FMCG major ITC Ltd is powering itself up with wind farm clusters.
As it expands its wind power generation capacity, ITC gradually reduces its dependence on fossil fuels.
Renewable energy contributes to over 41 per cent of the company’s total power consumption. This is poised to go up to over 50 per cent as it sets up more projects.
Lower Consumption
The company has installed wind farms with over 70 MW at sites close to its facilities and is in the process of setting up 63 MW more. Significantly, last financial year, it also brought down overall power consumption across all its business divisions. This is part of the corporate wide sustainability drive.
The new capacity includes a 46 MW farm at its Paper unit at Bhadrachalam in Andhra Pradesh. The company has recently awarded the supply contract to Gamesa India, part of the Spanish wind energy equipment supplier.
Sanjib Bezbaroa, Head of Corporate Environment, Health and Safety, told Business Line ITC has adopted a low carbon growth path to address environmental challenges such as global warming, climate change and depletion of natural resources.
The setting up renewable energy sources also addresses the objective of reducing dependence on external source for power generation. Most States in South have demand supply gap. “The contribution from renewable energy to the overall energy consumption of ITC is about 41 per cent. We plan to take this to over 50 per cent within three years,” he said.
The company has commissioned a study of potential to generate additional power through renewable energy sources.
“We expect this process to be completed soon. This will outline where there is potential and if this fits into the company’s requirement. Merely having a potential at one site will not be sufficient, it has to suit the company’s requirements,” he explained.
“The other thing about renewable energy source is it cannot fully meet the requirement of large manufacturing units. Therefore, the setting up of new units factors various issues,” he said.
Renewables park
The 32-acre Infotech Park in Bangalore is fully powered by renewable energy, some of the hospitality projects, including ITC Grand Chola, and paper units in Coimbatore, Kovai and printing and packaging unit at Chennai are all supported, some fully powered by wind farms. It is investing in wind farms to fully power the new plant at Mysore.
The company has invested over Rs 400 crore and expects to commit similar amount in setting up more renewable energy projects in the country, sources indicated.