Can India meet its 100 GW Solar Power Proposal?

Last week, In Paris UN climate conference 2015, India pledged to increase the amount of solar power that can be generated in the country to 100 gigawatts by 2022.

The same week, I got my LEED AP certification, so knowing all about India, I decided to write this article - to tell the reality of India.

100 GW of Solar power!

This is REALLY BIG promise, considering the fact that today, India's current capacity is just around 3 GW! That's more than 20 times India's current solar deployment. It's also more than twice the installed capacity in Germany & China. Germany has about 40 GW. China is little more than 40GW.

To achieve 100 GW, India will have to overcome some of the biggest challenges in terms of Investments and most importantly policy reforms.

To get to 100 GW by 2022, Solar Power installations must grow by 65% year-on-year!

Can India pull it off?

Technically and Financially, getting to 100 GW by 2022 is feasible. The total investment needed in Solar Panels (not including land and investments in Power Grid) is about US$ 75 Billion. (Assuming cost of panels will come down by 5% y-o-y.) Total area required for 100 GW will be around 30,000 acres.

Considering that India has plenty of funds - mainly in form of black money, and according to GFI's 2014 Annual Global Update on Illicit Financial Flows report, US $51 Billion flows out  of India annually and in last 10 years US $ 439 Billion flowed out of India.

We can make a reasonable assumption that given proper channels and opportunities, all that black money can be diverted to create solar power plants. Then we know we have funds to set up 100 GW of solar power!

Between 2012 and 2014, solar capacity increased from 461 megawatts to over three gigawatts in India.


Land needed to set up the panels is not much either. 100 GW will require about 500,000 Acres.  Just by using the large reservoir area of big dams of India - like Nagarjuna Sagar, Tehri dam, Bhakra Dam etc, we can create more than enough space for solar power plans. So even after considering the fact that cost of building solar farms over  lake area is slightly expensive - but it makes up the fact that the Solar plants does not need agricultural land!

Moreover, setting up solar power plans over water reservoirs helps in reducing water losses due to evaporation and also increases the efficiency of Solar PV panels.

In short, we have all the land needed to create 100 GW of Solar power, and we have the funds. But do we have the right policies?

Great Indian Dinosaur Park!

Just take a walk around any Indian cities and look out for power distribution cables. It often looks like this:

The image is also a perfect reflection on the state of Indian power distribution utilities. None of the utilities have performed regular auditing of their power losses and it shows in their balance sheets.

Currently, power supply distribution is a monopoly of several state government owned companies - popularly called as "escoms".  These escoms are badly managed, corruption ridden organizations - which have no business sense. These utilities have racked up $55 billion in losses over the past six years, the cumulative losses in these power utilities has not yet been fully accounted.

Development of Solar Power by private sector will only aggravate losses to state owned power utilities. Currently, farmers in most states do not pay for electrical power. Indian farmers who get free electricity to power irrigation pumps.

The free power to farmers accounts for 20 percent of India's electricity consumption and accounts for roughly $10 billion of the losses on state owned utilities. Consequently, industries in India are charged at very high price for electric power and if these industrial users move to solar power, the losses to state owned electric utilities will only increase. Therefore state owned electric utilities have no motivation to allow "net metering".

The national power grid is also a government owned monopoly of Power Grid Corporation of India - which is yet another dinosaur!

The power grid is already under tremendous stress, and the installed grid capacity is less than generation capacity. As a result power hungry states in the southern parts of the country are not able to draw power from states which has surplus capacities.

Adding 100 GW to this decrepit grid is not possible. Also one must note that peak solar power is available only for a short duration of the day and it completely disappears at night. This massive power fluctuations can disrupt & destabilize the grid adversely.

The intermittent nature of renewable energy sources like solar power presents a range of challenges to utilities, depending on their grid's size and design. If Solar PV cells are providing a substantial share of the grid's power and suddenly cloud covers a large Solar PV plant, the power generation drops by 40-50% in less than a minute. This rapid power loss can cause the frequency of the grid's alternating current to drop well below 50 hertz, damaging customer equipment or even causing a blackout.

In short, Indian utilities' ragged infrastructure and financial woes have deterred investment in both clean and unclean power generation. In many cases, utilities have no money to buy solar power from private plants - even when there is demand for electric power.

The Great Indian Policy Challenge

A. Policy Challenge-1: Power Utilities

The biggest challenge India to developing solar power is its policy framework. The onus of connecting all of the 100 GW of solar power lies with various state power utilities - who have absolutely no incentive to do so.

As a solution, Messrs. Sivaram, Shrimali and Reicher suggest creating a federally administered fund to buy power from solar generators when distribution companies aren't in a position to do so, thereby reducing risks to developers. Such a fund was outlined as part of a 2010 national solar program. Even after 5 years - the policy is not yet implemented.

Today, not all Indian states currently have mechanisms for customers to sell self-generated solar power back to the grid and it is unlikely that the various state governments will change their policies to align with the fedral/central government vision and policy.

B. Policy Challenge-2: Land acquisition

Today, setting up a 1 GW of solar power requires 230 acres of land. For 100 GW, it will require 500,000 acres which investors will have to acquire without government assistance. Given the fragmented land ownership in India, it means negotiating with 30-50 persons per acre of land! Moreover there are innumerable restrictions on acquiring agricultural land.

Further more, land area needed for the solar power plans are under the control of various state governmental agencies: Ministry of agriculture, Ministry of Irrigation etc. In short there are more than 100 agencies that govern the area!

This implies that private developed developers will face difficulties acquiring land and getting permissions to build the necessary transmission lines.

C. Policy Challenge-3: Pricing Challenge

For any business investments, investors must have a clear idea of expected returns. Given the rapid decline in the cost of solar power generation - the cost of solar power has already fallen beneath the cost of power generated from imported coal, and could soon be cheaper than power from domestic coal.

