strong economic incentive for companies to produce less waste from products and product packaging. Sweden has encouraged heavy recycling by combining economic incentives, such as garbage collection fees, with easy access to recycling stations and public awareness campaigns, says the Toronto Star report. In 2005, Sweden made it illegal to landfill organic waste. Instead, the waste is biologically treated to make compost, biogas and fertilizer.
 

    However, the bulk of the waste is converted into energy through processes that have been refined over the years to be as clean and environmentally sustainable as possible. In fact, Sweden claims that the damage to the environment caused by the release of dioxins, harmful chemicals released when waste is incinerated, is less than the damage caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
 

    Thanks to these proactive measures, landfilling of household waste fell from 1,380,000 tonnes in 1994 to 380,000 tonnes in 2004. Around 1.3 million tonnes of materials and 5.7 TWh (terawatt hour) of energy in the form of heat and electricity were recovered from household waste in 2004: an increase of 140% and 70%, respectively, since 1994. Surely, Sweden is showing Asia's growing cities how to make a clean sweep.
 

    For more: pri.org; naturvardsverket.se 

 

TALKING TRASH: Sweden generated 118 million tonnes of waste in 2010

Green wonder: This erasable paper can be used 260 times

Taipei: “i2R e-Paper” is paper but not paper as we know it — not yet, anyway, say its Taiwan developers.

The product uses a thermal printer, the same kind as that used in fax machines. When the message is no longer needed, the paper can be erased with the flip of a switch — ready to be used up to 260 times. Researchers at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, where the paper was developed, say it is the ideal replacement for the paper signs and posters that are now produced by the millions around the world.

“I think the greatest breakthrough was that traditional display devices usually require electricity to write, but our technology made it closer to how we would use normal paper,” said John Chen, Vice President of the Institute and general director of the Display Technology Center. “First, it does not require patterned electrodes — it is very light, soft and rewritable. This is a true e-paper.”

What makes “i2R e-paper” stand out is its coating is a plastic film covered with cholestric liquid crystal, a type of liquid crystal structured similarly to cholesterol molecules. REUTERS

Chocolate Power!

SWEET THRILL: A racing car that researchers from Britain’s University of Warwick have retrofitted, on display in Boston. Fueled by leftover chocolate and with components made from carrots, potato starch and flax, the world’s first sustainable Formula 3 racing car has a top speed of 135 miles per hour and can go from zero to 60 in 2.5 seconds

LEARNING WITH THE TIMES

Fuel cells have negligible emissions

What is the conventional method of power generation?
The basic function of any power generation system is to convert energy from any other form into electricity. The most popular energy generation mechanism is based on burning fossil fuels—that is, converting chemical energy into mechanical energy for rotating turbines. The turbine then rotates the rotor of a generator, which finally converts the mechanical energy to electrical energy—electrons flowing in a conductor, like copper wire. These combustion-based power generation systems are subject to the laws of thermodynamics and hence have a predetermined cap on the maximum efficiency defined by something called the Carnot Limit.

How is the fuel cell different?
A fuel cell is an electrochemical device that combines hydrogen and oxygen in a way that electrons are produced in a single step. These are then directed outside the cell to do work, like powering an electric motor or illuminating a light bulb or a city and finally return to the fuel cell, completing an electrical circuit as well as a chemical reaction which has water as the byproduct. The energy generation is not based on thermodynamics and hence fuel cells are more efficient in extracting energy from fuel. Apart from this, there are negligible emissions and very little noise and hence these cells are also good for the environment. In simple terms, it’s like the everyday battery. But unlike a battery, which stores the chemical inside it and hence has to be charged again and again, the fuel cell works on a mechanism that allows continuous supply of fuel and hence can work for years.

But why don’t we use them then?
The concept of fuel cells is not new to physics and does not involve any recently developed or discovered principles. Since the 1960s, various countries have been using them for their space programmes. The catch, however, is that they are extremely expensive and a viable design for a fuel cell for commercial purposes has eluded scientists and inventors for years. The conventional methods remain cheaper for generating electricity. Billions of dollars have been spent in the effort to come up with a method of making fuel cells cheaper.

