<ul><li>Capital is pouring into the renewable energy sector, thanks to a growing awareness of climate change.</li><li>The industry is expected to grow to $1.9 trillion by 2030 as every aspect of the energy supply chain gets reimagined.</li><li>Many clean-tech start-ups have cropped up in the renewable energy space.</li><li>Bangalore-based <keyword id="14358239" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="uravu-labs" source="Orion">Uravu Labs</keyword> is one of them that’s known for creating sustainable water out of thin air.</li><li>It is now on its path to making water sustainability a reality for beverage conglomerates such as Coca-Cola, Radico Khaitan, Kirin Holdings, Suntory.</li></ul>More than half of India has no access to safely managed <keyword id="6355063" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="drinking-water" source="Orion">drinking water</keyword>, as per humanitarian aid organization <a href="https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/clean-drinking-water#:~:text=Less%20than%2050%20per%20cent,present%20in%201.96%20million%20dwellings.">UNICEF</a>. In remote areas, people walk miles to fetch water, which is not always clean. Excess <a href="https://www.unicef.org/india/what-we-do/clean-drinking-water#:~:text=Less%20than%2050%20per%20cent,present%20in%201.96%20million%20dwellings.">fluoride </a>in India is affecting tens of millions of people across 19 of its states. Groundwater, which supplies 85% of drinking water in rural areas, is depleting at an accelerating rate -- taking away their primary source of water and threatening India’s food <a href="https://scroll.in/article/1026232/in-punjab-the-accelerating-rate-of-groundwater-depletion-is-worrying-both-farmers-and-experts">security</a>. “There was a time when we were just allowed to have one bucket per day in college because there was a severe drought for a couple of months,” recalls Swapnil Shrivastav, co-founder of a clean-tech start-up. He decided to find a solution to this problem with his college friend Venkatesh R. To help fight water scarcity, Shrivastav and Venkatesh worked on a machine that produces sustainable drinking water from air and bootstrapped ‘Uravu Labs.’ Water from thin air that leaves no carbon footprint The water-from-air concept is not new. The conventional method however uses a significant amount of electricity to harness it and is nt always generated from clean, renewable sources. “To make one liter of water, conventional tech used almost four units of electricity. One unit of electricity is around eight to 10 rupees,” shares Shrivastav. The cleantech founders took it upon themselves to find a sustainable solution to water scarcity and offer it at the same price point as mineral water Bisleri. That’s how Uravu was born. It now uses desiccant-based technology that directly absorbs water from air and is powered by solar energy and even industry-based waste heat. <div type="image" title="100_Solar_with fan" msid="92644747" hostid="261" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;Uravu Labs&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> Venkatesh and Shrivastav had also travelled to remote places in Gujarat and Rajasthan. There, Shrivastav said, either the drinking water was highly contaminated or inaccessible, as people would walk miles to fetch water. Renewable water at ₹4 It produces 20-100 liters of water per day by extracting it from thin air. Their renewable water is priced almost the same as mineral water at around six rupees per liter. As they scale up, the water can become cheaper. At 100-200 liters extraction per day, the cost is around ₹4. “When we go to industrial scale, say at 2000-10,000 liters and beyond, the costs will come down to just ₹2-2.5 per liter,” says Shrivastav. Beverage industry uses 20% of annual human drinking water Uravu Labs, which is now in the early stage of commercialization and deployment, has been targeting beverage brands in India. <div type="image" title="urvau-timeline (1)" msid="92647017" hostid="261" sizebytes="50050" caption="&amp;lt;p&amp;gt;BI India&amp;lt;/p&amp;gt;"></div> The beverage industry requires the highest amount of water and electricity to make its products. Cold drinks and beer, Shrivastav said, are more than 90% water. Beverage giant Coca-Cola consumes more than 10 lakh liters of water per day. “Overall, the beverage industry withdraws more than 1,500 billion liters of water on an annual basis, which is equivalent to 20% of human drinking water needs on an annual basis. More than 45% of this 1,500 billion liters is coming from groundwater, which takes around 1,400 years to replenish,” shares Shrivastav. On the other hand, water vapour replenishes naturally just in eight to 10 days by the earth’s hydrological cycle. So, instead of relying on groundwater, Uravu is now helping beverage brands such as AB InBev, Moonshine Meadery, Coca-Cola, Radico Khaitan, Kirin Holdings and Suntory switch to extract water from air with their pilot technology and bring their carbon footprint to zero. Expanding its reach beyond the country Uravu is also casting its net wider by targeting the real estate industry including individual villas, office buildings, parks, schools and hospitals. Sharing the roadmap ahead, Shrivastav says, “In four to six months from now, we aim to have 100 liter [production tech] per day. The idea is to scale it up to more than thousands of liters over a period of time and add more resources. In the short term, we are focusing on 20-100 liter per day units.” Two-three years down the line, home-grown start-up Uravu Labs also aims to become a global company by expanding its presence in Japan, Middle East, Africa, and the US.

