Gujarat NRE may get 70,000 carbon credits from new windmills

To invest Rs 175cr to set up 20 windmills at Kutch.

Gujarat NRE Coke Limited (GNCL), which recently announced an investment of Rs 175 crore to set up 20 windmills of 1500kw each at Kutch, is expecting to generate around 70,000 carbon credits from them. This will be in addition to the 55,000 carbon credits it expects to receive from its existing 25Mw wind mill in Kutch, which is undergoing the certification process.

The company is developing a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project for the proposed 20 windmills.

Carbon credits are measured in units of Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) and each CER is equivalent to one tonne of carbon dioxide reduction.

At present, the value of one carbon credit is around 15 euros, but could vary at the time the CDM project is sent for verification.

A windmill project creates credits by displacing energy that would otherwise be generated by a coal-fired plant.

The concept grew out of the Kyoto Protocol, the global warming treaty that requires countries to reduce greenhouse gas emissions partly through the buying and selling of carbon credits.

Gujarat NRE plans to conduct generation from the proposed 20 windmills in a phased manner.

Around 10 of them are set to be operational by March 2008, while the rest will go into generation by September 2008, taking the combined generation capacity of the company to 57.5Mw from wind mills alone.

The company is also in the process of setting up a coke oven flu gas-based power plants in all its production facilities, which will have the capacity to generate another 45Mw of clean power.

"Our forays into power generation is a part of our overall corporate philosophy of being eco-friendly. We are a responsible corporate entity and we believe that all the steps that we take must be towards the greater goal of inclusive development," said Arun Kumar Jagatramka, vice-chairman and managing director of Gujarat NRE.

The company is the largest independent producer of low-ash metallurgical coke in the country.

The only listed entity in this domain, Gujarat NRE is the only Indian company to own and operate coal mines in Australia.