Why is fuel cell technology suddenly in news?
Bloom Energy, a US-based firm researching on eco-friendly methods of energy generation, has unveiled an innovative fuel cell technology called Energy Server priced $800,000, which can be used for generating electricity for big corporate houses. K R Sridhar of Bloom Energy has talked of the concept of refrigerator-sized fuel cells which the firm has named Bloom Boxes.

CLEAN POWER: Bloom Energy CEO K R Sridhar with a fuel cell

From waste to biofuel: Bugs the way

Common Bacteria Tweaked To Digest Sugars From Biomass To Churn Out Green Diesel

Washington: Researchers have genetically engineered one of the most common bacteria on the planet — E coli — to digest simple sugars from plant waste and turn it into valuable biofuel.

They said their study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, is the first demonstration of a one-step conversion of a renewable nonfood plant to fuel. The technology could lead to low-cost, low-carbon, highperformance renewable fuels, researcher Stephen del Cardayre said.

“We looked at the ideal feedstock, which is biomass, and then looked at the product we wanted to make, which is diesel, then we engineered this Ecoli to contain the genes that catalyzed all of the chemical reactions required to convert that feedstock into that fuel,” del Cardayre said.

“It’s a one-step process, so there’s no need to have to do two or three buckets of chemistry,” he said. “You put in your feedstock, the bug converts it to fuel, which is an oil that you can just scrape off the top.” Del Cardayre of privately held industrial biotechnology firm LS9 worked in collaboration with researchers at the University of California, Berkeley.

The work represents the next step forward in biofuel technology developed by the South San Francisco-based company. Biofuels, made from plants and animal fat, are alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. Energy secretary Stephen Chu highlighted the research in remarks to a Capitol Hill forum on clean energy, jobs and security.

“The bacteria we find in our guts, E coli, they’ve taken and reprogrammed (with) simple sugars and made diesel,” Chu said. Chu said he was interested enough in the research to email the article’s authors and ask how soon the fuel might be available. He said they responded, “We’ll know in two years.”

Del Cardayre said his company expects to begin commercial production over the next two years in Brazil, where there is an abundant crop of cheap sugar cane juice that could be converted to diesel. Canada, which has invested heavily in the biofuel industry as a way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has ordered a study of the environmental impact of making biofuel. REUTERS

IT’S NO ROCKET SCIENCE: After feedstock is put into a bucket, the bug converts it to fuel, which can be just scraped off the top

Saltwater film in clouds to cool Earth?

Geoengineering Technique Will Help Reflect Back More Sunlight

Washington: Amid growing concern over global warming, scientists have come up with an unique scheme to cool the earth with the help of a geoengineering method that would increase cloud reflectivity over the ocean.

Under the scheme, the scientists would increase cloud reflectivity over the ocean by spraying them with an ultra-fine saltwater mist from ships, a report in the Scientific American journal said.

“The clouds, containing more particles, would cast enough sunlight back into space to at least partially offset the warming effects of all that CO ² from burningfossil fuels,” the researchers said.

They added, “After all, clouds already reflect more of the sun’s radiation back into space than the amount trapped by human emissions of CO ² . So why not make them even more effective.”

Stephen Salter, an emeritus professor of engineering design at the University of Edinburgh, who is leading the research said, “marine cloud brightening could be done by populating the world's oceans with up to 1,500 ships of a somewhat exotic design — sometimes known as albedo yachts.”

“Each vessel would be remote-controlled, wind-powered, and capable of generating (via turbines dragged through the water) the electricity required to create a mist of seawater and loft it 1,000 meters into the atmosphere,” he added. Scientists have mixed reactions to the idea, which was first proposed in 1999.

For instance, Andy Jones at the Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research thinks if marine cloud brightening were deployed in the Atlantic, it might help turn the Amazon rainforest into a desert by cooling the South Atlantic, which would lead to less evaporation from the ocean, thus reducing rainfall. PTI

Cheap green tech stays elusive Rich Nations Refuse To Budge At Delhi, Copenhagen Climate Deal Hopes Dim TIMES NEWS NETWORK New Delhi: The divide bet

Rich Nations Refuse To Budge At Delhi, Copenhagen Climate Deal Hopes Dim

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

New Delhi: The divide between rich and developing countries on the prickly issue of intellectual property regimes for green technologies came to the fore on the concluding day of the high-level climate change technology conference in Delhi on Friday.