This start-up creates ‘green’ water out of thin air and sells it at ₹4 per liter

By Debashish Biswas India’s urban population is expected to grow from 377 million in 2011 (31% of total population) to around 600 million or 42% of the total population in 2030. It is estimated that in 2030, for five states – <keyword id="20154" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="tamil-nadu" source="Orion">Tamil Nadu</keyword>, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab, urbanisation levels will be more than 50% (Sources: Census of India 2011, McKinsey Global Institute and <keyword id="13071722" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="UN-World-Urbanisation-Prospects-2018" source="Orion">UN World Urbanisation Prospects 2018</keyword>). Indian cities will act as the engines of growth for the economy. As highlighted in the National Infrastructure Pipeline, an estimated ₹19,19,267 crores capital expenditure is estimated between FY20-FY25 in <keyword id="557969" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="urban-infrastructure" source="Orion">urban infrastructure</keyword> (Source: National Infrastructure Pipeline, Volume 1). Around 21% of this capital expenditure is proposed to be funded through private sector participation. Given this, as part of Budget 2022-23, it is expected that urban sector development will continue to remain as one of the major focus areas. Budgetary allocations are expected to be made for: <ul><li>Strengthening core urban infrastructure – Continued investments to reinforce core urban infrastructure like water supply, solid waste management, urban mobility, among others. Recently, in October 2021, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs announced AMRUT 2.0 which focuses on enhancing water connections in around 4800 urban local bodies, sewerage/ septage services in 500 cities as well as rejuvenation of water bodies, green spaces and parks (Source: AMRUT 2.0 guidelines). Further, <keyword id="6735318" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="swachh-bharat-mission-urban" source="Orion">Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban</keyword> 2.0 was also announced in October 2021 with the aspiration of making all cities garbage free.</li><li>Housing to remain a key focus area – Housing, specially providing affordable housing for all, remains a key priority for the country. It is also important to provide necessary incentives and improve various regulatory processes to attract private investments in the housing sector, especially in affordable housing.</li><li>Developing smart digital infrastructure in terms of mobility management, digital service delivery, city management, safety and security, environmental management, etc. <keyword id="857936" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="emphasis" source="Orion">Emphasis</keyword> may be provided on creating specific digital urban solutions leveraging the data being captured at the city level, specifically in the smart cities where the command control centers are already operational. Also, focus may be provided in creating cloud based shared digital infrastructure at state as well as district level so that even the smaller urban local bodies may get access and leverage digital infrastructure. </li><li>Environment and sustainability focus: Given the focus of building environmentally friendly and resilient cities, the budget may provide specific emphasis on developing sustainable urban areas including increasing green cover, urban forest, water conservation, water recycling, waste reuse, renewable energy usage, energy conservation, etc. On the mobility front, focus may be provided on further developing non-motorized transportation and electric vehicle infrastructure. For facilitating developing environmentally friendly infrastructure, necessary policies and incentives may be considered. Funding available under CSR activities may be leveraged for implementing various environmentally friendly infrastructure at city level.</li><li>Continue municipal reforms: To enable urban infrastructure growth, the ongoing municipal reforms should continue. These include -- a) strengthening municipal bond market – key steps to be undertaken by the urban local bodies are improving financial discipline; accounting reforms; improved governance and augment own source revenues; b) asset monetization and attracting private sector – creating an environment for attracting more private investments; and c) enabling user charges for funding urban infrastructure. Additional incentives may be provided to urban local bodies which undertake such overall reforms proactively. </li></ul>Overall, like last year, the current pandemic calls for a public investment led push for enabling economic growth. The FY 22-23 budget needs to focus on increased spending in overall urban infrastructure &amp; capital assets, which are likely to have a multiplier effect on demand generation and gross domestic product (GDP) growth. Further, higher urban infrastructure spend will improve investment attractiveness, create more employment opportunities and enhance quality of life. Debashish Biswas is Partner with Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India LLP SEE ALSO: <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/india/news/economic-budget-survey-2022-government-projects-8-to-8-5-growth-rate-in-year-2022-23/slidelist/89242472.cms">India’s Economic Survey projects 8-8.5 percent growth next year, here are other key points to note</a> <a target="_blank" class="c-link c-message_attachment__title_link" href="https://www.businessinsider.in/tech/news/despite-a-worldwide-chip-shortage-semiconductor-sales-cross-500-billion-for-the-first-time/articleshow/89242629.cms">Despite a worldwide chip shortage, semiconductor sales cross $500 billion for the first time</a>

