Bangladesh: Bid to ease power crisis: Accord to set up power plant in Ctg soon
The government is likely to sign a deal with Royse Power, a Hong Kong-based company, for setting up a 50-megawatt power plant here in the port city.
Officials concerned said that they would start evaluating the tenders from today (Sunday) and hopefully it would finish within a week.
Ghana: Ghana obtains US$32 million AfDB loan for electricity
The African Development Bank Group's Board of Governors has approved a US$32 million private sector loan to a Ghanaian company, Tema Osonor Plant Limited, to produce electricity. The loan will help finance the design, construction and operation of a 126-Megawatt thermal power station at Tema, 25 kilometres east of Accra, AfDB said in a statement obtained on Sunday.
India: Tirupur textile workers fear job loss
About three lakh textile workers in Tirupur are a worried lot as the units have started cutting down production owing to an increase in loadshedding hours over the last few months.
Industry sources told The Hindu that the pay packets of piece rate workers had already become thinner during the period and if the power crisis persists, the entrepreneurs would be forced to retrench employees.
India: Four Bhel-planned ventures may be hit
State-owned power generation equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd, or Bhel, fears that raising funds to buy equity in projects, which would generate 6,400MW of electricity, in partnership with state governments will be difficult due to the current liquidity crunch.
“We have plans to develop eight units of 800MW each. Though our (other) expansion will go ahead as planned as these are primarily brownfield expansions, we are concerned about raising money for these new projects. They may get affected,” said a Bhel executive, who did not wish to be named.
Pakistan: Power cuts cutting deep into daily life
Unannounced load shedding is adding to miseries of the residents, already struggling hard to cope with high inflation, and worsening law and order situation in the capital.
“Life has become very tough. High commodity prices, deteriorating law and order situation, and now long spells of unannounced load shedding have robbed us of peace of mind,” Wajahat Mehmood, a resident of F-10, told Daily Times.
He said his children were unable to sleep at night when streetlights also went off.
Pakistan: Load shedding hampers security arrangements
Unannounced load shedding is creating hindrance in security arrangements, as the latest mechanical gadgets could not function properly for detection of explosive material or suicide bombers without electricity.
Police sources told Daily Times on Sunday that in view of current law and order situation and rise in suicide attacks, the police and other law enforcement agencies (LEAs) had been equipped with latest mechanical gadgets to detect explosives. Due to unannounced load shedding, he said, these gadgets could not function properly.
Pakistan: Back to the Stone Age
People are facing problems using credit and debit cards, fuel cards and ATM machines because of continuous load shedding, Daily Times learnt on Saturday.
Shop owners in different localities in the city have been complaining of a decrease in their sales as the customers return their shopping when the credit cards fail to work. A shopkeeper at Liberty Market, Habib Ahmed, said that several customers had returned products as they were short on cash and only had credit cards, which they could not use due to load shedding. He said that he faced a 20 percent reduction in sales owing to very frequent load shedding.
Russia: Power Grid Companies Seek Billions in State Aid
The country's power grid companies are set to raise their investment plans by 18 percent to 909.4 billion rubles ($34.5 billion) and are appealing for urgent state help in carrying them out, industry officials said Friday.
One of the largest of the firms, MOESK, which operates electricity grids in and around the capital, is working to switch more quickly to a new pricing scheme that will allow it to make up a severe shortage of cash, an industry source said.
MOESK cannot find a source for the 104 billion ruble shortfall for its investment plans up to 2012, according to the holding company that controls all of the interregional grid companies, MRSK Holding.
Venezuela: Another power blackout hits Venezuela ahead of vote
A large power blackout hit Venezuela on Sunday in the latest of a series of electricity grid failures that have become a political liability for President Hugo Chavez in the OPEC nation.
Oil operations in one of the world's largest crude exporters were unaffected by the outage because they use separate grids from residential networks, a state oil company spokesman said.