This rapid drop in solar PV panels will create project financing challenges. So apart from a purchase agreement, the solar power plants will need tax benefits and capital grants. A currency-hedging facility would help to attract foreign capital.

In rural areas, Indian government also subsidizes fuel for gas lamps, making solar even more uncompetitive. Reducing fossil fuel subsidies would lift energy prices that this would make rooftop solar plants more attractive for millions of rural households.

D. Policy Challenge-4: Petty Politics  

As a first step in policy reforms, government will have to revive & pass the long-pending Renewable Energy Bill in 2015 or latest by summer of 2016.  This Bill, if ratified by Parliament into an Act, should increase RPOs to 15 percent and provide routes for financing, such as infrastructure funds and green energy bonds.

NDA led central government has so far failed miserably to pass any major bills in parliament. The NDA government has so far shown no political will to pass even minor bills in the parliament. Currently, the government is struggling to pass the GST bill - for which there is a general consensus!

In India, power utilities are owned by local state governments. Given the petty politics that our leaders engage in, there is no chance that all the states will agree with the central/fedral government on solar/green power policies and agree on a national level green policy.

This implies, hitting the target of 100 gigawatts of solar by 2022 will require more fundamental reform in every aspect of power sector and that needs political consensus. This is the biggest challenge India has.

Policy Challenge-5: Roof Top Off Grid solar Power

If there is one good success story in solar power in India, it is in rooftop solar water heaters. India has the largest install base for roof top solar water heaters. Rooftop solar water heaters has been one of the rare successes. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has been able to provide subsidy to individual buyers and encourage manufactures.

However, when it comes to rooftop solar PV cells, the plan is to generate only 3 GW of power via rooftop solar PV plants. Solar panels and batteries for powering appliances in a single homes or a small group of users, stand to bring enormous benefits to millions of in India who have limited or no access to the electricity grid.

As on today, rooftop solar power can now match or beat the grid rates for commercial and industrial consumers in many states. Unfortunately, very few of these people can afford to setup even the simplest solar technology and there are no easy financing options.

In rural areas, Indian government also subsidizes fuel for gas lamps, making solar even more uncompetitive. Reducing fossil fuel subsidies would lift energy prices that this would make rooftop solar plants more attractive for millions of rural households.

In India there is potential to produce upto 40 GW of power from rooftop installations and having a good policy framework to attract individual house owners to invest in solar PV panels will be a good step - but the current policies are not aligned for this.

Closing Thoughts

Producing 100 GW of solar power requires political commitment and lots of smart interventions. Government needs to increase its spending on power infrastructure which includes national power grids, power exchanges and spot power markets.

To reach 100 GW of Solar power by 2022 requires making solar power a national priority - something akin to Kennedy's race to the moon.

Right now, 100 GW of solar power looks like a pipe dream - an overambitious target that has no detailed plans and allocated budget.  There is a big mismatch between the goal and the road map and there is no clear strategy to achieve it.

Technically, India is capable of setting up more than 500 GW of solar power in next 10 years  - provided there is political will and policies to support it.

With the 100 GW announcement, Narendra Modi's government got the whole world excited and talking about it. If the government can follow it up with policies, investors will follow with their money, set up manufacturing plants and creating thousands of jobs.

India's push towards renewable energy has a lot going for it. It is like a mythological story in many ways. We now need to take a pragmatic view of this story and ensure that the 100 GW plan goes beyond just the talk.

How IoT will help Sustainability

Any one who has a car today will have experienced a traffic jam and once a while, while waiting in the traffic jam, there will be a thought: How to eliminate this traffic jam and help environment by better use of technology?

Several of today's startups are working on latest technology that may do just that.

In my previous post I had mentioned about How IoT is helping build sustainable buildings. But there is more to technology built on top of IoT which will profoundly change the way we live - and thus reduce energy consumption by increasing energy efficiency.

Cars are the BIGGEST users of energy today. It is no wonder, a lot of innovation and new technology is being developed to improve energy utilization in cars. Some of the innovations that we have already seen are:

1. Hybrid Cars that run on electric motors and fossil fuel engines
2. Electric Cars that can be charged from Solar panels
3. Uber's network of cars, where Internet connects the drivers to customers
4. Google's self driving cars

Now the stage is set for the next revolution:  A network of connected cars, connected buildings and smart traffic management systems.

The idea of self driving electric cars integrated with Uber like technology will enable commuters to share rides - thus eliminating waste. The idea of one person driving alone in a car will soon be history!

To enable such a system where self driving taxis can be hailed via smart phones will require lots of new technologies driven by IoT in form of Smart/Intelligent cars, Traffic monitoring systems on roads such as cameras, Vehicle speed detectors, Intelligent traffic monitoring and management via smart traffic lights, Smart parking spaces  & recharge points - which broadcast empty slots to self driving cars, Air quality & pollution monitoring and broadcasting system - which will guide hybrid cars to switch over to electric mode in polluted areas, Commute demand management systems - which will automatically determine the best possible commute options,  etc.

I am sure there will several other technologies that will emerge in the next decade.

On November 30th, amidst the backdrop of the COP21 Climate Change Conference in Paris,  a group of high-powered tech executives announced Monday the formation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition and its intention to push investment to pioneering climate change technologies, there can be some real change in energy efficiency in the enterprise with technology available today.

IoT and the always connected network forms the backbone of this new technological breakthroughs - that will create build a sustainable world. IoT forms the eyes, ears & senses of this new technology, while the wireless networks from the interlinks that connects the people, the business and the cities together and provides relevant information for insights on what needs to be done to reduce energy consumption in real time.

Linking vehicles, commuter traffic and air emissions to air quality is giving traffic management the right data to manage for optimal efficiency: Reduce operational cost, greenhouse gas emissions and the environmental footprint.

