UltraTech Cement Limited is aiming to increase contribution of green energy to 25 per cent of its total power consumption by 2021. This increase is more than double the current contribution of 10% of green energy to total energy consumption by the Company. Renewable energy will contribute to more than 10 per cent of its total power consumption by 2021.
The Company plans to build capacity to generate more than 650 million units of renewable power by 2021. The increased use of renewable power for UltraTech’s electrical energy requirements will result in annual carbon emission reduction of 533000 tonnes of CO2 and in 25 years total carbon footprint reduction of 13 million tonnes of CO2. With this, UltraTech will be amongst the largest users of renewable energy in the Indian cement sector.
In addition to renewable energy, the green energy contribution includes energy generated through waste heat recovery systems (WHRS). During FY’19, UltraTech commissioned 28 MW of WHRS taking its total generation from WHRS to 8% of total power consumption. There are more investments in progress which are expected to be completed in a phased manner by 2021, taking WHRS to 15% of total power requirement.
K K Maheshwari, Managing Director, UltraTech Cement Limited, said, “To bring the cement sector in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change, its annual emissions will need to fall by at least 16% by 2030. There are a number of solutions for reducing emissions associated with cement production as identified by the latest Low Carbon Technology Roadmap published by International Energy Agency (IEA) in partnership with Cement Sustainability Initiative (CSI). These solutions need to be deployed at scale to meet the decarbonisation challenge”.
He added, “UltraTech is committed to embedding sustainability into its business conduct. We recognize that we need to embrace new ways of working and adopt innovative solutions that create impact at scale”.
UltraTech Cement has set a target to reduce its carbon emissions by 25% (from 2005-06 level) by 2021. The company is already working on carbon reduction levers like energy efficiency, alternative fuels, waste heat recovery, renewable energy and reducing clinker to cement ratio. To achieve this objective, UltraTech has set path towards increasing its WHRS capacity and enabling low carbon product-mix through thermal substitution.
In the past couple of years, India has been aggressively promoting renewable energy. This is evident with the formation of International Solar Alliance, which is an alliance of more than 121 countries initiated by India and France for efficient exploitation of solar energy to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. The increase in UltraTech Cement’s renewable energy capacity will also contribute towards India’s ambitious target of 175 GW of renewable energy by 2022. This is in line with the National Solar Mission, one of the eight missions launched under the ‘National Action Plan on Climate Change’
