UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

The new normal

Fly Title: 

Power stations in Indonesia

Rubric: 

Plans for breakneck electrification mean opportunities for foreign firms

Location: 

SINGAPORE

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A FLOTILLA of floating power stations is supposed soon to traverse the vast waters of eastern Indonesia. The ships, burning marine oil and leased from a Turkish firm, will be a temporary fix for the sprawling archipelago’s rising thirst for power. Indonesia consumes about half as much electricity as Britain, despite being four times as populous; about 50m Indonesians have no mains power at all. Shortages will grow more pressing as the country’s middle class expands: over the next decade or so, electricity demand is expected to rise by nearly 9% a year. 
Putting a stop to blackouts is a priority for the government. Last May President Joko Widodo announced an ambition to build more than 100 new …
Source: Utilities
Power stations in Indonesia: Shock therapy

ON March 11th 2011 a tsunami engulfed Japan’s north-east coast, flooding towns, farmland and severely damaging the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant. Almost 19,000 people were killed by the tsunami, and a further 160,000 were evacuated after the power plant’s core leaked radiation into the sea and surrounding area in the worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl in 1986. Five years on, Fukushima is still an exclusion zone and tens of thousands are stuck in temporary shelter. Japan shut down all but two of its 43 reactors over safety concerns. And other countries have recently sped up efforts to replace nuclear power with greener renewables. Germany plans to close all 17 of its nuclear plants by 2022, a process that has already begun. France passed a bill last year mandating that the share of nuclear power in the country’s electricity mix be cut from 75% to 50% within ten years. Meanwhile commodity prices have slumped, resulting in a cut to wholesale electricity prices. That makes it harder for many nuclear plants to cover their running costs, also leading to closures. Where markets are freer, it is harder for nuclear-power operators to make money, and too risky for them to build costly plants from scratch. 

INTERACTIVE MAP: Our guide to the world's nuclear-power producers

Yet as countries try to cut carbon emissions, such closures often lead to …
Source: Utilities
Daily chart: Global nuclear power five years after Fukushima

UK Only Article: 
UK article only

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Battle lines

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Supermarkets

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An American giant moves into online grocery shopping

BRITAIN’S big supermarkets have had a dismal few years. Aldi and Lidl, two upstart German-owned discounters, have taken huge bites out of their market share, margins have been squeezed and record losses have mounted.
One refuge, however, was in online shopping, which Aldi and Lidl have been reluctant to embrace, despite the fact that British consumers are Europe’s most enthusiastic e-shoppers. Online grocery sales have been growing strongly, and the likes of Tesco, the biggest supermarket, and Sainsbury’s, have taken full advantage. Tesco, which runs a “Click+Collect” service, has about 40% of the online market.

Now, however, that refuge is looking less safe. On February 29th Amazon, an American online retailer, announced that it will start selling fresh food and groceries as well, in a tie-up with the fourth-largest British supermarket, Morrisons. Thus Amazon, with deep pockets and a wealth of experience offering food online in …
Source: Retailing
Supermarkets: Fresh from the Amazon

UK Only Article: 
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Battle lines

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E-commerce in emerging markets

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The battle for India’s e-commerce market is about much more than retailing

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EVERY second three more Indians experience the internet for the first time. By 2030 more than 1 billion of them will be online. In June last year one in four mobiles used in India was a smartphone, up from one in five just six months earlier. Add in two more facts—India boasts the world’s fastest-growing large economy, and the planet’s biggest population of millennials—and you can see why the likes of Facebook, Uber and Google are falling over themselves to establish footholds there.
No battle for the online future of India is more intense than the one now being waged in e-commerce (see article). Sales are still tiny, at billion last year, but the country is the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce market and is prized by America’s and China’s internet titans. India has become the …
Source: Retailing
E-commerce in emerging markets: India online

UK Only Article: 
standard article

Issue: 

Battle lines

Fly Title: 

Online retailing in India

Rubric: 

In the next 15 years, India will see more people come online than any other country. E-commerce firms are in a frenzied battle for their custom

Main image: 

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IT IS a quiet morning on the outskirts of Mumbai, the air still mild. Dusty streets are dappled with sunlight, a stray dog rummages through some rubbish, the shutters are lifted on a few tiny shops. A man pushes a cart bearing a pyramid of oranges. And a delivery boy named Anil is already racing along his route on a motor bike borrowed from his uncle, his delivery backpack as large as he is. He has been up for hours, planning his route and carefully filling his bag with the packages to be dropped off first stacked near the top.
Anil enters a block of flats, squeezes his backpack into a narrow lift and delivers a shirt to a 21-year-old taxi driver. In a neighbouring tower he hands a smartphone case to a 16-year-old who …
Source: Retailing
Online retailing in India: The great race