With a consensus eluding the conference attended by 58 countries, including the US, China, Japan and several key G77 partners, references to the contentious topic were left out of the ‘Delhi Declaration on Global Cooperation on Climate Technology’, released on Friday at the end of the meet.

India, China and other G77 countries have for years demanded that industrialised nations should ease the IPR regime or buy out technologies from private hands to give them to the developing countries. The rich countries, which hold much of the technologies, instead say ‘investment environment’ should be improved for the private sector to bring in green technologies.

While some progress has been made on other elements of what could possibly form a deal on technology diffusion at Copenhagen, IPR remains the most contentitious subject with little breakthrough evident even at the end of the Bangkok round of negotiations concluded in the second week of October.

At the conclusion, the chair, environment minister Jairam Ramesh, noted: “There will be a continued need for further consultation on the role of IPR. We have recognised that there are different views on the issue.” He pointed out that countries had to still discuss how to ensure that “IPRs do not become a barrier to the achievement of common global goals”.

The high-level meeting in Delhi was not part of a formal negotiating process which is undertaken only under the UN but a strong signal from the meet would have influenced the UN talks at Barcelona and Copenhagen later. But at the meeting, several industrialised country representatives argued that the IPR regimes should not be touched.

PM Manmohan Singh, while inaugurating the meet, had said, “Climate friendly and environmentally sound technologies should be viewed as global public goods. This implies that the IPR regime should balance rewards for innovators with the need to promote common good.”

‘Emission more serious than fundamentalism’
New Delhi: The very existence of Maldives is threatened by climate change. So for Mohammed Nasheed, its young president and now the poster boy for climate change advocacy, global warming is a “more serious threat to the international order than Islamic radicalism, piracy or sharing of resources”. Addressing a think-tank on ‘environment and conflict resolution’, Nasheed said India’s position on climate change was acceptable, but appealed that renewable energy be used to provide power to over 300 million people. “Why do you want to go to yesterday’s diesel when you can go for tomorrow’s renewable energy and new technology? The world is on the threshold of new technology and you will be in the forefront if you use them,” he said. Nasheed said climate change was a real threat. “If we believe in science, and two plus two is four, climate change is happening and it is great threat to the world,” he said. TNN

Maldives president Mohd Nasheed

A ROCKET FUEL MADE OF WATER

Boffins develop a rocket fuel that uses a combination of water and aluminium, both these materials are found on the Moon and Mars. Thus making the manufacturing of this fuel on those planets a possibility

MUMBAI MIRROR BUREAU

Researchers from Purdue University in the US are working with NASA to develop a new type of rocket propellant made of a frozen mixture of water and “nanoscale aluminium” powder. This rocket fuel promises to be more environmentally friendly than conventional propellants and could be manufactured on the Moon and Mars.

The aluminium-ice, or ALICE, propellant might be used to launch rockets into orbit and for long-distance space missions and can also to generate hydrogen for fuel cells, said Steven Son, an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Purdue University.

Purdue is working with NASA and Pennsylvania State University to develop ALICE, which was used earlier this year to launch a 9-foot-tall rocket. The vehicle reached an altitude of 1,300 feet.

“It’s a proof of concept,” Steven Son said. “It could be improved and turned into a practical propellant. Theoretically, it also could be manufactured in distant places like the moon or Mars instead of being transported at high cost.”

Findings from spacecraft indicate the presence of water on Mars and the moon, and water also may exist on asteroids, other moons and bodies in space, said Son.

The tiny size of the aluminium, which have a diameter of about 80 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, is key to the propellant’s performance. The nano-particles combust more rapidly than larger particles and enable better control over the reaction and the rocket’s thrust, said Timothee Pourpoint, a research assistant professor in the School of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“It is considered a green propellant, producing essentially hydrogen gas and aluminium oxide, in contrast, each space shuttle flight creates about 230 tons of hydrochloric acid”Pourpoint said.

ALICE provides thrust through a chemical reaction between water and aluminium. As the aluminium ignites, water molecules provide oxygen and hydrogen to fuel the combustion until all of the powder is burned.

