About one million green jobs will open up in India over next two years

Green jobs, as defined by UNEP, refers to work in agricultural, manufacturing, research and development or administrative activities that contribute to preserving environmental quality, and help in protecting the ecosystem and biodiversity. They may include architects designing energy-efficient buildings, organic farmers in villages, environmental engineers or even plumbers installing water-recycle systems.

In India alone, headhunters estimate about one million green jobs will open up over the next two years alone. “Earlier, the manufacturing sector used to hire health, safety and environment officers to ensure adequate protection. Now such positions are opening up across sectors, and some companies are even hiring chief sustainability officers,” says E Balaji, director and president, Ma Foi Randstad.

Now, if this isn’t an interesting business opportunity, tell me what is!
http://bit.ly/9Hbtvy

Tata Power Increases Renewable Energy Portfolio with Geothermal Energy

Tata Power, the largest private energy firm in India, is increasing its portfolio of renewable energy through hydropower, solar and wind and is presently considering geothermal energy.

I have been hearing about Tata Power’s interest in geothermal. Another company that has been pursuing geothermal has been the Bhilwara Group.

But I have my doubts about the potential of geothermal for India in the short and medium run. I have insights from fairly expert sources that the usually quited 10000 MW potential for geothermal in India is a random number and that the actual potential is likely to be a small fraction of this.

All the same, it will useful to watch the moves by the biggies on geothermal…
http://bit.ly/aRrS3X

Top 5 Green IT Companies in Bangalore

High-performance businesses all around the world are responding to the need to reduce carbon emissions in everything they do. The IT department has a crucial role to play in meeting these goals. Here’s a list of Top 5 green IT Companies in Bangalore – Wipro, Cisco, Infosys, Accenture and HCL. It is quite interesting and encouraging to read about the number of initiatives being undertaken by these companies.

Some of these efforts might sound fairly small, but these small steps might lead to large results tomorrow.
http://bit.ly/bDLm1w

IOC to spend Rs 2,000 cr on alternative energy

Country’s largest oil-marketing company, Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), will spend Rs 2,000 crore in next five years to develop power projects based on alternative sources of energy like tidal, solar, nuclear and wind.

IOC seems to have planned the diversification into tapping non-conventional energy resources based on assessment that growth in retailing of petroleum products will be limited with entry of private and foreign players.

It is good to see how the power of competition is making even sloths like IOC start moving.
http://bit.ly/dqz7LN

Tata BP Solar Aims to Increase PV Cell Manufacturing Capacity

Tata BP Solar, a joint venture between Tata Power and BP, aims to increase its Photovoltaic (PV) cell manufacturing capacity from the present 84 MW to 180 MW in this fiscal, a senior company official said.

This is a significant increase, given that the total capacity for PV cells production in India is only about 500 MW (and for modules about 1000 MW).
http://bit.ly/cGRgIk

IFC in talks with banks, FIs to invest in clean tech projects

International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector lending arm of the World Bank, is in talks with banks and financial institutions to invest in clean technology projects.

To begin with, it has disbursed $75 million to IDFC, the local infrastructure financing firm, which in turn will lend to projects promoting clean technology.

$75 million is not exactly a lot of money in the context of renewable energy (just worth about 15 MW of solar PV, to put things in perspective), but this is just the starting point, so let’s hope it grows into orders of magnitudes higher investments.
http://bit.ly/d86mQN