Air Pollution: India Set to Get Air Purifier Standards to Filter Cheap Products

[RISING SUN]

Air Pollution: India Set to Get Air Purifier Standards to Filter Cheap Products
With air pollution becoming a health hazard for urban cities across India, there is very little citizens can do to immediately address the problem. For those with medical emergencies, purchasing an air purifier and locking themselves inside a room is the bare minimum they can do to stay safe. But the problem in purchasing an air purifier in India is that there are no standards in place to check the quality.

“If there are no standards in place, consumers might end up buying inferior quality air purifiers which could make very little difference. Without any standards, low quality products will easily flood the market. Consumers will doubt the usefulness of air purifiers and will feel cheated. Standards are required to secure the interests of the consumers and also for the overall positive awareness about air purifiers,” said Arvind Chabra, Country Head, India, Blueair.

Air purifiers are very simple devices and there is no visible results to judge which air purifier is better than the other. Also, Air Quality Index (AQI) is way more than just measuring PM2.5 and PM10 particles. PM2.5 particles only constitutes 25 percent of the air. So, a low PM2.5 meter reading inside a room doesn’t necessarily mean you are breathing good air. There are other components like dust, soot, pollen, pet dander, bacteria, viruses, VOCs, sulphur, carbon, etc. which are equally responsible for diseases.

The government is already looking forward to introduce some standards and the work has already started.

Out of the top 10 most polluted cities in India, six of them are in India and New Delhi tops the chart. Consider this real life example. In February 2015, when the former US President Barack Obama had attended New Delhi to attend the 66th Indian Republic Day, the US Embassy had purchased over 1,800 indoor air purifiers to protect its employees. At that time there were no concerns or awareness among the Indian counterparts around air pollution and AQI.

The situation has only got worse by the end of 2017. Without any standards specific to Indian conditions, cheap quality air purifiers (at lower costs) are flooding the market and the consumers remain vulnerable.

Chabra informed that the government is already looking forward to introduce some standards and the work has already started. “We could expect some Indian standards soon,” he added.

“As far as the Indian Air Purifier standards are concerned, there shouldn’t be much of customisations required and they can follow AHAM or the Chinese GB/T 18801 standard to begin with. Once some basic regulations are set, these can always be bettered going forward, he said.

Having said that while drafting the standards and regulations for air purifiers, the authorities cannot ignore pollutants that are mostly exclusive in our country which may not be properly addressed by AHAM or Chinese GB/T 18801. For example, certain air pollutants like sulphur dioxide is observed in large quantities and India is soon becoming the world’s top sulphur dioxide emitter. So, the standards need to address these unique challenges as well.

The globally accepted Air Quality Index (AQI) of 20 is considered as good but for India something around 50 is considered as safe. “So, there is difference between the acceptable AQI standards when India is compared to other countries. A slightly higher pollution level or AQI is already accommodated in India,” added Chabra.
http://www.news18.com/news/tech/air...andards-to-filter-cheap-products-1573777.html

 

[ziaulislam]

you guys just need to stop coal
i mean bring it down to no more than 10-20%

 

[RISING SUN]

you guys just need to stop coal
i mean bring it down to no more than 10-20%

Still vast number of people need uninterrupted supply of electricity which requires lot of funding, until & unless others chip in with their expertise and money, it will be lot difficult for India to bear. Difficult, not impossible.

 

[ziaulislam]

Still vast number of people need uninterrupted supply of electricity which requires lot of funding, until & unless others chip in with their expertise and money, it will be lot difficult for India to bear. Difficult, not impossible.

gas and coal are not much differently priced
india should stop at least new coal plants immediately
talk with Iran, Turkmenistan and Pakistan and import gas via pipelines
Pak-India should step aside ego
smog will kill millions in BOTH PAKISTAN AND INDIA DUE TO INDIAN COAL if this doesn't happen
india will be worse than china and today its already there
learn from china, they have spend billions on this

 