“ALICE might one day replace some liquid or solid propellants, and, when perfected, might have a higher performance than conventional propellants, it’s also extremely safe while frozen because it is difficult to accidentally ignite” Pourpoint said.

The fuel needs to be frozen for two reasons: It must be solid to remain intact while subjected to the forces of the launch and also to ensure that it does not slowly react before it is used.

Initially a paste, the fuel is packed into a cylindrical mold with a metal rod running through the center. After it’s frozen, the rod is removed, leaving a cavity running the length of the solid fuel cylinder. A small rocket engine above the fuel is ignited, sending hot gasses into the center hole, causing the ALICE fuel to ignite uniformly.

“This is essentially the same basic procedure used in the space shuttle’s two solid-fuel rocket boosters,” Son said. “An electric match ignites a small motor, which then ignites a bigger motor.”

Future work will focus on perfecting the fuel and also may explore the possibility of creating a gelled fuel using the nanoparticles. Such a gel would make it possible to vary the rate at which the fuel is pumped into the combustion chamber to throttle the motor up and down. The gelled fuel also could be mixed with materials containing more hydrogen. Then you can use it to run hydrogen fuel cells in addition to rocket motors, Son said.

From left to right – Students Cody Dezelan and Tyler Wood, professor Steven Son, students Mark Pfeil and Travis Sippel, professor Timothee Pourpoint, and researcher John Tsohas

US shirks green duty, turns screws on India

Nitin Sethi | TNN

New Delhi: With seven days of negotiations remaining before Copenhagen, the industrialised countries have still not made a single offer of financial compensation to poor and developing countries for their mitigation actions.

At Bangkok negotiations, the US turned around instead to demand that India and other developing countries put their entire set of emissions reducing actions under international scrutiny. The 192 members of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change had in Bali in 2007 agreed that the industrialised countries would undertake a higher level of emission cuts to counter the enhanced risks of climate change. The rest would undertake actions as per their national circumstances. The countries also agreed that the actions that were “enabled” by financial and technical support from the industrialised countries would be scrutinised by the UN process and verified. The logic then was simple, while developing countries were not responsible for the globe reaching a tipping point, it would undertake mitigation actions as long as those responsible for the climate crisis paid the full incremental cost of such actions.

But the US and the European Union, using the recession as a ruse in informal talks, have on several occasions indicated that it would be politically impossible for them to provide money to the “emerging economies”. Now, the US proposal demands that regardless of whether there is any money on the table, the developing countries too put up their actions for international scrutiny.

With just 7 days to Copenhagen meet, the 1st world nations are yet to stick by the 2007 Bali pact and offer financial compensation to developing nations for their mitigating actions for climate change

The Age of Stupid - A must watch Documentary

Build a better bulb for $10m prize

First To Come Up With Energy-Efficient Replacement Will Be Declared Winner

Eric A Taub & Leora Broydo Vestel

The ubiquitous but highly inefficient 60-watt light bulb badly needs a makeover. And it could be worth millions in government prize money — and more in government contracts — to the first company that figures out how to do it.

Right now, that company could be Philips, the Dutch electronics giant. The company announced on Thursday that it had submitted the first entry for the L Prize, an Energy Department contest that will award up to $10 million to the first person or group to create a new energy-sipping version of the most popular type of light bulb used in America.

As the first entrant, Philips will win the prize if its claims hold up. Testing of the Philips lamp will take close to a year to complete as the department evaluates the firm’s claims. “Philips is confident that the product submitted meets or exceeds all of the criteria for the L Prize,” Rudy Provoost, chief of Philips Lighting, said.

The $10 million is almost beside the point. More important, the winner will receive consideration for potentially lucrative federal purchasing agreements, not to mention a head start at cracking a vast consumer marketplace.

The L Prize has garnered significant attention in the lighting industry because 60-watt incandescent lamps represent 50% of all the lighting in the United States, with 425 million sold each year. The US energy department says that if all those lamps were LED equivalents, enough power would be saved to light 17.4 million American households and cut carbon emissions by 5.6 million metric tons annually.

For decades, incandescent light bulbs continued to bear a strong resemblance to Thomas Edison’s creations, but new energy standards that go into effect in 2012 — and would effectively outlaw today’s bulb — have brought about a period of fertile innovation in the lighting industry.

