The time is ripe for a south Asian electricity market

"I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that.'

About 45 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles, a machine the size of a small truck flattens tons of food scraps, paper towels and other household trash into the side of a growing 300-foot pile. To Waste Management which operates the landfill, this is more than just a mountain of garbage. Pipes tunnelled deep into the mound extract gas from the rotting waste and send it to a plant that turns it into electricity.

At 265 feet tall, four gleaming white wind turbines tower over the tiny farm town of Rock Port, Missouri, like a landing of alien intruders. But despite their imposing presence and the stark contrast with the rolling pastures and corn fields, the turbines have received a warm welcome here. As Eric Chamberlain, who manages the wind farm for Wind Capital Group, eats lunch in a local restaurant, local people greet him with a "Hey Windy!" and many say they are happy to be using clean electricity.

People of different localities of Sukkur held demonstrations on Sunday in protest against unannounced loadshedding and shortage of water, which has almost paralysed normal life in the city.Irked by hours-long loadshedding and scarcity of water, hundreds of citizens held demonstrations in New Pind, Mughal Colony, Old Sukkur and other areas while shouting slogans against Hesco and the taluka municipal administration.

AUSTRALIA is taking a wrong path by offering subsidies to install solar rooftop panels, instead of promising households high prices if they sell excess power to the grid, a leading German MP has warned. Hans Josef Fell, the Greens' energy spokesman and co-author of Germany's pathbreaking Renewable Energies Act, said renewable energy now made up 14% of Germany's electricity generation, mainly due to good prices for selling excess power.

Most of the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Haryana have not been able to function optimally due to power shortage. SMEs face almost six to eight hours of power failure everyday. SMEs with strong financials rely on captive power, run on diesel gensets, that costs about Rs 12.50 per unit. Power supplied by the the state electricity board costs Rs 4.50 per unit. The going is tough for those who cannot afford captive power. IS Paul, managing director of Panchkula based Drish Shoes Ltd says: "It is not only the issue of availability of power , but of quality as well."

As South Africa struggles with an ongoing power crisis, the state power utility Eskom has said electricity prices need to double in the next two years. In a submission to the National Electricity

Even as the government struggles to meet its power capacity addition target of about 78,000 Mw in the Eleventh Plan (2007 to 2012), power plants with a capacity of more than 100,000 Mw are under construction outside of this government plan, and most are likely to be commissioned in 2011-12. A senior official of the Power Grid Corporation of India

Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje is a risk taker. She often rushes in where her political counterparts fear to tread. Power, for her, has a different meaning, and in this case, literally so. Facing Assembly elections in November this year, Raje took the gutsy but politically suicidal step of cutting off power to 1,000 villages in four districts of Bharatpur division, an area from where she has a strong support base.