[Beast]

gas and coal are not much differently priced
india should stop at least new coal plants immediately
talk with Iran, Turkmenistan and Pakistan and import gas via pipelines
Pak-India should step aside ego
smog will kill millions in BOTH PAKISTAN AND INDIA DUE TO INDIAN COAL if this doesn't happen
india will be worse than china and today its already there
learn from china, they have spend billions on this

The price is great between gas and coal. For coal, India can rely on some of her stockpile. While for gas, it will be a full import. Its not so easy for India to talk about switching alternatives, gas need LPG shipping or massive pipping infrastruture. Even China switch to other alternatives only after accumulate certain degrees of wealth which India can't afford. For developing countries, coal is the best choice. India has need to bear with this for next decade. Its either you stop electric supply and stop economy growth or stop pollution but at expense of economy growth as factory stop running and family stop growing as no electricity is supplied to them.

 

[ziaulislam]

The price is great between gas and coal. For coal, India can rely on some of her stockpile. While for gas, it will be a full import. Its not so easy for India to talk about switching alternatives, gas need LPG shipping or massive pipping infrastruture. Even China switch to other alternatives only after accumulate certain degrees of wealth which India can't afford. For developing countries, coal is the best choice. India has need to bear with this for next decade. Its either you stop electric supply and stop economy growth or stop pollution but at expense of economy growth as factory stop running and family stop growing as no electricity is supplied to them.

india can handle it if it want to
it would slow the growth but the hidden cost of coal is far more than what gas imports would do
there is plenty of gas in iran and central asia which will be on lsightly expensive than coal and indai exports and Current accounts are good enoguh to handle this pressure

problem is rich elite of indai who will not let this happen
ask this from a doctor

 

[Beast]

india can handle it if it want to
it would slow the growth but the hidden cost of coal is far more than what gas imports would do
there is plenty of gas in iran and central asia which will be on lsightly expensive than coal and indai exports and Current accounts are good enoguh to handle this pressure

problem is rich elite of indai who will not let this happen
ask this from a doctor

Its never about rich elite. The fact is coal is the cheapest available energy for any developing countries. If you are poor , you dont talk about standard. This is also a fact need to be accepted. Standard will drive up the operating cost. This is a route all developing countries need to go thru. That include China but I will say our time has passed and the wealth we accumulate is enough for us to talk about standard as CPC has launched many massive programs that have significant reduced pollution like only electric public bus, less coal power station and stiff punishment for pollution.

India has not reached that stage yet. Go green will put brake on India economy growth. Will factory more worry of factory shut down due to lack of electricity compare to heavy smog? India now now need to do is burn more cheap coal to produced more electricity to drive economy growth.

 

[RISING SUN]

gas and coal are not much differently priced
india should stop at least new coal plants immediately
talk with Iran, Turkmenistan and Pakistan and import gas via pipelines
Pak-India should step aside ego
smog will kill millions in BOTH PAKISTAN AND INDIA DUE TO INDIAN COAL if this doesn't happen
india will be worse than china and today its already there
learn from china, they have spend billions on this

In regards to India-Pakistan, it's not ego, rather it's Kashmir for Pakistan and terrorism for India which is deal breaker.

India should stop at least new coal plants immediately? India has been already doing that since last 2 years. And India is spending billions of dollars on renewable energy and replacing coal powered plants.
India cancels plans for huge coal power stations as solar energy prices hit record low
Click to follow
The Independent Online

A field of solar panels at Cochin International Airport in southern India CIAL


India has cancelled plans to build nearly 14 gigawatts of coal-fired power stations – about the same as the total amount in the UK – with the price for solar electricity “free falling” to levels once considered impossible.

Analyst Tim Buckley said the shift away from the dirtiest fossil fuel and towards solar in India would have “profound” implications on global energy markets.

According to his article on the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis’s website, 13.7GW of planned coal power projects have been cancelled so far this month – in a stark indication of the pace of change.

In January last year, Finnish company Fortum agreed to generate electricity in Rajasthan with a record low tariff, or guaranteed price, of 4.34 rupees per kilowatt-hour (about 5p).

