General Electric unit GE Wind, a maker of wind turbines, expects to return to double-digit growth rates in 2010, after being flat in 2009, the head of GE Wind's German business said on Tuesday.

GE Wind's European business is expected to double this year thanks to the launch of new products, Rainer Broering told Reuters on the sidelines of the Hanover industry fair.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Sunday ordered to immediately stop auctions of land in Thatta. He also announced that Darawat Dam would be built to reserve rainwater for irrigation in this area.

The global financial crisis has come as a roadblock to the Rs 5,500-crore integrated solar power complex, possibly the world

Shastry V. Mallady

It will give 5 per cent of its annual budget for research in key areas

MADURAI: The Tamil Nadu State Council for Science and Technology has decided to allocate five per cent of its annual budget for promoting renewable energy.

Saving energy: A member of Annai Charitable Trust demonstrating the use solar-powered appliances to children at the Nesakarangal Home in Salem.

SALEM: Annai Charitable Trust of India, a Salem-based non-governmental organisation, conducted an awareness programme on solar-powered appliances for children at Nesakkarangal, a home for the deserted.

Shastry V. Mallady

It will function as a resource, research, training and production centre

MADURAI: To encourage use of solar energy, an institute under the name Loyola Institute of Solar Energy and Technology (LSET) was inaugurated here on Saturday.

About 35 hoardings have been shifted from conventional electricity to solar energy in the city, Pakistan Electric Power Company (PEPCO) Energy Conservation General Manager (GM) Tahir Bisharat Cheema said on Friday.

In a fresh bid to strengthen the national power-grid with another 400 MWs, 159 licences have already been issued to prospective corporate stakeholders to carry on with renewable energy power generation, and interested parties are bound to complete their projects within a set timeframe of two years, a Ministry of Power and Energy press release said.

Federal Minister for Water and Power Raja Pervez Ashraf told a press conference on Wednesday that the country's first ever windmill project in Jhimpir, Sindh, will become functional on April 19. This would mark an important beginning towards power production from alternative sources of energy. Built by a Turkish company, the project is part of a 50mw wind farm.

San Francisco: Californians could soon be powering their homes, and no doubt their hot tubs, from a space-based solar electricity programme.

The plan by the state