Another big scheme, another poll promise

Another big scheme, another poll promise

NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi on Monday, 25^th September 2017, unveiled his latest big-ticket scheme. The Saubhagya Scheme that he launched was another visible policy initiative that ties in with his messaging for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The Saubhagya Scheme is aimed at ensuring electrification of every household in the country. The Rs 16,000 crore project proposes to use solar power to sidestep grid connectivity to remote areas, which has been the biggest challenge to last-mile electricity connections.
The electrification of every household in the country was a key, and high-visibility promise that Narendra Modi had made as part of his campaign in 2014.
This is hardly the first big-ticket announcement that the PM has used to link back to his poll promises. His government’s unprecedented announcement of the surgical strikes against Pakistan-backed terrorist infrastructure across the Line of Control had tied into his message of taking a hard line on terror.
He had then followed up with his November 8, 2016, announcement of demonetisation. This had been packaged into his promises to crack down on black money and corruption.
Another major economic agenda that the Modi government had used to bolster its reform narrative was the rollout of the Good and Services Tax (GST) beginning July 1.
Having won the last election at least in part because of a promise of economic growth, Modi has turned every large announcement of his government into an extension of the development narrative that propelled him to power.
At the launch of the Saubhagya Scheme, Modi claimed the government had ensured the creation of a sufficient manufacturing backbone to ensure the programme’s success.

However, it is probably not mere coincidence or fortune that the project’s deadline is set for March 31, 2019. That would probably be just months before the next Lok Sabha elections.
 

Low-cost Solar Cells using Jamun fruit

Low-cost Solar Cells using Jamun fruit

Invention by IIT Scientists

          New Delhi: Scientists at IIT Roorkee have used the juicy, delectable Indian summer fruit Jamun to create inexpensive and more efficient solar cells.

          Researchers used naturally occurring pigment found in jamun as an inexpensive photosensitiser for Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSCs) or Gratzel cells.

          Gratzel cells are thin film solar cells composed of a porous layer of titanium dioxide (TiO2) coated photoanode, a layer of dye molecules that absorbs sunlight, an electrolyte for regenerating the dye, and a cathode.

          These components form a sandwich-like structure with the dye molecule or photosensitizer playing a pivotal role through its ability to absorb visible light.

          "The dark colour of jamun and abundance of jamun trees in IIT campus clicked the idea that it might be useful as a dye in the typical Dye Sensitised Solar Cells (DSSC)," lead researcher Soumitra Satapathi, assistant professor at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Roorkee in Uttarakhand, told PTI.

          Researchers extracted dyes from jamun using ethanol. They also used fresh plums and black currant, along with mixed berry juices which contain pigments that give characteristic colour to jamun.

          The mixture was then centrifuged and decanted. The extracted coloured pigment called anthocyanin was used as a sensitiser.

          "Natural pigments are way economical in comparison to regular Ruthenium-based pigments and scientists are optimising to improve the efficiency," said Satapathi, who is also a visiting professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell in the US.

          "The increasing pressure on fossil fuels and concern of global warming has inspired continuous search for alternate energy," said Satapathi. Uncertainty over the pace at which new large dams or nuclear plants can be built means strong reliance on solar power - an area where India has high potential and equally high ambition - to deliver on the country's pledge to build up a 40 per cent share of non-fossil fuel capacity in the power sector by 2030, researchers said.

          "In principle, we have a large social need for renewable energy especially solar energy. For quite sometime, our lab is actively engaged in low cost high efficiency solar cells production," said Satapathi.

          The research team, which includes Nipun Sawhney and Anubhav Raghav, is very optimistic that the process can easily be replicated for mass production of solar cells.

          The simplicity and cost effectiveness of the overall fabrication process, widespread availability of fruits and juices, and ease of extraction of anthocyanin dyes render them novel and inexpensive candidates for solar cells application, researchers said.

          The research was published in the Journal of Photovoltaics. 

Swiss solar plane ends round-the-world tour

Abu-Dhabi: Solar Impulse – the Swiss solar aircraft – created history on Tuesday, 26^th July 2016 with completing the first-ever round-the-world flight by a solar plane on Tuesday, 26^th July 2016. It started its journey on 9 March 2015.

The record-breaking flight covered more than 40,000 km without a single drop of jet fuel. After about 48 hours of flight time, the plane landed in Abu Dhabi at circa 4am on Tuesday.

What is the Solar Impulse?

Solar Impulse is a Swiss long-range experimental solar-powered aircraft project, and also the name of the project's two operational aircraft. The privately financed project is led by Swiss engineer and businessman Andr’e Borschberg and Swiss psychiatrist and aeronaut Bertrand Picard, who co-piloted Breiting Orbiter 3, the first balloon to circle the world non-stop. The Solar Impulse project's goals were to make the first circumnavigation of the Earth by a piloted fixed-wing aircraft using only solar power and to bring attention to clean technologies. Reflecting on these goals, Mike Scott wrote in Forbes magazine: "If we can fly around the world using only the power of the sun and the optimisation of energy efficiency technologies, the potential of clean technologies in other applications is immense." The aircraft are single-seat monoplanes powered by photovoltaic cells; they are capable of taking off under their own power. The prototype, often referred to as Solar Impulse 1, was designed to remain airborne up to 36 hours. It conducted its first test flight in December 2009. In July 2010, it flew an entire diumal solar cycle, including nearly nine hours of night flying, in a 26-hour flight. Piccard and Borschberg completed successful solar-powered flights from Switzerland to Spain and then Morocco in 2012, and conducted a multi-stage flight across the United States in 2013.

