 "SKF India")
Bearing manufacturer SKF India has set up a 1-MW roof-top solar plant at its Pune facility and is expected to generate 1.5GwH units every year. It is part of company's ongoing solar mission across its facilities in India. This initiative is expected to reduce SKF Pune facility's CO2 emission by about 1,200 metric tons per annum.
Green energy producer ReNew Power Ventures, backed by Goldman Sachs Group Inc, has been commissioned the power project. It has invested in setting up 4,100 panels and entered into a contract with SKF to purchase the power generated for a 25-year period.
"Our environmental strategy SKF BeyondZero is to create a positive impact on the environment, by reducing the negative impact from our own operations and offering innovative technologies, products and solutions with improved environmental performance. Business cannot grow at the cost of environment and so we launched the project SustEn three years ago to make the operations sustainable and energy efficient. The solar mission is directly aligned with our sustainable business goals," said Shishir Joshipura, managing director and country head, SKF India.
The next addition of solar capacity could come at Ahmedabad or Mysore.
"Roof-top solar power is at a tipping point and is going to become mainstream as the cost will improve and the landed cost of grid power will become more expensive," Ajay Goel, president (solar), ReNew Power, said.
Earlier, SKF installed a rooftop solar plant at its Bengaluru facility and along with the Pune plant; the combined capacity is 2.1 MW. Additionally, SKF has also installed a hybrid solar thermal plant at its Mysore facility with obtained energy of 120 MwH per year.