The key value will come from raising the efficiency. Today people who drive their cars & big SUVs around normally use it for 5% of the time and at 20% of the capacity - i,e ~99% of all the available transport capacity in cars & automobiles are being wasted!

This will have to change and technology sector will drive this change to create a sustainable cities.

Similarly, almost 100% of sunlight falling on cities are being wasted! Developing more effective and efficient solar photo voltaic panels can eliminate the need for fossil fuels in cars.
New technology can change the way we consume energy and lead us to a path of greener and a sustainable future.

Closing Thoughts

Today, cars form the biggest polluters in the planet, and with new technology based on IoT and connected world and renewable energy, we can change the way we commute and this will help in a big way to reduce pollution and create a sustainable world. 

Product Management - Design for Sustainability

Design for sustainability (D4S) is fast becoming a a baseline standard for new product design in several sectors. Construction industry has taken a lead in terms of defining standards for sustainable buildings and followed it up with certification programs. LEED Certification for buildings has become mainstream in the US and similar certification program from IGBC is taking roots in India.

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference begins in Paris on November 30th 2015.  As world leaders talk and negotiate deals on global climate issues, we as product managers can do few things on developing sustainable products.

A truly sustainable product is one that:

• Uses the waste of other processes as its input, and minimizes or eliminates the use of virgin materials extracted from the earth
  
• Creates output that can be used by other processes or returned to a natural state, and eliminates waste that can't be used or returned to a natural state
  
• Uses the least amount of energy to manufacture the product and to achieve the desired outcome.

Today, Sustainability can no longer be just a buzz word. Today, Sustainability has to be the core in companies at a variety of levels starting at the highest levels.

1. Strategy. 
Some companies decide what to make or do based on sustainable business
ideals. Godrej Group has made environmental sustainability as a key part of its
business strategy. Godrej Properties - the real estate arm of Godrej has been a leader in Green buildings and is a sponsor of IGBC Green Building Certification program.

2. Supply chain. 
Retail companies such as Walmart requires its suppliers to disclose and evaluate full environmental impact of their products. Companies are now paying deep attention to industrial ecology, which analyzes all the material and energy required to create the product. This often extends beyond the domain of a single business and right to the basic sources of raw materials. For example, retailers such as Tata Chemicals is promoting Organic food products under the brand Tata Shakti, Starbucks is promoting Fair Trade Coffee etc.

3. Operations 
Decisions about how to make and move products increasingly reflect environmental impacts. Companies are now looking at all levels of operations to lower energy usage and now have created Environmental Management Systems (EMS), which have operationalized the tracking, documentation, and reporting of environmental impacts by day to day operations. The businesses can no longer hide from legal implications of negative environmental impacts. In case of several industries, there are several legal or regulatory requirement to adhere to minimum environmental practices.

4. Product development & design
Companies have incorporated sustainability into their new product development process in ways ranging from specifically creating "green" products. Sustainable products are those products that provide environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health and environment over their whole life cycle, from the extraction of raw materials until the final disposal.

Many faces of sustainable product design

Now that I have given a bit of background on sustainability, let's talk about sustainable product design.

Sustainable design is the term we've chosen to represent the intelligent application of the
principles of sustainability to the realm of engineering and design of products.

The term "sustainable design" is just one holistic term used to describe the use of sustainability principles in the design and development of products. This includes sustainable engineering, environmentally sustainable design, eco-design, and green design.

When products are to be designed for sustainability, there are several factors that needs to considered during the product design stage:

1. Design for Environment
2. Design for Disassembly & Recycling
3. Design for Energy Efficiency
4. Design for Health & wellness
5. Green Marketing

Design for Environment 

The Objective here is to minimize pollution and thus reduce human and environmental risks that the product entails. It means designing products that should be safe (both during operation of the product and after disposal) for human health and the environment. It could mean use of green chemistry - products that leave no or minimum residues or chemical that are biodegradable etc.

This starts with identifying industrial & institutional products that are deemed to be safer for human health and the environment through an evaluation, define best practices and identify safer chemical alternatives.  

At this stage of product design, It also involves identifying use of sustainable raw material inputs for the product and also use of recycled raw materials.

Design for Disassembly

This design aspect is essentially to address the end-of-life phase of product by designing the product that is easy to disassemble and enable the easy recovery of parts, components, and materials from products for recycling at the end of their life.
Recycling and reuse are a good way to create a sustainable world, but it requires products that can be disassembled cleanly and effectively. Design at this stage is primarily focused on end-of-life considerations as one means of encouraging more environmentally conscious design and greater resource conservation.

Design for Energy Efficiency

Environmental impact of product over the lifespan of the product has to be considered. Products must be designed to minimize the environmental impact. Product must be designed to use minimize energy usage during its lifetime. Every version of product must review the energy usage and develop new technologies to reduce energy usage.

Design for Health & Wellness

All products have to be used by people and during its life span, the product must not emit any hazardous outputs that impact health & wellness of the operators. This includes chemical vapors, heat, light, noise or electromagnetic radiation which adversely impact the health & wellness of the operators. For example, design newer cell phones that emit lesser radiation.

Products that use volatile chemicals in form of adhesives or paints must be designed to use chemicals that emit less or does not cause any harm.

Green Marketing

Green Products can have a powerful advantage. Companies find that green products and  promoting the environmental responsibility/benefits of their products has a powerful marketing angle. Touting the "green" aspects of existing products, processes, or systems has immensely  benefit product marketing.

From product design perspective, it helps product designers and product marketing to work together to know what benefits of their sustainable design and engineering efforts can be claimed publicly.

Green Product Leadership  

Developing Green Products often requires taking a leadership position for the extended product supply chain. This requires voluntary partnerships among manufacturers, retailers, government, and non-government organizations to set up effective green supply chain systems and practices. For example, in case of cell phone batteries - it will require working with raw material suppliers and also product recyclers and environmental agencies.