OPINION: There should be continued focus on building urban infrastructure and sustainable smart cities

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Plastics companies spent millions to kickstart <keyword id="12063226" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="recycling" source="Orion">recycling</keyword> programs, and it helped them avoid bans.</li><li>Decades later, fossil-fuel interests spend millions to promote carpooling and reducing energy use.</li><li>Activists and researchers say this individual-action narrative distracts from the biggest polluters.</li></ul>Ben Franta is trying to collect every climate-related ad the oil and gas industry has ever produced.<a href="https://twitter.com/BenFranta/status/1347283598521430017">Franta</a>, who is pursuing a law degree and PhD at Stanford, is among a small cohort of researchers who track fossil-fuel industry propaganda. These historians, social scientists, and activists have <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2019/oct/09/half-century-dither-denial-climate-crisis-timeline">documented</a> the extent to which major oil companies <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa815f">knew</a> their products were changing the climate as early as the <a href="https://grist.org/energy/exxon-knew-and-so-did-coal/">1960s</a>, and how they poured tens of millions of dollars into <a href="https://www.climatechangecommunication.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/America_Misled.pdf">sowing doubt</a> about the <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">science</keyword> through the 1990s."Not to get too tin-hat-y, but once you start to see these ads over and over again, you see the common elements arise," Franta told Insider.So it was clear to him that around the year 2000, fossil-fuel companies changed marketing tactics. After decades of denial, they pivoted to blaming the climate crisis on you and me.Franta pointed to a 2007 Chevron ad campaign called "Will you join us?" Each poster featured a person's face and a pledge - promises like, "I will leave the car at home more" and "I will finally get a programmable thermostat." In small print, Chevron describes its own initiatives to be energy-efficient.On the campaign's now-defunct website, users could even make pledges like carpooling to work a few days per week, and a calculator would tell them how many DVDs they could watch with the energy saved."The framing is: 'No, we the companies are the good ones. We're working on the problem and we want you, the consumer, to join us in our positive efforts,'" Franta said.This approach - telling people to solve a crisis by changing their own habits - is a tried and true corporate tactic, pioneered by the tobacco and plastics industries. Now, fossil-fuel giants like Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil have spent millions to convince the public that consumer choices and lifestyle changes will solve the problem."It's almost become natural, when people think about the climate crisis, to think of individual action," Denali Nalamalapu, a communications specialist for the climate organization 350.org, told Insider. "Which is super convenient for fossil-fuel corporations."But at this point, personal lifestyle changes will not turn the climate crisis around. A <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/net-zero-by-2050">report</a> from the International Energy Agency, which lays out a path to a net-zero-emissions energy system by 2050, estimates that individual behavioral changes would only account for about 4% of the necessary reductions. To have even a 50% chance of stopping the world's temperature from rising more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, according to a <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03821-8">study published this month</a>, 90% of coal and 60% of oil and gas reserves must stay in the ground.<hr /><h2>A blame campaign: litterbugs and recyclers</h2><div type="image" title="garbage sorted recycling plastic bottles" height="2239" width="3963" msid="86318747" hostid="261"></div>In 1971, TVs across the US blasted a heart-wrenching PSA. In it, an actor in ambiguous American-Indian garb, his hair in two long braids, climbs into a canoe and paddles across a river full of discarded newspapers. He passes an industrial barge. Smokestacks puff in the background. He pulls his canoe onto a garbage-strewn shoreline and climbs to a busy highway. A passing motorist chucks a bag of fast food at his moccasined feet."People start pollution. People can stop it," a narrator says as the actor looks into the camera, a tear rolling down his cheek.This "Crying Indian PSA," as it's now known, came from a nonprofit called Keep America Beautiful - a group funded by companies like Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, and Dixie Cups. It debuted at a time when single-use packaging lined streets, beaches, and parks, and environmental activists had begun to rail against plastic pollution."That was an intentional, well-funded effort to convince us all that the responsibility for pollution was on us, on individuals, on litterbugs, rather than the companies that were flooding the world with single-use packaging," John Hocevar, a marine biologist who leads Greenpeace's oceans campaigns, told Insider.The tobacco industry did something similar <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4318333/">in the 1950s</a>, hiring PR firms to create campaigns blaming smoking-related illness on smokers. But the plastics industry took the strategy further.As local governments considered banning single-use plastics, a council of plastic-producing companies - including Chevron, Exxon, Dow, and DuPont - spent millions to implement recycling programs across the US. Their own scientists, however, had told them that recycling wouldn't work on a large scale, according to an <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/11/897692090/how-big-oil-misled-the-public-into-believing-plastic-would-be-recycled">investigation</a> by PBS and NPR."Making recycling work was a way to keep their products in the marketplace," Ron Liesemer, a former Du Pont manager who led the effort, told <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-takeaways-from-the-fight-over-the-future-of-plastics">PBS and NPR</a>. "It improves the image of the material."