One of the first attempts at greater efficiency was the nowmaligned compact fluorescent bulb, but there have also been efforts to modify incandescent technology to conform to the new standard. LED bulbs are now available in stores, but those models have limited output and high prices.

Philips has delivered 2,000 prototypes of its bulb to the energy department for testing. The firm says the bulbs meet all the criteria of the contest, which specifies a bulb that reproduces the same amount and color of light made by a 60-watt incandescent bulb, but uses only 10 watts of power. It must also last for more than 25,000 hours — about 25 times longer than a standard light bulb. NYT NEWS SERVICE

BRIGHT IDEA: Philips’ LED light bulb and (right) a regular bulb

Chips out, Silicon Valley puts money on bricks

Newark (California): Forget microchips. Silicon Valley sees a profitable future in the humble brick thanks to a low-energy production process that illustrates the greening of the US technology capital. Brick maker Calstar Products is backed by venture capitalists whose vision is to create buildings less expensively and in a way that saves energy. “We think it is time for a second industrial revolution,” said Paul Holland, a partner at Foundation Capital, which invested $7 million in Calstar. EnerTech Capital led another round that raised $8 million for the business. Currently about 40% of US energy use goes toward the heating, cooling and general operation of buildings. Silicon Valley is finding high-tech ways to make ageold materials, pursuing carbon dioxide-eating concrete, windows that insulate better than walls, and wood substitutes. The field is still new. Venture investments in green buildings have waxed and waned with the recession, but involved 45 deals worth about $350 million the past year, according to Cleantech Group LLC. Bricks have been made pretty much the same way for 3,000 years, until Calstar’s scientists came up with their new technique, said Chief Executive Michael Kane. Ordinary bricks are fired for 24 hours at 1,100°C as part of a process that can last a week, while Calstar bricks are baked at temperatures below 100°C and take only 10 hours from start to finish, Kane said. Lower energy costs mean higher profit, allowing the company to pay for its research and compete against large companies that have economies of scale. The new bricks — which the Brick Industry Association says are not actually bricks — will sell for the same price as traditional claybased ones. REUTERS BAKING IT IN: Calstar Products CEO Michael Kane with hi-tech bricks (right) at a plant in Newark, California

You can strike gold as sun shines

Tapping the permanent resource

Scientists Doing Solar Research Can Get Slice Of 10-Million Euro Fund

Prashanth G N | TNN

Bangalore: The future is solar. Solar bikes, cars, buses, trains and even space vehicles. Even if it seems like a fantasy at this stage, work is underway at a feverish pace to get into the solar frame of life. There’s plenty money in solar renewables and climate change.

Europe, which is way ahead of the rest of the world in solar power, is giving it a push in India too. A researcher from any science institution in India can now get a share of a 10 million EU-India fund if he or she can build a solar energy system over a three-year period. Researchers can propose theoretical models to the European Commission (EC) and the Indian department of science and technology (DST), who will take a call on their viability because the EC and DST are serious about useful and practical solar systems that emerge from research.

DST officials told TOI that solar projects have to be economically viable, commercially attractive, environmentally friendly and sustainable. The projects should also follow the principle of clean energy technologies and aid energy security without creating any adverse impact on climate. Indian researchers will get to work with EU researchers and institutions who will help incubate the project so that a product emerges after the period of research. “A pilot-scale production will be undertaken, and if the product or system is found viable in all ways, joint patents for the system as well as the knowledge that has gone into it would be developed,” officials said.

Within the EU, Germany has taken the lead in solar energy, which is a 16-billion dollar industry worldwide. Of this, Germany alone contributes 8 billion dollars turnover. Germany also employs one million people in its solar-renewable energy sector. Spain too has developed solar farms. Entrepreneur Bob Hoekstra, who is focusing on development of such projects in Bangalore, says solar energy will drive basic systems in everyday life in 20 years.