Taking product leadership means encouraging more environmentally conscious design and greater resource conservation. Working with various public and private sector stakeholders, to promote 'greener' design, setting up greener product standards, and establishing greener purchasing practices.

From Green Product Leadership perspective, there are many ways to create environmentally sustainable business ecosystems. Sustainable design is just one aspect. Designing products for a broader purpose by matching user needs with right products that last for the lifetime of the customer needs, will eventually change customer behavior and sustainable designs can influence user behavior for a more sustainable use cases.

While designing green products, one must think in terms of whole systems, the ecosystem context, product service and the supply chain. Only then the product will be really "green" and help create a sustainable world.

Closing Thoughts 

We are now at the start of establishing an ecological civilization. The old thinking of industrial civilization that sees the relationship between humans and nature as opponents, and uses technology to tame the wild nature - must go away.

Sustainable products and Green engineering looks at the relationship between humans and nature as a harmonious symbiotic relationship.  

Challenges with Electric Cars - Tesla continues to struggle

In my previous Blog: Challenges with Electric Cars, I had outlined the main problems with electric cars an year ago. Even now, most of those problems exist - and can be seen with the troubles at Tesla Cars.

The fourth quarter results of Tesla motors showed a bigger loss - $89.9 Million and the new car sales are still not enough to break-even. Though Elon Musk gave a rosy picture on the fourth-quarter results - talking about record bookings and increased production & revenues, the troubles seems to be deep rooted and persistent.

To begin with, the company's financial position is messy, piling losses has converted Tesla into a  cash burning machine. Tesla has been racking up losses and burning through cash so quickly that it was forced to issue a secondary stock offering in the hopes of drumming up a rescue operation

Another problem, a deeper and more dangerous technical problems with battery technology still remains. Tesla cars use the same Lithium-Ion battery technology as Boeing used in 787 Dreamliner. Since the batteries are extensively used in commercial airlines, the battery problems were exposed faster.

The Lithium-Ion batteries have another major technical problem - popularly called as "Brick". Once the battery is ever totally discharged, the car becomes a "brick": a completely immobile vehicle that cannot be started or even pushed down the street. The only known remedy is for the owner to pay Tesla approximately $40,000 to replace the entire battery.

See: Tesla Motors' Devastating Design Problem

Given the high cost of  replacing battery pack, not all first time customers are likely to become second time customers and not all bookings are being converted into actual sales.

There are two other hidden challenges: Tesla plans to expand its network of super-fast, free charging stations along highways. The next charging stations will appear on the East Coast and in Texas, Washington, and Illinois. Building this network of charging stations will be a big drain on the company's financial position.

Another challenge for Tesla is the falling crude prices. With USA, Iraq, & Libya increasing crude oil production - the average crude oil prices are dropping. This coupled with countries dropping subsidy to solar power generation, implies that cost of green technologies will remain high and noncompetitive for years to come. So beyond the initial hype of a fast electric "green" car, Tesla will have no markets - which implies that the proposed increase in sales volume is unlikely to happen.

With increasing costs and lower sales, Tesla will eventually have to visit Chapter-11!

Also see: Challenges with Electric Cars

Challenges with Electric Cars

I have closely watched the developments of electric cars for last 5 years. I own a Reva electric car for four years and as an electrical engineer, I am interested in electric cars. As a owner of electric car, I get questions on viability of electric cars and people are curious to know why there is not much choice of electric cars in the market despite the huge buzz and hype in the media.

Every year, in every auto expo, all the major car manufacturers display their concept electric cars, but almost none of them have made it to the market - except for Nissan Leaf & Chevrolet Volt. And there is a good reason for this absymal record. There are several challenges - both technical and economic challenges which are stopping the electric cars from becoming an everyday reality.

The main challenge with electric cars is economics: COST

Today a Reva car costs (on road) about Rs 4 Lakhs (~$8,000) in Bangalore. The operating cost of Reva is ~Rs4.5/Km. (The battery cost os Rs 75000 - which lasts for 25000 Kms - under ideal conditions + Electric charges + Maintanence).

This does not compare favorably with Diesel cars - such as Maruti Swift or Ritz - which costs Rs 6.5 lakhs (approx US $13,000) and with a running cost of ~Rs5/Km. Yes mathematically Electric car Reva is cheaper to buy and run, but Reva can seat only 2 adults. While Ritz/Swift can easily accommodate 4-5 adults. So the cost/seat advantage lies with the diesel cars.

The same economics work with Nissan Leaf or Chevy Volt. The electric cars always cost more!

Auto maker, environmental activists and host of influential forward thinkers have lobbied with governments to give tax breaks and subsidies for electric cars. In Europe, governments have exempted electric cars from various charges - such as congestion charge, parking charge, plus free charging points - all this in addition to subsidies. This has led to some level of user acceptance of electric cars in London, Paris & Amsterdam.

Subsidies and user incentives can solve the cost problem for the user, but the basic economic problem of higher cost of battery is a technical challenge that needs to be addressed.

Technical Challenges

Even if one were to overlook the cost disadvantages of an electric car, there is another major disadvantage of range: An electric car has a limited driving range, i.e., the distance one can travel per charge, after which the car battries must be recharged. With lead-acid battries, the recharge time is quite long 8 hours for a full charge. The range essentially limits the usage of electric cars for urban office commute.

I love electic cars for urban commute - as often times, only one or two persons travel in the car and the range of 80 Kms is more than adequate for urban office commute. But I cannot take the electric car for longer distances.

Electric cars have three main components: Battery, Electric power train (motor + controller + gearbox) and the car body (chassis + Passenger cabin). Today we have mastered the technology needed for the car body and the electric power train, but battery remains a stubborn obstacle. Even after several decades of research - reliable, low cost, environment friendly battery technology has remained elusive.