Mr Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the IEEFA, said that at the time analysts said this price was so low would never be repeated.

But, 16 months later, an auction for a 500-megawatt solar facility resulted in a tariff of just 2.44 rupees – compared to the wholesale price charged by a major coal-power utility of 3.2 rupees (about 31 per cent higher).

“For the first time solar is cheaper than coal in India and the implications this has for transforming global energy markets is profound,” Mr Buckley said.

“Measures taken by the Indian Government to improve energy efficiency coupled with ambitious renewable energy targets and the plummeting cost of solar has had an impact on existing as well as proposed coal fired power plants, rendering an increasing number as financially unviable.




“India’s solar tariffs have literally been free falling in recent months.”

He said about it has been accepted that some £6.9bn-worth of existing coal power plants at Mundra in Gujarat were “no longer viable because of the prohibitively high cost of imported coal relative to the long-term electricity supply contracts”.

This, Mr Buckley added, was a further indication of the “rise of stranded assets across the Indian power generation sector”.

Investors from all over the world were showing an interest in India’s burgeoning solar sector.

“The caliber of the global financial institutions who are bidding into India’s solar power infrastructure tenders is a strong endorsement of India’s leadership in this energy transformation and will have significant ripple effects into other transforming markets, as is already seen in the UAE, South Africa, Australia, Chile and Mexico,” Mr Buckley said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/enviro...fired-power-stations-record-low-a7751916.html

India to phase out 5.5 GW of coal-fired power plants
India has identified 5.5 gigawatts (GW) of inefficient coal-fired power plants to be retired, Power Minister Piyush Goyal told lawmakers on Thursday, as the country looks to cut emissions and make better use of its coal reserves.
Smoke billows out from the cooling towers of a coal-fired power plant in Ahmedabad, India, November 20, 2015. REUTERS/Amit Dave

The Central Electrical Authority (CEA) has identified coal-fired plants which are more than 25 years old for retirement in a phased manner on the basis of their “inefficiency and un-economic operation,” Goyal said. He did not provide details on the timeframe over which they would be phased out.

Around 78 percent of generated power in India still comes from coal-fired plants, making it one of the biggest users in the world of the dirty and cheap fuel.

Coal-fired plants account for about 195 GW of India’s 330 GW of installed power capacity, data on the CEA’s website shows.

India, which is also undergoing a program to retrofit several coal-fired plants to reduce emissions, has retired about 4 GW of coal-fired power plants over the last two years.

However, state-run power utility NTPC Ltd plans to invest $10 billion in new coal-fired power stations over the next five years despite the electricity regulator’s assessment that thermal plants now under construction will be able to meet demand until 2027, Reuters reported this month.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...5-gw-of-coal-fired-power-plants-idUSKBN1A51YN

Gujarat Cancelling 4 Gigawatt Coal Power Plant As India Moves Away From Coal
The government of Indian state Gujarat has cancelled a proposed 4 gigawatt coal power ultra-mega power project due to existing surplus generation capacity and a desire to transition from fossil fuel–based energy sources to renewable power.

Reports from India’s Business Standard earlier this month reported that the government of Gujarat, under Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, has cancelled a proposal for creating a new 4,000 megawatt (MW) ultra mega coal power project that was to be developed by the Gujarat State Electricity Corporation. Specifically, the reasoning given for cancelling the project was the already substantial installed capacity — around 30,000 MW — of old and renewable energy in the state, with the government adding that building a new conventional coal power plant simply did not make sense.

The move falls well in line with moves across India to decrease its reliance upon coal, and further gives lie to claims from Australian politicians that India is in desperate need of more coal.

The past few years have been important for India’s energy mix, with the country making significant and at times monumental moves away from reliance upon fossil fuel energy. Only a few weeks ago it was reported that India had installed more renewable energy capacity over the last financial year than it did thermal power capacity, an impressive achievement for a country which is technically an emerging economy, and one with a massive population.

