Telstra will deploy fuel cells as an alternative to back-up battery arrays at mobile base stations and small telephone exchanges. The carrier's director of asset and facilities management, John Romano, said Telstra has included fuel cell technology as the standard back-up power source for sites that consume less than 5 kiloWatts an hour. The telco has spent the past several months testing the efficacy of fu ...

State-owned PetroVietnam and Rosneft are expected to sign two upstream pacts and a crude oil sales deal during Russian President Vladimir Putin to Vietnam early next month, PetroVietnam said Wednesday. One is to do with PetroVietnam's participation in the South Russky block in the Pechora Sea and West Matveyevsky in the Barents Sea. Also on the anvil is a memorandum of understanding on Rosneft's acquisition ...

Tokyo Electric Power Co should be stripped of the responsibility for shutting down its crippled Fukushima nuclear power plant, according to a draft proposal by a panel of Japan's ruling party. Tokyo Electric, or Tepco, has been widely criticized for repeated missteps, poor planning and a lack of disclosure in its efforts to clear up the site of the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. A task forc ...

A Chinese company has bagged a P30-billion contract to construct the 405-megawatt coal-fired power plant of FDC Misamis Power Corp. in Mindanao. FDC Misamis, a unit of Filinvest Development Corp., said it would hold groundbreaking ceremonies, marking the start of the power plant’s construction at the Phividec Industrial Authority in Misamis Oriental next month.  Commercial operation of the plant is expected ...

Yokogawa India, a subsidiary of Yokogawa Electric, has secured a contract from NTPC to provide control systems to each of the three units at the Kudgi supercritical coal-fired thermal power plant in Karnataka, India. Under the contract, Yokogawa will supply CENTUM VP integrated production control system, DPharp EJA series differential pressure/pressure transmitters, oxygen and liquid analyzers, a CCTV syste ...

Tokyo Electric Power Co. has decided to increase the amount of U.S. shale gas it will purchase from 2017 as fuel for thermal power generation to 1.5 times its initial plan, or 1.2 million tons a year. The move will be included as a centerpiece of TEPCO’s cost-cutting measures in the new management reorganization plan to be compiled as early as December. Shale gas is 30 percent cheaper than the liquefied nat ...

In a strategy aimed at cushioning the impact of expensive imported coal, power major NTPC Ltd is in final stages of launching an ambitious plan to move this coal from the high seas to its generating stations through inland waterways, starting with its Farakka plant in West Bengal. The very first consignment for Farakka — a ship bearing 69,060 metric tonnes (MT) of imported coal — has already arrived at Sand ...

Air Liquide Japan and Toyota Tsusho Corporation have signed a partnership agreement for a hydrogen supply business for fuel cell electric vehicles in Japan. According to this agreement, the two companies will establish a new JV company (Toyota Tsusho 51%, Air Liquide Japan 49%). As a first step, the new company will build two hydrogen filling stations in Japan in the Aichi area (Atsuta in Nagoya and Fukada ...

DuPont, US chemical giant with diverse interests, is in talks with solar panel manufacturers to ascertain the feasibility of new products the company plans to unveil in India. "For our new product, E-Frame, we are currently in discussions with some of the leading Indian solar panel manufacturers to validate the concept and evaluate product feasibility in the Indian installations," said Rajaram Pai, business ...

The state-owned hydropower company NHPC Ltd has decided to also focus on developing thermal power plants in India in a move that will put it in direct competition with another state-owned company, NTPC Ltd. The main reason would seem to be the long-gestation period of hydropower projects as well as delays in clearances. With projects that will generate 3,808.5 megawatts (MW) delayed due to issues such as di ...