There are four technical challenges with battery for electrical cars.

1. Time for charging the battery

2. Life of the battery

3. Cost of battery

All the four challenges will have to be solved in tandem - and only then electric cars can become viable.

Time for charging the battery

Today there are two main technologies available automotive battery: Lead-Acid battery, Li-Ion battery. Li-Ion battery has a recharge time for 30 minutes to 2 hours, while Lead-Acid battery needs about 8 hours for full charge.

When it comes to charging the battery, there are three possible options:

1. Over night recharge via a wall socket at home.

2. Rapid recharge using 440V charging station - possibly a commercial recharging station.

3. Swapping a fully charged battery for a drained one.

Over night recharge is currently the preferred option - but it is not a comparabe solution to gasoline driven cars.

Even with today's best recharging technology, the charging time of 30 minutes is unacceptable. Adding to the fact that rapid recharge damages the battery reducing the life-span of the battery.

Swapping batteries works only in a controlled environment. Here the problem of battery life span comes into the picture. A fully charged "old" battery is not the same as a "new" battery as we see in the next section.

Life of the battery

Electric batteries have a defnite life span. Li-Ion battery, which is now the preferred battery for electric cars, has a life span of 1000 charge-recharge cycles - which roughly translates to about 3 years of useful life.

Over this life span, the charging and discharging of battery forms deposites inside the electrolyte that diminishes its energy storing capacity and also increases the internal resistance of the battery - which limits the current delivered by the battery. All this implies that the older battery provide lesser range than a new battery. Older battery has higher internal resistance and this translates to a longer time for charging.

Newer Li-Poly batteries have a lifespan of 5000 cycles - but these batteries are yet to reach mass production.

Older battery consumes more power to recharge, stores lesser amount of energy and gives lesser power than new battery. After the rated life span - the battery has to be disposed. Disposing an old battery - both Lead-acid and Li-Ion has huge environmental consequences.

Cost Of Battery

One of the biggest challenge with electric cars is the cost of battery. Li-Ion battery usees rare materials - which are expensive, and thus the overall cost of car is high. For electric cars to succeed in the market, the total cost of ownership (over a period of 5 years) must come down to match that of gasoline or diesel powered cars.

Today, in India, the Total cost of ownership on Reva cars is same as Maruthi Swift VDI (diesel powered). For the average user, Reva sounds expensive - because he gets a much smaller car and with several limitations, while Maruthi Ritz or Swift costs the same and is a bigger car and without limitations.

The same economics is applicable to Nissan Leaf or any other electric cars. Subsidies and other incentives are temporary and can artificially lower costs. For electric cars to be successful, the overall cost must come down drastically and atleast match that of the fossil fuel based cars.

Closing Thoughts

Electric cars still have several challenges to overcome before it becomes accepted by mass market. Today, only the 'early adaptors' and green activists are using electric cars, and this is a niche market. Only when the challenges are overcome, electric cars can hope to become the main stay for the market.

Go Green - Journey towards Green IT

To get an understanding of the power saving with virtualization, one needs to start with measuring the power consumed in the current datacenter. The simplest way is to connect an energy meter to the powerline and measure the power being consumed - but that does not help much in planning for a greener data center. Isolating the power supply to data center and connecting an energy meter to the power line is a good step for measuring the power being consumed.

A typical data center

A typical non-virtualized data center usually consists several Industry Standard Servers(ISS) - x32 or x64. These individual servers are so powerful that very few applications can fully utilize the server resources. Most often, only 5-10% of the server capacity will be utilized. So when new applications are brought in, new servers were added - leading to uncontrolled server sprawl.

Measure the power consumed

The first real step is document how much power each of the devices in the datacenter is consuming. This includes servers, networking, storage, lighting, power converters, UPS, & cooling. The power consumed by these devices can be easily found in the product manuals. If you are not able to find the power information in the manuals - or if you do not have time t go through all the manuals, the faster solution will be to use HP Power Calculator or HP Power Advisor Even if you have non-HP servers, you can use HP power calculator to estimate the power consumed by choosing an equivalent HP server. Similar to HP power calculator or HP Power Advisor, other vendors - such as Dell, IBM, Cisco, EMC, Oracle also provide power calculating utilties.

Table below shows a sample of server power & cooling power requirement.

Power calculations

Power consumed by the computer equipment is computed in Watts and in British Thermal Units (BTU) equivalents.

Watt = current x voltage

BTU/hr = Watts x 3.14

Power consumed by the device is dissiapated as heat, which in turn requires cooling. One also needs to determin the cooling power needed for the data center.

Cooling power required is dependent on the total power consumed by all the devices + lighting + the data center room charateristics. As a rule of thumb, 12,000 BTU/hr requires one ton of cooling.

Providing sufficient cooling is essential for running the datacenters reliably. If the cooling systems fail, over heating of servers/devices can cause fires and complete damage to the data center equipment. Therefore early warning systems are usually installed in the data center, and the actual cooling system deployed will be greater than the theoritical requirement. In addition, the local city fire departments also have several guidelines for datacenter cooling & insulation standards.

It is therefore not possible in this article to give an exact calculation of the cooling requirements, however the calculations given below can be used as a rough guide to estimate the cooling needs. For complete accuracy you should consult qualified air conditioning equipment specialist or installer.

Calculating Heat Load

The amount of heat generated is known as the heat gain or heat load. Heat is measured in either British Thermal Units (BTU) or Kilowatts (KW). 1KW is equivalent to 3,412BTUs.

The heat load depends on a number of factors:

• The floor area of the room
• The size and position of windows, and whether they have blinds or shades
• The number of room occupants (if any)
• The heat generated by equipment
• The heat generated by lighting

Floor Area of Room

You must take into account those factors that apply in your circumstances and adding them together a reasonably accurate measure of the total heat can be calculated.