<div type="image" title="recycling blue bins garbage curb" height="1527" width="2037" msid="86318749" hostid="261"></div>By 2015, the quantity of plastic produced each year had <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution">increased 10-fold</a> from 1971. Less than 10% of that material has ever been recycled. Each square kilometer of <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/plastic-pollution-microplastics-pervade-surface-deep-ocean-2019-6">ocean</a> contains an average of about <a href="https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-14-life-below-water.html">13,000 pieces of plastic</a>.Microplastics - fragments smaller than a fingernail that never fully break down - have been found in the Mariana Trench and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/mount-everest-summit-microplastics-study-national-geographic-2020-11">at the top of Mount Everest</a>. The average American <a href="https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b01517">ingests about 50,000 microplastic particles each year</a> and inhales about the same amount. <div type="image" title="plastic pollution ocean waste environment.JPG" height="2000" width="2667" msid="86318752" hostid="261"></div>Plastic production is expected to double by 2040 and triple by 2050, according to <a href="http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_The_New_Plastics_Economy.pdf">the World Economic Forum</a>."Just about everybody understands that we need to do something about plastic," Hocevar said. "The challenge is that many companies - well, most companies - and many politicians are still thinking in this personal-responsibility frame and putting the emphasis on individual consumers. And so that really keeps the conversation focused on solutions that can't solve the problem."<hr /><h2>Fossil-fuel companies recycled the plastics tactic</h2><div type="image" title="Bumper to bumper traffic" height="1414" width="1885" msid="86318755" hostid="261"></div>Exxon was on the council that led the charge for recycling, and it soon started promoting personal-responsibility solutions to another crisis: global warming."Be smart about electricity use," suggested a 2007 ad from the company (now ExxonMobil). "Heat and cool your home efficiently." "Improve your gas mileage."Science historian Naomi Oreskes has studied ExxonMobil's climate communications for years."They talk about energy demand, they talk about need, they talk about use, and they use the term 'consumers.' And this is basically a way of shifting responsibility away from the producers - that is to say them, ExxonMobil - and onto the consumer," Oreskes told Insider.In a recent <a href="https://www.cell.com/one-earth/fulltext/S2590-3322(21)00233-5">study</a>, Oreskes analyzed 180 ExxonMobil documents discussing <keyword id="11896311" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="climate-change" source="Orion">climate change</keyword> from 1977 to 2014. The set includes internal communications, peer-reviewed publications, and "advertorials" - ads that looked like editorials and ran in The New York Times.Internal documents mentioned carbon dioxide more than 1,000 times. Terms that appeared most included "atmosphere" and "fossil fuel." Advertorials, by contrast, relied on the terms "energy efficient," "demand," and "need."<div type="image" title="hurricane katrina damage" height="1685" width="2600" msid="86318758" hostid="261"></div>BP (formerly called British Petroleum) took a similar approach. In 2004, it <a href="https://mashable.com/feature/carbon-footprint-pr-campaign-sham/">created the first "carbon footprint calculator,"</a> a way to pin greenhouse-gas emissions to people's daily activities."The carbon footprint calculator then took off as an idea and as a concept, and really distracted us from looking at the industry itself," Janet Redman, the director of Greenpeace USA's climate campaign, told Insider.Nalamalapu said she calculated her carbon footprint as one of her first climate-change lessons in elementary school. So did I. By 2010, the popularity of the phrase "carbon footprint" had <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=carbon+footprint&amp;year_start=1990&amp;year_end=2019&amp;corpus=26&amp;smoothing=0&amp;smoothing=0">increased by about 1,600%</a> from 2006.<div type="image" title="Multiple firefighters walk through the forest." height="2670" width="3560" msid="86318761" hostid="261"></div>Climate scientist Peter Kalmus told <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/the-climate-crisis-is-worse-than-you-can-imagine-heres-what-happens-if-you-try">ProPublica</a> about how much he took this idea to heart. To reduce his carbon footprint, Kalmus has raised chickens in his yard, converted an old car to biodiesel, and built an outdoor toilet to compost his family's poop. He's had nightmares about plane rides."It feels like the plane is flying on ground-up babies to me," Kalmus told ProPublica.<hr /><h2>BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobil say they're changing</h2>In statements to Insider, spokespeople for Chevron, BP, and ExxonMobil pointed to their companies' efforts to reduce emissions.