India is primarily focusing on installing massive amounts of solar power, and a report from November last year outlined how India is planning to build 1 terawatt of solar power — which sounds absurd, but given the amount of solar India has already installed, might not seem as insane as at first reading. Further, India-based consultancy Mercom Capital predicts that 10 GW of new solar capacity will be installed in India in 2017 alone.

Paralleling this focus on solar capacity additions is a similarly strong desire to reduce the amount of coal the country uses. Not only is the country focusing more on renewable energy projects, but reports over the last 6 months have revealed that the country is similarly reducing its focus on coal. Earlier this year numerous Indian newspapers reported that Indian coal imports declined by 21.7% in January. This follows official word from the Indian government in September of last year saying that they intended to end dependency on coal imports to use up the oversupply of coal at home.

Further, the sheer number of planned coal plants are also experiencing decline in India. In August of last year, a report published by the Institute for Energy Economics & Financial Analysis (IEEFA) showed that the country was intending to move forward on developing several coal-fired ultra mega power plants, despite the fact that it was unlikely that India actually needed any more capacity. Fast forward to March of this year and a new report showed that the total number of coal plants globally under development plummeted in 2016, with at least 68 GW of coal construction frozen at over 100 project sites in China and India alone. It appears that a Greenpeace report that 94% of India’s planned coal capacity would be lying idle in 2022 might have got through to some of India’s leaders.

All of this plays into recent news that plans by Indian multinational Adani Group to build a massive coal mine in northeast Australia are essentially useless. An analysis again conducted by the IEEFA showed that not only will Adani itself not be able to contribute much in the way of financing to build the project due to its own financial straits — leaving the cost of building the project up to the Australian taxpayer — but there is no real demand for Australian coal in India in the first place.

This also gives lie to the words of deputy Australian Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, who believes Australia has a “moral obligation” to provide coal to poorer nations such as India and a responsibility to bring dignity to Indians who want electricity.
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/05/1...-line-indias-goals-reduce-reliance-upon-coal/

No more coal power as India shifts to sun, wind
No new coal-based power plants will be allowed by the Centre, apart from the ones already under construction. This has been included in the national electricity plan.

According to a recent Greening the Grid report, 1,75,000 MW of renewable energy can be integrated into the grid by 2022, minimising the need for traditional sources of energy.

The installed power capacity is 3,30,153 MW, of which thermal power comprises 1,94,432 MW and renewable energy 58,303 MW. The Centre has taken a decision to add 1,00,000 MW of solar power and 60,000 MW of wind power by 2022.

The decision to shift to renewable energy in a big way has not been welcomed by coal-based thermal power stations.

All India Power Engineers’ Federation spokesperson Vinod Kumar Gupta said that India’s rising energy demand and the need to connect millions who are still without power, will not be possible only through intermittent renewable energy and phasing out coal power units.

Speaking to this newspaper, he said that a major shift to renewable energy will render some coal-based thermal plants idle and the investment in these plants will be wasted as it will no longer be possible to recover any returns from them.

He said that the proposed national electricity policy fails to provide an adequate framework for a number of issues that have arisen and intensified over the course of India’s ongoing energy transition. He pointed out that in 2015 the Central government had issued revised norms of emissions for coal-based thermal plants with a deadline of December 2017.
http://www.deccanchronicle.com/nati...e-coal-power-as-india-shifts-to-sun-wind.html

 

[Bussard Ramjet]

The price is great between gas and coal. For coal, India can rely on some of her stockpile. While for gas, it will be a full import. Its not so easy for India to talk about switching alternatives, gas need LPG shipping or massive pipping infrastruture. Even China switch to other alternatives only after accumulate certain degrees of wealth which India can't afford. For developing countries, coal is the best choice. India has need to bear with this for next decade. Its either you stop electric supply and stop economy growth or stop pollution but at expense of economy growth as factory stop running and family stop growing as no electricity is supplied to them.

Today the pricing environment is different. Renewables like Solar and Wind, have actually gotten very competitive with coal. Apart from that, the pollution abatement technology has also gotten a lot better and cheaper.