Room Area

The amount of cooling required depends on the area of the room. To calculate the area in square metres:

Room Area BTU = Length (m) x Width (m) x 337

Window Size and Position

If, as is quite common, your Server Room has no windows, you can ignore this part of the calculation. If, however there are windows you need to take the size and orientation into account.

South facing Window BTU = South Facing window Length (m) x Width (m) x 870

North facing Window BTU = North Facing windows Length (m) x Width (m) x 165

If there are no blinds on the windows multiply the result(s) by 1.5.

Reverse the constant multiplier - if you are living in the southern hemisphere.

Add together all the BTUs for the windows.

Windows BTU = South Window(s) BTU + North Window(s) BTU

Occupants

Purpose built Server Rooms don't normally have people working in them, but if people do regularly work in your Server Room you will have to take that into account. The heat output is around 400 BTU per person.

Total Occupant BTU = Number of occupants x 400

Equipment

Clearly most heat in a Server Room is generated by the equipment. This is trickier to calculate that you might think. The wattage on equipment is the maximum power consumption rating, the actual power consumed may be less. However it is probably safer to overestimate the wattage than underestimate it.

Add together all the wattages for Servers, Switches, Routers and multiply by 3.5.

Equipment BTU = Total wattage for all equipment x 3.5

In our example above - the datacenter will need ~37 tons of cooling capacity - i.e,.442,897 BTUs

Lighting

Take the total wattage of the lighting and multiply by 4.25.

Lighting BTU = Total wattage for all lighting x 4.25

Total Cooling Required = Sum of all BTUs.

Total Heat Load = Room Area BTU + Windows BTU + Total Occupant BTU + Equipment BTU + Lighting BTU

This is the amount of cooling required so you need one or more air conditioning units to handle that amount of heat.

AC capacity is marked in tons - 1 ton of cooling = 12,000 BTUs. So depending on the total BTU of your data center, you can choose the cooling systems.

Go Green - Green IT initiative with Virtualization

In the IT industry it is a common knowledge that the Data Centers are a significant consumer of power in the world today. At most of the IT offices more than half the power consumed is at the data center. The data center is critical for the business, but they also energy inefficient, using only 30% for computation, the rest 70% of the electricity lost due to inefficiencies of power and heat dissipation and associated power cooling equipment.

As a result, there is a huge opportunity to reduce power consumption in the data center, but that is not so easy. The business needs is driving up the computing demands, the power consumption by servers is increasing as manufacturers are packing more CPUs per blades, and with smaller blades - more blades into a rack. As a result the power density of a rack has increased 800% in the last decade. The individual tower servers that was popular in year 2000, has now been replaced with 1U blades which can pack 60 blades per rack.

This rapid increase in power density implies higher energy usage to power these racks and that also means more power is needed to cool these racks. In fact about 50% of the power consumed in a data center is used for cooling only, about 10% of power is used for lighting systems and power converters, so means that only about 40% of the power is actually used by the computing devices (servers, network, & storage). Even within the servers, power is consumed by the cooling fans and power supplies - thus only a small fraction of power is really used for actual computing.

In the new green era, people have started to worry about the power usage, the mounting electricity bill and the growing concern about the carbon footprint & the corporate social responsibility initiatives. As a result, companies are looking at several new initiatives to reduce power consumption - such as virtualization & cloud computing.

Virtualization & Cloud computing initiatives can save power consumption by optimizing server utilization. Virtualization allows for server optimization by eliminating old & inefficient servers, increasing the server utilization to 95% and above. This when coupled with higher energy efficiency of newer blade servers and reduced cooling requirements can result in a power saving of 70-80% - for the same workload.

At one data center, the monthly electricity power bill dropped from ~14 Lakhs to 4 Lakhs per month. This saving in power bill alone gave an ROI of 21% on the virtualization project.

VMware vSphere 4.0 has become the preferred platform for data center virtualization, and with vSphere 4.0, x86 based blade servers & Nexus switches it is possible to create a 100% virtualized data centers, where all the work loads are running on virtual machines. A single quad core blade server can support 30-40 virtual machines, thus deliver a flexible, dynamic environment with many additional operational efficiencies, including business continuity, rapid provisioning, automation, and standardized operating procedures.

With increasing oil & energy prices and shareholders demand to lower operating costs, and the public demand to lower energy consumption - Virtualization is no longer an option. It is an absolute necessary. There is a true "green" benefit in setting up a virtual data center - that goes beyond reducing power consumption & reducing the carbon footprint. The other benefits are:

• Increase application uptime
• Improve customer satisfaction
• Improve quality of service
• Faster response time to customer requirements
• Reduce infrastructure management overheads
• Better compliance standards

Closing Thoughts

Virtualization of the data center is just the first step towards a "Green" IT, this can be followed up with several other steps to reduce the carbon footprint. Desktop virtualization, Data Deduplication for Backup & disaster recovery, SQL consolidation, VoIP & integrated media gateways, TelePresence infrastructure etc., can give big dividends in both cost reduction and lowering of carbon foot prints.

Go Green - Start with yourself First

'Be the change you wish to see in the world' - Mahatma Gandhi

In the last several years I am noticing a rapid decline in flora & fauna around me. A decade ago, Bangalore had lot more trees, lot more birds, and a lot more wild animals. In the last decade the following animals have gone extinct in Bangalore city - Sparrow, Frogs, Crabs, Vultures, Robin. Several other species are on the verge of disappearing in the city: Crows, Squirrel, Parrots, Crane, Cuckoo, Fishes, Owls, Vultures, honey bees, bats, snakes, etc.

