MUMBAI: UltraTech Cement said that it is joining EP100, a global leadership initiative, which brings together a growing group of energy-smart companies.
Becoming a member of EP100 reaffirms UltraTech’s commitment to driving sustainability across its value chain and accelerating business growth, company today said.
“By becoming a member of EP100, UltraTech has committed to double its energy productivity. Improvement of energy performance is one of the critical levers for UltraTech to reduce the carbon intensity of its operations.”, it said.
This will also provide a strategic boost to UltraTech’s low carbon growth target of reducing carbon intensity by 25% by 2021 (2005 baseline).
K K Maheshwari, Managing Director, UltraTech Cement Limited said, “UltraTech Cement has always been at the forefront in adopting sustainable processes in its business operations. The Company has some of the best performing plants on energy metrics across the world. As a responsible organisation, we realise the need for further substantial improvements in energy productivity. Our membership of EP100, we believe, will play a catalytic role in helping us accelerate towards doubling our energy productivity, which is a key strategic lever to achieve sustainable business growth”.
Helen Clarkson, CEO, The Climate Group, said, “It’s hugely encouraging to see UltraTech, one of the leading cement producers globally, step up on energy efficiency – this is a win-win for emissions reduction and business growth. We need to see many more cement companies and other large energy users in hard-to-abate sectors follow UltraTech’s lead.”
Founded by The Climate Group, EP100 constitutes corporates that commit to using energy more productively. Energy productivity is a way of measuring energy efficiency that aligns directly with business growth and sustainable development goals.
Future proofing
UltraTech has an ongoing focus on energy performance with significant capital and operational expenditure on energy saving measures. This is evident from its recent achievements in the Perform Achieve Trade (PAT) scheme, a flagship programme under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE), launched by the Government of India. UltraTech Cement is a part of the Aditya Birla Group (ABG), which has a robust sustainability framework with ‘Future Proofing’ being a key pillar.
Strategic levers to double energy productivity
Joining EP100 helps UltraTech to benchmark itself with global companies on energy productivity. There are several key areas which the Company will focus on to increase its energy productivity. The Company is focusing on investing in waste heat recovery systems (WHRS) and renewable energy projects through group captive, open access and captive investments.
UltraTech has committed to more than double its installed WHRS capacity from an existing 58 MW to 121 MW. This demonstrates a commitment towards low carbon transformation and long term energy security for the business.
The Company is investing to significantly increase solar power generation for captive usage. This is in addition to its existing contract capacity of 50 MW solar power plants.
UltraTech has invested in energy efficiency technologies like cooler upgradation, calciner modification, voltage variable frequency drive (VVFD) installation and burner modification across its manufacturing plants to improve energy productivity. Going forward, UltraTech will be focusing on using globally emerging technologies, change in product mix, energy mix, digitization and carbon pricing to take energy productivity to the next level.
