India is doing far better than expected and even hard to abate sectors of the economy like steel, cement and fertiliser can now be greened and eventually be shifted to renewable fuels.
CEO Vineet Mittal of Avaada Group, an integrated energy company with interests in solar, green hydrogen and other forms of renewable energy stated this citing advance in technology made in recent years.
Speaking on the sidelines of an event recently held in Goa, Mittal said that “all the hard to abate sectors like cement, aluminium, copper, oil refineries, fertiliser sector, can be decarbonised. Earlier coal was used to make ammonia, now electricity (green) can be used to split water and oxygen can be used to supply to hospitals,” Mittal said.
Conferred with the ‘Solar Man of the Year’ title on two occasions, Vineet Mittal, Chairperson, Avaada Group, is a social entrepreneur and pioneer of clean energy transition in India.
The biggest concerns among climate conscious industrialists and environmentlists was that while power generation can be greened eventually the manufacture of cement, steel and fertilisers blast furnaces which need coking coal and non-renewable energy provided almost entirely by coal would continually hamper efforts to achieve a net zero target by 2050.
“The biggest contributor (to CO2 emissions) around 30% is the power sector, and around — I think 25% to 30% would be mobility. Around 25-30% would be the industrial sector and the whole thing is how do you decarbonise the mobility and the so called hard to abate sector. There used to be a perception till 2016-17 that these sectors can never be decarbonised,” he said.
“The future looks like now that you can reach net zero much faster. There is so much work the Indian government has done on ethanol, bio-fuels, bio-energy that will also increase the prosperity for the farmers. All these are not only decarbonising the country and making the world a better safer place but it is also in some way a wealth equalisr. Society needs the farmer for bio-fuels, farmers are going to be the end consumer for green ammonia in the form of urea etc you make. It is becoming more and more inclusive,” he said.
He however cautioned that the green sectors yet make up only a miniscule portion of what the economy’s current capacity.
“Europe wants to import 10 million tons of green hydrogen by 2030, which is roughly 58 million tons of green ammonia. If the entire industry in India plans to make this, they won’t be able to make more than 20 million tons by 2030,” he said.
“We should not be sugarcoating all of this. We should not deflect the problem, we should find solutions that are permanent in nature. We are very much accountable to our next generation. If we cannot do good for them we should not do bad either. Now the technology exists which can decarbonise the planet and green hydrogen, bio-fuel, e-mobility, waste to energy, all of this have a very important role to play,” he said.
On the sidelines of th 4th G20 Energy Transition Working Group (ETWG), Avaada has signed the MOU with the Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) for an investment quantum of Rs 20,000 crore to fund its multiple projects over the period of next five years.