The root of this problem is over exploitation of nature. Human population has exploded in the last decade resulting in exponential increase in air pollution, water shortage, noise pollution, Electromagnetic pollution, soil pollution etc. Today if one looks at the Virshabavathi river that flows in Kengeri, the river is nothing but a toxic soup of all possible pollutants, and the stench is so strong that even stray dogs do not venture near that river. At this rate, the city will grow itself into an Armageddon - resulting in mass extinction of all other animal and plant species.

We are close to wiping out much of the planet's wild life. At the current rate, the India's national animal - Tiger will be extinct in the wild within the next decade, and along with it will go the elephants, leopards, cheetah & lions. At the same time, we are close to wiping out the entire marine life as well. Our forests are being decimated. The once fertile agricultural lands are being converted into barren land. The rivers are being killed with fertilizer & pesticide run-offs.

If we want to avoid this doomsday scenario, we can. We need to change our lifestyle to be more environment conscious ourselves first, and then expect others to do the same. It is relatively easy to green at the first level - small changes in lifestyle will lead to big gains. For example, not using air conditioning in summer, or using a scooter/bike instead of a car has a big impact on the amount of fuels consumed and the consequent drop in CO2 emissions.

To avoid this dooms day, we need to change, and we need to change fast. To begin with, we must reduce our pollution foot print. Irrespective of where you are in the economic ladder, you can reduce the pollution you are creating. A small change in your behavior will have a big impact to the world, much like the little rain drops can form an ocean.

By going green, you can force the companies to become green, force the government to enact laws to discourage pollution and finally become a role model for your children. It all has to start with you as an individual.

The first steps

As individual, you can take few simple easy to do steps to become greener and save the planet. These simple steps can have big impact.

1. Do with less:

Today's biggest environmental problems are due to excessive consumption. People in USA & Europe consume way too much, and this excessive consumption is being promoted as "developed" lifestyle - which people in developing countries are trying to imitate. This excessive consumption will destroy this planet and we need to stop this consumption first.

You can start anywhere. Take a look at your wardrobe and if you are reading this blog, I can take a wild bet that you have more than 7 sets of clothes. In my opinion having more clothes is a sheer waste. Mahatma Gandhi had two sets of clothes, he would wash every day and wear the other set. While this kind of simplicity may be too tough for us, the ordinary folks. But I am sure that we can definitely do with less. In my personal life, I have taken a route to reduce the number of clothes, over the last one year - I have donated/discarded half of my clothes, shoes, & books. The objective was to reduce my cub board/shelf space usage in the house by half.

Making all those new cars, gadgets, clothes etc., eats up raw materials & energy. Instead learn to live with less. Where ever it is possible, try to use secondhand or recycled products. There is no shame is using second hand products - instead be proud of using second hand products as you are saving the planet. For example, at Go Green Works office - All the furniture we used are second hand. The work shed was also build with second hand steel. All the computers & printers are second hand - and we are proud of it.

Remember, minimize buying. Instead try to reuse & recycle. Reducing - living with less is the best and simplest solution.

2. Opt for greener products

The next step is to change your buying habit. When ever you walk into a shop to buy something, look around for alternatives and buy the one which has the least environmental foot print. You can start with groceries.

Opt for local produce

For example, choose the locally grown fruits over the imported ones. I am sure that the apples grown in Himachal Pradesh as just tasty as imported Fuji apples. Similarly opt for vegetables/grains grown in the local area. I am sure we all can live happily with the local food. Similarly the local Nandini butter is just as good as Amul butter, but Amul butter has to be shipped all the way from Gujrat. So its greener to choose Nandini over Amul.

There is really no need for food that has to be transported hundreds of kilometers. Just think of the fuel that is wasted to just transport that food. by choosing local foods over imported or food that has to be transported hundreds of kilometers - you will save tons of pollution.

When buying food, first understand where it is produced, and then choose the one that is produced closer to your house.

Opt for products with less packaging

Industrially produced food products tend to use excessive packaging. For example cookies produced by Danisk uses a Tin box, paper to wrap individual cookies, a box is sealed in a shrinking plastic cover. Compare this with the cookies from neighborhood bakery who uses just a simple plastic cover, and he more than willing to pack the cookies in your box if can carry it to his shop. While shopping carry a reusable cloth bag & avoid plastic bags. Where ever possible take a cloth bag to avoid plastic bags.

When it comes to packaging, note that paper packaging is better than plastic, recycled paper is better than virgin paper, reusable cloth bags (made of Jute/cotton) is better than recycled paper. So at any given moment, always opt for the greener option.

For example, today I was thirsty and for a minute I thought of drinking a soft drink, but then I thought again of the choices I had: Soft drink Vs Packaged Fruit juice Vs Tender coconut Vs Fresh fruit Juice Vs Bottled water Vs Filtered water. I went through the choices - and I knew I could reach home in next 5 minutes, so I opted for filtered water at home. This was the best green solution, not only it was green, it also save money and it was also very healthy. Other choices had calories & chemicals which are harmful for my health.

Make a deliberate attempt to choose products which use less packaging, less transportation when buying.

3. Reduce energy, chemicals, water wastage

At the personal level, going green means consuming less of everything. This includes electricity, fuels, chemicals & water. Use of fuel efficient vehicles. Use a bike or a scooter whenever possible instead of a car, use public transport instead of a scooter, Walk when ever possible. At homes use the most efficient lighting - LED lights or CFL lights, use a lower wattage bulbs where ever possible.

I live in Bangalore & I do not use Air-conditioning at home. At office I don't have a choice - the central AC is always on. I have made a pledge not to use air conditioning or air coolers in my home. I use the fan instead. Even in fans, a table top fan is more energy efficient than roof fan. Back in 2000-2003 when I lived in Texas, I used a table box fan in summer and avoided using AC. It was both being eco friendly and it saved money. It was a little uncomfortable in the heat, but after a while one gets used it.

