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Industry consortium to pool green energy demand

In a first of its kind of initiative, leading corporate entities have come together and aggregated their demand for green energy.

In a first of its kind of initiative, leading corporate entities have come together and aggregated their demand for green energy. A consortium comprising nine companies across sectors like information technology (IT), manufacturing and retail, among others, have joined hands for group buying of renewable energy like that from wind, solar and biomass.

The first meeting of this newly formed association and its various partners including banks is scheduled for Wednesday when the modalities of the tender and terms of contract would be discussed after deciding the total energy requirement of the consortium. Rohan Parikh, head of green initiatives at Infosys, which is a key partner of the consortium, pegs the requirement to be around 500-600 million units.

The consortium has taken the Confederation of Indian Industry and climate change research organisation World Resources Institute on board to approach various banks for financial support and technical assistance, respectively. Global consulting major Accenture is also a part of the consortium.

Infosys, which is a part of the consortium, has already committed to buy 100 million units per annum of green energy. The company already meets one-third of its energy requirement from renewable sources.

?Multinational companies across industry sectors have got together to collate their demand and reach out to the sellers of renewable power and lending institutions. This is so because many companies are not in the energy business and would not like to invest their capital in buying green energy individually,? said Parikh. On the other hand, banks are not willing to finance companies with lower credit ratings and companies themselves are hard put to find suitable vendors and technology.

Infosys? annual energy requirement is 300 million units. Once this group buying begins, the company will double its dependence on green power from the current 100 million units.

The consortium plans to do a reverse bidding or auction as part of which the lowest bidder will get the tender to supply renewable energy.

As against state auctions, this would be a corporate reverse bidding process wherein instead of feeding power into the grid the supplier would supply it to corporates in the form of rooftop solar installations, offsite wind power and a small amount of biomass energy.

At present, 1 MW of installed wind power can generate 2.5 million units of electricity while 1 MW of solar generates 1.5 million units of electricity.

?We have planned an open discussion with the banks to allay their fears and worries and give them confidence on the loans and hedging of risks,? added Parikh.

According to the ministry of new and renewable energy, biomass material has the potential to generate about 20 GW of power while wind energy continues to contribute significantly to India?s renewable energy matrix with over 17 GW installed capacity. Similarly, the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission aims to facilitate the installation of 20 GW of grid-connected and 2 GW of off-grid solar power, 20 million sq m of solar thermal collector area and 20 million rural households with solar home lighting by 2022. India has already succeeded in setting up about 1 GW of solar power capacity.

Eco-logical

* Nine-member consortium, including Infosys & Accenture, for group buying

* Aggregated demand pegged at 500-600 million units of electricity

* Reverse auctions to decide on potential suppliers of wind, solar & biomass energy

* Infosys to double dependence on green power once supplier finalised

* CII to collate inputs, organise events while WRI will offer technical assistance

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First published on: 09-01-2013 at 01:33 IST
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