A second aircraft, completed in 2014 and named Solar Impulse 2, carries more solar cells and more powerful motors, among other improvements. On 9 March 2015, Piccard and Borschberg began to circumnavigate the globe with Solar Impulse 2, departing from Abu-Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. The aircraft was scheduled to return to Abu Dhabi in August 2015 after a multi-stage journey around the world. By June 2015, the plane had traversed Asia, and in July 2015, it completed the longest leg of its journey, from Japan to Hawaii. During that leg, however, the aircraft's batteries sustained thermal damage that took months to repair. Solar Impulse 2 resumed the circumnavigation in April 2016, when it flew to California. It continued across the United States until it reached New York City in June 2016. Later that month, the aircraft crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Spain.It stopped in Egypt before finally returning to Abu Dhabi on 26 July 2016, completing the approximately 42,000 kilometer (26,000 mile) circumnavigation over a period of more than 16 months.

Watch the Video here by clicking the image below:

Watch another Video here by clicking the image below:

Modi For Grand Global Solar Alliance

Modi For Grand Global Solar Alliance

Antalya (Turkey): India on Sunday, 15^th November 2015, pushed for its proposal for a grand alliance of solar-rich nations to make this key source of green power an integral part of people's lives.

It nudged the G20 to ensure finances and technology worth $100 billion are made available for countries to pursue clean energy during their development.

"At G20, we can play an effective role in supporting the multilateral goals of increasing research and development to develop affordable renewable energy. We must also ensure finance and technology is available to meet the universal global aspiration for clean energy," Prime Minister Narendra Modi told the G20 Summit here.

"We must meet the target of $100-billion goal per year by 2020," said the prime minister in this Mediterranean resort, ahead of the crucial meeting of the Conference of Parties (COP) in Paris from November 30 to December 11, under the aegis of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The prime minister, who arrived here late Saturday from London, said India itself has agreed to do its bit for a clean-green world. This, by committing an additional capacity of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022, cutting subsidies on fossil fuels, taxing the use of coal, and setting up a National Clean Energy Fund of $3 billion to promote clean technologies.

He said such a firm commitment was also made in its own Intended Nationally Determined Contributions for the Paris talks, in which New Delhi has pledged to cut emission levels by 33-35 percent over the next 15 years in an ambitious, fair and balanced commitment to protect the environment, married to the country's own agenda for sustainable development.

"We should shift from 'carbon credit' towards 'green credit'. When we speak of targets, we must not only reduce the use of fossil fuel, but also moderate our lifestyle. Development in harmony with nature is the goal of my proposal to launch, along with French President (Franois) Hollande, an alliance of solar-rich countries at the time of COP-21 meeting."

India is proposing what is called an International Agency for Solar Technologies and Applications (INSTA) to bring together nearly 125 countries rich in solar resources that lie between tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, notable from Africa and Asia, to pursue this clean, perennial and sustainable source of energy.

'Butterfly' technique to make solar energy cheaper

'Butterfly' technique to make

 solar energy cheaper

London,: Mimicking the v-shaped posture adopted by a butterfly species to heat up its flight muscles before take-off, the amount of power produced by solar panels can increase by almost 50 percent, a study led by an Indian-origin scientist Tapas Mallick has found.

Increased efficiency of solar energy production with the new technique could also lower its cost.

"Biomimicry in engineering is not new. However, this truly multidisciplinary research shows pathways to develop low cost solar power that have not been done before," said study lead author Tapas Mallick, professor at University of Exeter in Britain.

The Cabbage White butterflies are known to take flight before other butterflies on cloudy days - which limit how quickly the insects can use the energy from the sun to heat their flight muscles.

This ability is thought to be due to the v-shaped posturing they adopt on such days to maximise the concentration of solar energy onto their thorax, which allows for flight.

Furthermore, specific sub-structures of the butterflies' wings allow the light from the sun to be reflected most efficiently, ensuring that the flight muscles are warmed to an optimal temperature as quickly as possible.

The team of scientists therefore investigated how to replicate the wings to develop a new, lightweight reflective material that could be used in solar energy production.

The scientists found that the optimal angle by which the butterfly should hold its wings to increase temperature to its body was around 17 degrees, which increased the temperature by 7.3 degrees Centigrade compared to when held flat.

They also showed that by replicating the simple mono-layer of scale cells found in the butterfly wings in solar energy producers, they could vastly improve the power-to-weight rations of future solar concentrators, making them significantly lighter and so more efficient.

The study was published in the journal Scientific Reports.