As a first step, write down the electricity used in the last month & make a pledge to reduce electricity consumption by 10% in one month - without compromising on the quality of lifestyle. Similarly reduce your gas/petrol bill by 10%.

We tend to waste quite a bit of water. Though we Indians consume just 5% of water used by an average Americans, there is still some room to save water. Just look at your life and see how you can reduce the water usage - in particular look at how you can prevent wastage of water - in terms of rain water harvesting, recycling waste water for gardens etc.

At Go Green Works, we set up a rain water harvesting tank into which all the rain water drains into & recharges the water table.

If you are reading this blog on Internet, then I would bet that you are likely to have a car - and that means you have several opportunity to reduce your water/fuel usage.

Another pollutant we use is - Chemicals. Unknowingly we use lots of chemicals in our daily lives - mostly for cleaning purpose. Floor cleaning phenyl, dirt removers, detergents, etc. It may not be easy to reduce chemical usage as it requires deliberate actions to reduce chemical usage.

Start with cleaning things with natural cleaning agents - such as lemon juice, vinegar, baking soda, etc. or other organic cleaning agents.

Natural cleaning products offer environmentally sound, cost-efficient alternatives to the toxic and potentially lethal household cleaning products used in many homes today. Use of these natural options is especially critical as most traditional cleaning products eventually contact the air, water, and/or soil, where they can cause significant and irreparable harm to animals, plants, drinking water, and food supplies.

The green mantra with chemicals goes like this: Avoid, Substitute and Minimize.

First try to avoid using chemicals. There are several chemicals we can avoid using: Room freshners, insect repellents, insecticides. If you can't avoid using a chemical - try using an organic alternative - especially for cleaning. Use of flowers or natural oils instead of room freshners, or use of incense sticks instead of mosquito repellents etc. Search on Internet & you can find lots of organic alternatives to chemical agents.

Finally if you can't avoid using a particular chemical, then minimize its use. Use such chemicals as sparingly as possible. Consuming fewer chemicals will reduce indoor air pollution and give a healthier life - with fewer problems like asthma, allergies, cancer etc.

Go Green & live better

A green lifestyle is a better & healthy lifestyle. By going green, you will notice that you have actually reduced the pollution around you - and that immediately translates to better health. Green lifestyle calls for walking - which is beneficial to your health.

It takes only three weeks to create a new habit. Start today and over the next few weeks - you may find it difficult to be green, but then once you have created this habit of being green - you will feel proud of yourself. Don't fret about things you don't control - i.e., a factory polluting a river. Such things will require a bigger action - which a single individual can feel helpless. Start with taking responsibility of your own pollution, and then you will slowly create a moment that can stop that factory.

Do what you can for the nature. Focus on what you can do, and do not lament on things that you can't. Don't blame on others for not doing your bit, do what you can do now, try and influence other to adapt a greener lifestyle. Even if you are doing it only half the time is better than doing nothing. And once you have successfully built a green habit, be proud of it and talk about it to all your friends and at every possible occasion. Soon they too will join you in the green lifestyle.

Going Green also means saving money & our planet. Most of the green choices you make today actually help you consume less and that saves lots of money. In today's world - we often confuse consumption with lifestyle, but the reality is that excessive consumption is unhealthy and thus leads to a poorer lifestyle. Once you come out of the high consumption treadmill, you will find that your life has become simpler, a lot less stressful and more enjoyable.

It is time to change and you have to change your habits/lifestyle first. There are several things you can do as an individual to help protect nature.

Learn to love nature

As one starts to adapt to a green lifestyle, one will also learn to love nature. You will soon learn how your pollution is killing nature and is also harming you. In the initial stages it may be tough for you to adapt to a greener lifestyle and in such moments - take a walk in the park or in a forest/wooded area. Think about how you can help you children live a better life, how wild animals can survive and flourish, and this simple act will give you the required strength to change for a green lifestyle.

When I look at my life and compare that with my father's life and compare with my grandfather's lifestyle, I find that in last 10-15 years I have created more pollution than what my grandfather did in his entire lifetime. My father consumes half as much as me and lives a better life than me. To me, this means only one thing. I still have a long way to go in terms of fully embracing a green lifestyle.

Be happy with less

We, as consumers have been constantly being bombarded with marketing messages to consume more and that consumption is also being seen a necessity and a symbol of wealth. But what many people do not realize is that most of this consumption is wasteful consumption which makes people poorer and leaves them worse off both economically and ecologically.

It takes a lifestyle change to get used to living with less and you can still have the same quality of life - but you are now being ecologically friendly.

Once you get off the high consumption treadmill, you will feel relived of all the stress that comes with the high consumption. This will lead to a happier and a better life.

Ecological Footprint

The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It compares human demand with planet Earth's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area needed to regenerate the resources a human population consumes and to absorb and render harmless the corresponding waste. Using this assessment, it is possible to estimate how much of the Earth (or how many planet Earths) it would take to support humanity if everybody lived a given lifestyle. For 2006, humanity's total ecological footprint was estimated at 1.4 planet Earths – in other words, humanity uses ecological services 1.4 times as fast as Earth can renew them.

India's ecological footprint is 0.91 - i.e., it takes 0.91 hectares of land per individual to sustain his lifestyle. Given India's huge population and limited land availability translates to a deficit of 0.50 hectares per person. i.e., each one of us are consuming more than what the land (available per person) can produce - this in essence we are borrowing from our future generation so that we can consume today - leaving our children with a huge ecological deficit and a depleted land. See: Ecological Footprint of countries

Closing Thoughts

Going Green is not a government initiative. The responsibility for a sustainable planet lies with every individual. If everyone starts to have a green lifestyle, it will naturally change the government and corporate companies. It is our responsibility to save and protect this planet for our children and for generations to come. So you too can start now and change your life for the better by embracing a green lifestyle.