Home > Energy Conservation > Full Story

Aims at power quality improvement, cost reduction

Raymond plans captive power generation at Yavatmal denim plant

Reena Mital - Mumbai

Raymond has made great strides in energy conservation, making savings of as much as 20-30 per cent in energy costs over the last couple of years, since it started its conservation exercise.

According to Mr K R C Shekhar, manager, energy conservation, “The company is today far above the domestic norms, and we are today looking at international norms as benchmarks. Energy conservation has definitely helped in effecting large savings for the company. This has become important in this very competitive environment, and when energy threat the world over is increasing.”

The company is now in the process of setting up a captive power plant at its Yavatmal denim facility, which will have an efficiency level of 60 per cent, as against the normal efficiency level of 30 per cent, in power plants. The plant will run on the co-generation system, which has been largely used in sugar mills. The plant will serve a dual purpose, of generating power and processed steam for manufacturing. “This system has been there for very long, but has now achieved commercial viability. With this power plant, we will be able to take care of the quality and cost of power. Today, power supply is very erratic, and the quality very poor, which affects the quality of output and also increases costs,” said Mr Shekhar.

He said the Yavatmal power plant has a 5 megawatt generation capacity, which will take care of the entire power requirements of the plant. The plant has been set up with an investment of around Rs 20 crore. “We are trying to get the funds under the TUFS, and we have got in-principle approval for the same,” he informed.

Cost of power today comes to around Rs 27-30 a metre, and with the captive power plant, the company expects to effect a reduction by as much as 20-30 per cent. Raymond is planning to have captive power plants at its other mills too, beginning with Chindwada. “The power situation in MP is much worse than in Maharashtra. We have plans of setting up a 10 megawatt power plant at Chindwada, but this will take time, as government approvals and clearances are yet to come,” he stated.

According to Mr Shekhar, textile companies should go in for captive power plants, as it saves on cost, while improving the quality of production. “In the larger national perspective too, this is important, as it means a vast saving in resources such as coal, which are non-renewable.” Moreover, with the government also promoting such investments, through the TUF scheme, this becomes even more attractive, he feels.

Meanwhile, the textile taskforce set up under the Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), has not made much progress. Around 25 textile companies are members of the taskforce. “I am not happy with the way the taskforce is moving. It is unfortunate that the industry still does not take this pertinent issue seriously. Raymond is one of the very few textile companies that has done so much work in energy conservation, and is reaping the benefits of the same,” he observed.

According to experts, one of the main reason for this is that energy conservation is not incorporated in the entire system, and only remains at the shopfloor level. “For instance, no one today looks at the rejection rate as a waste of energy. If a company has a five per cent rejection rate, energy consumption during production of that five per cent is a total waste, and it becomes necessary to achieve 100 per cent production, and to utilise machines to the optimum. Energy conservation needs to be incorporated within the entire system,” opines Mr Shekhar.

He further states that with the TUFS also available for this practice, there should be no hindrance for the textile mills to adopt such practices. It is expected that with the Energy Bill in place, energy audits would become mandatory, and the government could also fine those units that did not show any reduction in energy consumption. Citing the example of Japan, Mr Shekhar said, “Japan has made immense progress on this front, with its energy bill having been put in place in 1975. Japan realised the need for such measures well in advance, to avoid the increasing energy insecurity (threat) that is engulfing the world today.”