Author: Rahul Dasari
As we advance globally in terms of technology, more and more manufacturers are leaning towards using sustainable initiatives for churning more profits as a whole. Day by day, the industry is becoming more aware of new ways to use renewable energy. The main purpose behind this is to strengthen the clean energy competitiveness and also to find a stable solution of power generation. This is crucial in today’s day and age, especially in a nation like ours, where continual electricity is still a luxury for many.
Manufacturing industry and the need for renewable energy
There is a reason why as an industry, the manufacturing industry needs alternative sources of energy to keep going. The main requirement here is to keep process heating systems functioning properly. These systems are more of a mandate for the global manufacturing industry. They are the catalysts that turn raw materials such as trees, crops, oil and help manufacturers provide complete products in the market.
The energy consumed by these is one of the most crucial costs for any manufacturer. In this process, energy is required at every step. This starts at the process of electricity generation, supply, transfer and eventually ends at the recovery of heat energy. In order to suffice these needs, manufacturers are turning towards alternative renewable sources of energy.
To that effect, the current bend towards renewable energy is a positive step towards clean energy generation which comes with multiple set of benefits. As of the current scenario, the manufacturing industry uses nearly 14% of rooftop installations as compared to its competitors in the top end-user sectors. It is the leading solar power consumer with industries like real estate, education and textiles trailing behind. This sector additionally added 130 megawatts of rooftop capacity in FY 2019 alone.
Current and long term benefits:
If manufacturers stay dependent on fossil fuels for fulfilling your electricity generation needs, then this thought by itself would cease to be sustainable in a few years. Here is why manufacturing industry can really work well with solar power for its support:
1. One can look at a more efficient approach to raw material processing. Right from bulk chemical to refining to mining, the list of energy-intensive industries is quite long. These industries use a lot of heavy equipment to keep the facilities running and also to keep them on par with the climate. Let’s take the example of the rubber industry. For production, the raw material needs to be heated at about 355 to 390 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature by itself looks like quite an ecological burden. At the moment, most of these rubber manufacturers are using coal-generated electricity to fulfill their needs. With rooftop solar power and perhaps even wind energy for some cases, we would be creating a more sustainable method for power generation which would keep the functioning intact with a lot more cost benefits and continual provision of energy.
We may also feel that the manufacturing industry has got nothing to do with the geopolitical climate globally. The truth is that when there is geopolitical uncertainty, it gets tough to forecast oil prices with any certainty, either. This means that we cannot slash out the possibility of significantly high rates. Especially for manufacturers who rely on incumbent energy sources, the functioning will become extensively challenging in the future in terms of cost investment. With our fair share of experience in the industry, a chief benefit of adopting solar power for the manufacturing industry is energy security and stability in the long run. In a nutshell, today for heavy industries to rely on fossil-fuel-powered equipment is not a great ideal in the long term. A solar power plant assembled on the rooftop is likely to be giving you a great source of power even twenty -twenty-five years from today. However, the future of fossil fuels is best known to all. The change in paradigm needs to be made, simply for our sustainable future; something both solar power and manufacturing industry needs to achieve hand in hand.
Key-takeaways
In my opinion, the potential of rooftop solar for the manufacturing industry is yet to be harnessed completely. There is a lot of growth that we can forecast here for the near future. Both- the solar industry and the manufacturing industry need to go hand in hand to grow. We see many conglomerates adopting solar power for fulfilling their energy needs and that is definitely a reflection of us as a society being in the right direction. Tesla Motors has always been a pioneer in terms of anything pertaining to tech. This year, Tesla has taken a step towards setting up an entire factory in Nevada, which is going to run only on solar power primarily. The solar power here will also be alternatively supported by a geothermal electricity plant and wind energy.
On the other hand, we have leading brand ‘Method Soap’ operating a LEED-certified platinum factory. This runs on multiple solar PV collectors and a combined 23-story wind turbine. In India, we have a large chunk of small, mid and large-scale manufacturers adopting solar and wind energy to fulfill their power demand. ‘Procter & Gamble’, on the other hand, purchase 80 percent of the electricity generated by a wind farm in Cooke County, Texas. In all, what is required in India is a higher level of awareness. Manufacturers need to understand how adopting alternative sources do not only cut cost, but it is a way forward for the greater good of the environment.
Alternative power sources today, solar energy in particular are not just an ‘alternative’ we need to adopt. Instead, they are the need of the hour. Rooftop combined with other power sources are significators in reducing the adverse effects of climate change for the manufacturing industry. By harnessing rooftop solar power as an alternative, we are taking a step in reducing consumption of fossil fuel for energy generation. While we have a long way to go, with the manufacturing industry embracing alternative energy, we are looking at a constant flow of growth, innovation and even competitiveness for both manufacturing and solar power sectors.
The author is the Chief Executive Officer of Sunshot Technologies. He has over 11 years’ experience in the Indian clean-tech industry and is an executive committee member of Distributed Solar Power Association (DiSPA).