New Delhi Indian steel and aluminum makers such as JSW Group, ArcelorMittal, Vedanta and public sector SAIL are working to reduce their carbon footprint through measures such as moving away from coal and needing more green energy, three people said. Familiarize yourself with the changing strategy.
It follows the European Union coming up with the world’s first carbon tax.
The purpose of the tax is to ensure that non-EU companies exporting to the EU pay the same price for their carbon footprint in Europe as EU companies do. Thus, through the carbon tax, the EU intends to bring the level of taxes on imports to par for local companies for green compliance.
“Export-oriented companies are trying to reduce the carbon footprint of their products in view of the EU carbon tax. Given the potential for low-cost minerals, low-cost renewables and low-cost storage, India is one of the world’s largest companies. could become a hub for low-carbon commodities,” said one of the above persons, requesting anonymity.
These metal majors depend on captive power generation to meet their energy needs. According to industry estimates, India has about 78 gigawatts (GW) of installed captive power capacity, of which about 56GW is coal-fired and about 200 million tonnes of coal burned annually.
One case is aluminum because most electric vehicles (EVs) are built using this lighter metal, as the storage battery is heavy. As a result steel frames are replacing aluminum frames, and a major cost of manufacturing aluminum is energy. EV manufacturers are now demanding green aluminum.
Rahul Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, Aluminum Business, Vedanta Ltd., said, “We are looking to increase the amount of renewable energy in our energy mix as well as enhance the energy efficiency of operations and replace fuels with greener and cleaner alternatives. ”
“Vedanta Aluminum continues to be India’s largest green energy buyer from power exchanges, having purchased over 1,600 million units of renewable energy so far during FY12,” he said.
This comes against the backdrop of distributed renewable energy generation which attracts strong investor interest as there are few developers with large portfolios in the market. Commercial and industrial projects are generally protected from risks such as power purchase cuts and tariff-buying by state-owned distribution firms. Instead of relying on expensive grids, third parties and captive consumers buy power from them.
Seshagiri Rao, Joint Managing Director and Group Chief Financial Officer, JSW Steel, said that JSW Steel has already taken a big step towards greening its processes, which resulted in the company recently completing two tranches of $500 million. A stability bond is issued.
“The issue with the carbon limit tax is of limited concern to us as we move rapidly on greening our steelmaking processes. We have already announced that carbon use in our processes will be reduced from 2.5 tonnes to 1 tonne of steel will now amount to 1.9 tonnes of carbon by 2030. We are taking several steps to reduce carbon emissions, including replacing and increasing fuel-based electricity by renewable energy. Use of scrap in blast furnaces,” Rao said. he said.
Steel Authority of India Limited also does not lag behind in hosting a host of clean energy-efficient technologies like BF Top-Gas Pressure Recovery Turbines, Coke Dry Cooling Plants, Waste Heat Recovery Units at BF Stove and Sinter Plants, Energy Efficient Reheating Furnaces. and by-product gas based power plants. This has resulted in a more than 9% reduction in specific CO2 emissions from operations over the past 10 years.
Subhash.narayan@livemint.com
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