When Wolfgang Schwanghart went to Nepal for the first time, he was shocked to see many hydropower dams perching on the steep Himalayan terrains. “They looked rather precarious,” says the geologist, who works at the University of Potsdam in Germany. That was in early April 2015. Two weeks later, a devastating magnitude-7.8 earthquake struck, killing nearly 9,000 people. It also damaged 31 projects of the typ ...

A collapsed dam in Laos is pushing the communist regime in the Southeast Asian country into unchartered territory, with leaders of the notoriously oppressive and opaque one-party state facing criticism a week after the disaster, according to seasoned observers based in the capital Vientiane. The regime's attempts to restrict information about the landlocked country's worst water-related disaster in decades ...

Greenko Group and overseas electric utilities are in separate talks with Equis Pte Ltd to acquire its Indian hydroelectric assets valued at around Rs 2,700 crore, two people aware of the development said. Discussions to buy Equis’s Hydreq hydropower platform come against the backdrop of sovereign wealth funds Singapore’s GIC Holdings Pte Ltd and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) investing a total of aro ...

Himachal Pradesh's plans to harness hydropower in a big way have received a jolt with investors reluctant to take up projects. The directorate of energy had invited global bids for 28 hydropower projects on a build own operate and transfer (BOOT) basis with June 19 as the last date for submitting and opening bids, but so far only three bid documents have been sold. In the past, three attempts to allot these ...

Pakistan and World Bank have started talks here over the recently-inaugurated Kishanganga hydropower project in Jammu and Kashmir, with Islamabad accusing New Delhi of violating the Indus Waters Treaty by setting up the dam.A four-member Pakistan delegation, led by Attorney General Ashtar Ausaf, arrived in Washington on Sunday for three-day talks aiming to convince the World Bank authorities to set up a cou ...

Nepal’s new communist prime minister will restart a Chinese-led US$2.5 billion hydropower project that was pulled by the previous government considered friendly towards India, and wants to increase infrastructure connectivity with Beijing to ease the country’s reliance on New Delhi. He also wants to “update” relations with India “in keeping with the times” and favours a review of all special provisions of I ...

Nepali President Bidya Devi Bhandari on Saturday urged domestic and foreign investors to inject their capital in his country's hydropower to cash in on the immense opportunity provided by soaring demands of electricity in South Asian region. "In Nepal and South Asia where rapid development is expected, demand for electricity is soaring. Hence, I reckon there is a good opportunity to invest in Nepal's hydrop ...

Voith signs contract for Henan Tianchi pumped storage plant He Nan Province, China: In December 2017, Henan Tianchi Pumped Storage Co., Ltd. (Tianchi PSP) and Voith Hydro Shanghai Co., Ltd. (VHS) signed a contract to purchase equipment at the Henan Tianchi pumped storage plant site. Voith will supply four 300 MW Francis reversible pump turbines and generators and also auxiliary equipment. The power plant wi ...

Was it truly worth Chinese Premier Li Keqiang traveling all the way to Phnom Penh for the second Mekong-Lancang Cooperation (MLC) summit? As the MLC leaders’ meeting closed on Wednesday, there appeared few new or positive developments on how the regional body would respond to the many environmental and other issues affecting the Mekong River, known in China as the Lancang. Li said an agreed new five-year ac ...

Sri Lanka’s LVL Energy Fund will invest in South Asia and Africa due to limited growth potential in the island due to the lack of stable policy and transparent energy pricing. LVL Energy Fund raised Rs1.2 billion with a public offering of a 20.6% stake in the company in December 2017. A share was priced at Rs10, which was 2.04 times net asset value as at end March 2017. The share traded on the Colombo Stock ...