Texture is a new company founded by serial startup veteran Sanjiv Sanghavi that aims to become a common data collection and sharing platform for renewable power sources like wind, solar, and batteries. The company believes that by connecting these systems and making their data more accessible, it can accelerate the adoption of renewable energy and help to fight climate change.
Hitachi Energy, a leading provider of transformer technologies, has announced a $1.5 billion investment to expand its global transformer manufacturing capacity by 2027. This significant investment adds to the $3 billion the company has already invested in electrifying the energy system and driving the energy transition. In addition, Hitachi Energy is investing around $180 million in a new transformer factory in Finland. These investments align with the company’s broader growth strategy, including its recent $30 million expansion in Germany.
Karnataka and Gujarat have outpaced Maharashtra in effectively integrating renewable energy sources into their power sectors, demonstrating significant progress toward decarbonization. Maharashtra’s performance was held back by its “low share in renewable energy consumption,” among other factors, according to a report released by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) and Ember. The report highlighted Maharashtra’s low score in the rating of the Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited (MSEDCL), which was responsible for approximately 90% of the total power purchased by discoms in the state. Additionally, the state was found to have only 12% of its renewable energy installed capacity in the distributed solar energy category.
However, Maharashtra performed well in the ‘Market Enablers’ dimension, indicating that it is laying the groundwork for an accelerated transition toward electricity. It also has a green tariff rate of 66 paise per unit for electricity consumers. The state has a pumped hydro storage capacity of 440MW and a pipeline of other storage tenders that are expected to be commissioned in the coming years.
E-waste, often discarded as mere trash, holds a treasure trove of metals essential for the production of clean energy technologies such as solar panels, wind turbines, and electric vehicle batteries. The United Nations’ recent report on e-waste provides a comprehensive analysis of the metals present in electronic garbage, revealing staggering quantities of copper, nickel, aluminum, and rare-earth minerals. However, the recycling rates of these metals remain low, hindering the potential of e-waste as a sustainable source of materials for the energy transition. To fully harness the potential of e-waste, better recycling policies are needed, including design-for-recycling standards and metal recovery requirements. By increasing the recovery of critical metals from e-waste, we can mitigate the environmental impact of mining, reduce our reliance on virgin materials, and accelerate the transition to a clean energy future.