<div type="image" title="seven adults wade through tropical storm harvey floodwaters carrying children and bags" height="1578" width="2400" msid="86318764" hostid="261"></div>"Chevron is investing more than $3 billion from now to 2028 to advance the energy transition," Chevron spokesperson Sean Comey said. "Chevron believes the world's demand for oil and gas should be supplied by the most efficient, least carbon-intensive producers."Comey also said the company is working to reduce emissions from its oil and gas extraction and is exceeding the goals it set for itself for 2023. He said that although "too much plastic waste ends up in landfills, oceans, and rivers," plastics "are essential to modern life and help improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world."BP declined to comment on the company's carbon-footprint calculator, but pointed to its net-zero goals and a recent acquisition of solar-energy projects, which it aims to more than double by 2025. "BP believes we have an important role to play in addressing climate change," spokesperson Joshua Hicks said. "That's why we launched a new ambition last year to become a net-zero company by 2050 or sooner, and to help the world get there too. In line with that ambition, we've set targets for drastically reducing our emissions and increasing our low-carbon investments, and we're actively advocating for policies that support net zero."<div type="image" title="crude oil pump jack in texas field sunset backdrop" height="1666" width="2222" msid="86318766" hostid="261"></div>ExxonMobil, meanwhile, said it "is working to reduce company emissions and helping customers reduce their emissions while working on new lower-emission technologies and advocating for effective policies."The company alleges that Oreskes has a conflict of interest, pointing to her expert testimony in a climate-related lawsuit last year."This research is clearly part of a litigation strategy against ExxonMobil and other energy companies," a statement shared by spokesperson Casey Norton said.Oreskes said she has offered expertise "in a number of capacities to groups and organizations involved in fighting climate change," and does not see any conflict of interest.BP <a href="https://www.bp.com/en_gb/target-neutral/home/calculate-and-offset-your-emissions.html">still</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/bp_plc/status/1186645440621531136">advertises</a> its calculator today. One of its subsidiaries backs an app that tracks your carbon footprint in real time, <a href="https://grist.org/energy/footprint-fantasy/">Grist</a> reported. BP also <a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/press-releases/bp-completes-purchase-of-bhp-assets-in-us-onshore.html">made</a> its <a href="https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/news-and-insights/reimagining-energy/mergers-and-acquisitions-team-supports-the-energy-transition.html">biggest acquisition in 20 years</a> in 2018: $10.5 billion of west Texas oil fields."They don't want a price on carbon, they don't want incentives for renewable energy, they don't want to block new fossil-fuel infrastructure," atmospheric scientist Michael Mann told Insider. "So they say: 'No, it's just about you being a better person, you being more responsible in your day to day activities.'"A Chevron lawyer even said as much in federal court, according to <a href="https://grist.org/article/fossil-fuels-are-the-problem-say-fossil-fuel-companies-being-sued/">Grist</a>: In 2018, the company argued that it's not oil production causing climate change, "it's the way people are living their lives."<hr /><h2>A million-dollar distraction</h2><div type="image" title="carbon emissions" height="2331" width="3108" msid="86318768" hostid="261"></div>The ads Oreskes and Franta have collected show how much money fossil-fuel interests have poured into influencing the narrative on climate change. The American Petroleum Institute, a fossil-fuel trade association, spent $663 million on PR and <keyword id="11894120" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="advertising" source="Orion">advertising</keyword> between 2008 and 2017, according to a report from the <a href="https://climateinvestigations.org/trade-association-pr-spending/">Climate Investigations Center</a>.The results, Redman said, can be insidious."It's easy to see that rhetoric, that it's about individual responsibility, and feel paralyzed and not take the kinds of political action that we need," she said.The <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/still-time-to-address-climate-change-ipcc-scientists-report-2021-8">stakes are only getting higher</a>, according to the latest <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/climate-ipcc-report-temperature-rise-20-years-15-degrees-2021-8">report from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change</a>. For every half-degree of warming, the frequency and intensity of heat waves and droughts increase. Even in the best-case climate scenario, sea levels will rise nearly a foot over the next 80 years.Still, if you've dedicated time and energy to recycling or biking to work - don't despair. These choices, if lots of people make them, can make a difference. Nalamalapu takes reusable bags to the grocery store. Mann drives a hybrid car and doesn't eat meat. Oreskes has solar panels on her roof."We do all have personal responsibility. The question is: How do we balance that personal responsibility with the larger structural and political questions at stake? And what is the role of the fossil-fuel industry?" Oreskes said."Riding our bikes is important. And turning off the lights, not cranking the AC with a window open, all that stuff is really important, for sure," Redman said. "But it pales in comparison to political activity to change the rules about how our energy system is structured, who the actors are, who benefits, who pays."Aylin Woodward contributed reporting.

