Reliance Industries (RIL) will be setting up 500 Compressed Bio Gas (CBG) plants with an investment of ₹65,000 crore in Andhra Pradesh over the next four-five years. This is the largest clean energy investment by RIL in India outside of Gujarat
The company has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Andhra Pradesh Government in Amaravati on Tuesday. The AP Energy department and Reliance Industries had signed and exchanged the MoU copies in the presence of Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu.
Creating benefits
Each plant will cost ₹130 crore, and the proposed investment will create direct and indirect employment for about 2.5 lakh with estimated financial benefit of ₹57,650 crore over a period of 25 years through State Goods & Service Tax (SGST) collection, electricity duty, taxes on employment, the government said in a release.
With the CBG plants coming up in future, farmers will be able to earn around ₹30,000 per acre per annum by cultivating energy crops (Napier grass). The production of around 39 lakh tonnes of CBG per annum (7,800 tonnes per plant) will give a fillip to the State GDP by aiding industrial growth. CBG produced from 500 plants can provide renewable fuel to 9.38 lakh light commercial vehicles daily replacing fossil fuel with green energy, said a government release.
“Andhra Pradesh has a favourable climate for renewable energy, with abundant solar and wind resources, and a supportive policy and regulatory environment. The State has already made significant progress in development of renewable energy and announced the Integrated Clean Energy Policy, taking the target to generate CBG of 10,000 tonnes per day,” it said. Tata Power had also recently announced its plans to invest ₹40,000 crore in the solar energy sector in the State.
The State government provides key incentives to biofuels project such as CBG plants with 20 per cent capital subsidy on the fixed capital investment.
This subsidy is availableonly for plants with minimum capacity of 10 TPD of CBG plant and applicable only for the first 1,000 plants.