CHENNAI: Aiming to reduce carbon emissions at its manufacturing units, JK Tyre plans to double the usage of biomass at its plants in this financial year. The company has been working to reduce coal consumption in its plants and as a step towards the goal it started using biomass at its units last year.
The tyre manufacturer’s last year biomass consumption was almost 8% of its total energy consumption and this year the company targets to reach 18%. “We are looking at a largescale biomass usage, but availability and transportation of biomass still remains an issue. Despite all this, we are keen to use at least 15% to 18% of biomass in our plants, which will give us savings from coal,” Anil Makkar, manufacturing director, JK Tyre told TNIE.
Required modifications will be made in the plants to ensure that the biomass usage target is achieved. Makkar said, in 2013, the company had started taking measures for reducing carbon footprints at its plants and the renewable contribution in 2014 to 2017 was around 3%.
“We worked to rectify this and last year, our total renewable power consumption was almost 50% of the total consumption we had across all plants,” said Makkar. He further added that the company has managed to reduce close to 48% of its CO2 emission in the last five years. Besides, the company had plans to enhance solar power efficiency at its Chennai plant by adding 10 million new units of solar power but due to the covid-19 outbreak the plan may get a little delayed.
“We need some investment for it and may have to wait for some time to implement the project,” said Makkar. JK Tyre has pledged to reach zero carbon footprints and become a 100% renewable energy efficient company by 2050. To fulfill the goal, the company is trying out new strategies such as biomass usage, waste-to-energy conversion, alternative fuel technology or green coal. Makkar is hopeful that by third quarter things will be back to normal for the tyre industry.
“June has shown some green shoots in the replacement market and we believe things will get back to normal by the third quarter. By August, we are planning to operate at 70% capacity and by the third quarter we should be reaching 100% in Chennai plant,” he said.