The companies polluting the planet have spent millions to make you think carpooling and recycling will save us

<img class="gwt-Image" src="/photo/53206705.cms" /> <keyword id="6355588" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Rajasthan">Rajasthan</keyword>, the desert state of India, emerged as the most attractive solar project destination in the country during the latest NTPC auction, which saw the winning bids falling to Rs 4.35-4.36 per kwH. 
 
There were 130 MW put up for auction, out of which 50 MW was won by Shapoorji Pallonji Infrastructure Capital and 60 MW by Mahindra Susten, while the remaining 20 MW was won by Prayatna Developers of the Adani Group. Both these companies offered to sell electricity produced from their projects at same price of Rs 4.35 per kwH, and Prayatna Developers’ offer was at Rs 4.36 per kwH. 
 
Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/india-solar-power-tariff/articleshow/53115610.cms">Here’s why India can never afford solar power at Rs 2.2 per unit, but Dubai can</a> 
 
These reverse auctions see the developer offering to sell electricity at the lowest price winning the auction. The last NTPC auction in Rajasthan saw Fortum Finnsurya winning a 70 MW project by bidding Rs 4.34 per kwH. However, in that auction, the land for the project was ensured at the Bhadla Solar Park in Jodhpur district, with the highest solar radiation in India. 
 
This time around, the winners are not being given any land. Instead, developers will find and develop the land themselves, probably the reason behind marginally higher tariffs. 
 
Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/World-Bank-to-lend-1-billion-to-India/articleshow/52988966.cms">World Bank will lend India $1 billion for Modi's solar goals</a> 
 
This year has not seen too many developers taking interest in these auctions, with the Gujarat auction of 160 MW of capacity, which was held in late-June, drawing only three bidders. However, in the latest Rajasthan auction, the developers seem to have shed those apprehensions with 21 developers, including many of the top names in the business, taking part in it. 
 
Also read: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/renewable-energy-projects-finance/articleshow/52741905.cms">Your renewable energy projects could get easily financed and that too at low interest rates</a> 
 
The reason could be cited to Rajasthan's inherent solar advantage, because of the high radiation that the state receives. The developers’ interest in this recent auction also shows that along with tariff, it also crucially depends on the project locations. 
 
<a href="http://www.eai.in/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/100_1759.jpg">Image source</a>

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