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Amid impending power crisis, NPC calls on drug companies to adopt energy conservation measures
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Laxmi Yadav, Mumbai
October 21 , 2021
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As the power crisis is looming large over several states due to shortage of coal, the National Productivity Council (NPC) has called on pharmaceutical companies to adopt energy conservation measures to reduce their energy bills and production cost.
NPC had conducted a technical study to identify energy conservation opportunities both in electricity and thermal energy used in the production process of the formulation industries in Ahmedabad. The study identified certain measures that can be adopted by any MSME pharma units to save on its energy bills and production cost.
The measures include improving contract demand to avoid excess demand charges in electricity bill of drug units or installing maximum demand controllers, replacing faulty capacitor in automatic power factor control (APFC) panel to improve the power factor and kilovolt amperes (KVA) at main incomer i.e. low voltage (LT) panel.
The other measures are installation of lighting voltage controller, putting in place variable-frequency drive (VFD for blowers/pumps - with pressure transducer for plant circulation pumps – chiller condenser pump, planting RT pump and chiller secondary pump, installation of fiber reinforced plastic (FRP) fans for chiller cooling tower, replacement of water jet vacuum pump with a new pump, improving HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) energy performance by installing auto tube cleaning system for chiller condensers or through MAX R100 HVAC Fluid.
Besides this, the study also suggested recovering return hot water/condensate and using it as boiler feed water or using it to increase feed water temperature input to the boiler to save fuel consumption, insulation for steam pipe line from boiler to plant, retrofit existing boiler for using multiple fuel e.g. (pallet fired instead of diesel fired) to save cost per kg of steam, installing solar PV panels at the rooftop building, installing water savers/occupancy sensors / BLDC Ceiling fans/5 star rated AC and other equipment in the unit to conserve electricity and water, adopting IoT devices and sensors to capture equipment’s energy consumption pattern, using time of day tariff as defined by the electricity supplier to reduce electricity bill by scheduling production operation during non-peak hours, when price/unit of electricity is cheap.
Speaking at 'post energy audit study meeting' held by NPC and IDMA Gujarat State Board recently, Shirish Paliwal, NPC regional director, highlighted the need for saving energy waste, not only to increase profits but also to reduce national wastage.
Amitosh Gautam, deputy director, NPC, Gandhinagar, made a presentation on “Detailed Energy Audit Brief & Findings for Ahmedabad Pharma Cluster” at the meet. He further elaborated about benefits received in energy bills and production cost in the 10 MSME pharma units audited by them.
Pharmaceutical units attending the meet got tips on energy conservation and showed their interest in adopting applicable energy conservation methods in their unit, said an IDMA office bearer.
Amid this worldwide power crisis, an impending energy crisis is looming large in India with the country's power plants having critically low coal stocks.
Three out of four power plants in the country have less than a week’s coal in stock amid a surge in demand.
The coal shortage has taken its toll on power generation in several states, including Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Tamil Nadu. But mostly northern states are facing power cuts so far.
As the country’s economic activities are scaling up after the second wave of Covid-19, power plants are struggling to meet the surge in demand. There is almost 17 per cent increase in power consumption over the last couple of months as against the same period in 2019.
Domestic producers in the country having the fourth largest coal reserves in the world are facing difficulty in catering to rise in demand. Due to the rise in prices of coal globally, importing coal has also become difficult. India is the world's second-largest importer of coal after China.
The coal ministry blamed extended monsoons for constraints in despatches from mines. The country’s 135 coal-fired power plants supply about 70 per cent of India’s electricity.
The power ministry has instructed states to utilise unallocated power of the central generating stations to cater to their requirements.
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