BACK TO THE FUTURE: Researchers can propose theoretical models of their solar energy system to the European Commission and the Indian department of science and technology, who will then take a call on their viability

Green flag for power incentives

Chittaranjan Tembhekar & Rebecca Samervel | TNN

The Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) in an order on Thursday allowed units generating at least 50 KW of power from renewable sources to sell it to the state grid, with attractive returns of between 19-24% for those who do so. A good proposition for housing societies and other such small units in and around the city who harness the wind or sun for some of their power needs. The BMC itself in fact plans to generate up to 15 KW of power from bio-mass, though that proposal is yet to take off. TOI speaks to two societies which use green power and finds mixed reactions.

Almost one-and-a-half years ago when Mansukhbhai Patel, a builder in Navi Mumbai, began generating 6 KW (30 units per day) of electricity from wind and solar machines installed atop his newly built building — Lords Apartment in Belapur— it was to have a green supplement to the regular power sources. Following Thursday’s CERC decision to encourage people to generate more wind, solar or biomass power and sell it to the state grid, Patel is a happy man. He plans a slightly bigger windmill business if he can acquire additional space close to the building along the Belapur creek.

Two years ago he invested around Rs 17 lakh to install three wind power generators with solar panel back ups. Situated right across the Belapur fort along the creek, the power generated lights up the apartment’s lobbies, parking areas, garden and there is an emergency back-up, enough power to light up four twobedroom flats every day. The location of the building close to the creek gives it an advantage—a good wind speed.

Patel’s excitement is not without reason. Sunil Tonge, a renewable power expert said if Patel increases his investment to Rs 1 crore, including construction costs, and installs around 8 windmills of 7 KW capacity each, or 25 fans of 2 KW capacity, it will bring huge benefits for him. He said 1 KW power per day helps burn 5 units enough to run a 40 watt tube and 60 watt ceiling fan for around 10 hours a day. The life of a windmill with solar panel back-up put together is 20 years. If there is no sufficient air, the solar panel attached to it helps generate the day’s deficit.

The 50 KW windmills can generate close to 250 units per day and nearly 1 lakh units (91,250 to be precise) a year and if Patel puts that in the grid over the year he could earn around Rs 6 to 8 lakh as will get Rs 8 per unit as incentive from the renewable energy department, making his total expenses on the venture very less. By this calculation, Patel can recoup his investment within eight to nine years and make profits for at least 11 years.

Power expert and consumer activist Ashok Pendsey said the return on investment offered in the new policy is attractive and takes care of loans and depreciation involved in the business. “It will enthuse people involved in generation of small quantum of power to generate more and get into the business,” he added.

When Navin Chandra, the general secretary of Sealine society at Bandra (W) installed solar panels on the roof top of his building between 2005-06 at a cost of Rs 9 lakh, it was deemed a lifetime investment. The three sets of 8 panels each, installed between 2006-07, generate two kilowatts (KW) per hour per day of renewable solar power, which can be used to light a maximum of 50 lights for about five hours.

But asked if the new CERC policy would benefit him, the septugenarian said he could not make much sense of some of its complexities. “The proposal requires us to approach a nodal agency first. This may bring a lot of red tape into play,” he said.

Chandra also maintains that a bigger problem is the stipulation that the excess power can’t be stored and has to be released to the grid at night. “This means we cannot use the power at night and not store the solar power. This would defy the purpose of saving power for emergencies,” he added.

“A small society like ours has expanded a great deal but still managed to generate only 2 KW. With maximum expansion, we might be able to double power generation but that would not be enough,” he said. Chandra however said buildings under construction can put in place necessary infrastructure. Moreover, smaller buildings like his can come together to generate power that can be sold.

“This is a step in the right direction. It can be a solution to all our power shortage woes. Ultimately, solar and wind power generation is the main solution to the 500MW power shortage the city is facing,” he said.

(Top) Mansukhbhai Patel and the windmills atop Lords Apartment in Belapur; Navin Chandra with the solar panels on his housing society

He can put the 1 lakh units of green power in the state’s grid and get an average incentive of Rs 8 lakh from the renewable energy department. So his actual spending on power generation and usage will be very less

The venture can turn profitable after eight to nine years Currently wind power costs up to Rs 4 per unit while solar power costs up to Rs 12 per unit

Under the new policy the government will offer a rate of return up to a maximum of 24% and there is scope to negotiate the rate based on capital expenditure and other expenses