Inside cleantech India: Kal, Aaj aur Kal!

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Investments, Deals & Partnerships

Reliance Life Sciences has announced plans to build crushing and extraction facilities to produce more than one lakh metric tons (100,000 metric tons or 110,231 tons) of biofuels a year (see Reliance plans to expand biofuel production).

RLS currently produces 6,500 metric tons of biodiesel per year at a pilot project at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh from non-edible crops grown by local farmers. The new facility is expected to require an investment of Rs 150 to Rs 200 crore ($29.7 million to $39.6 million). RLS would need feedstock from about 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of land for the plant.

Ghana is drawing significant foreign investment in the alternative energy sector led by China and India (see Ghana: new hotspot for Indian alt-enery firms).

From 1994 to 2008, India registered 359 projects there, while China registered 368. Mumbai-based chemical and petrochemical distributor Hazel Mercantile recently invested $45 million through its Ghana arm, the largest investment from India to-date. Hazel plans to cultivate jatropha there for biofuel. Government officials told the Indo-Asian News Service that another Indian company has started to secure land for a $40 million jatropha-and-biofuel project.

Other News That Caught Our Eye

On March 26th, Ahmedabad-based Mahalaxmi Rubtech Limited (BOM: 514450) announced that the company successfully commissioned its 1.25 MW wind power project at Sanodar district at Bhavnagar in Gujarat. India supplier and manufacturers of synthetic rubber coated, cotton printing blankets, Mahalaxmi RubTech (MRT) is a part of the Mahalaxmi Group of Industries, a corporate conglomerate active in the manufacture & export of textiles, dyes, pigments, auxiliaries and synthetic rubber / PU-coated fabrics.

Mahalaxmi Rubtech Limited has also concluded a tie up with Zimmer Textile Technology GmBH of Austria for worldwide marketing of their textile printing blankets. Zimmer TT GmBH is one of the global leaders in supplying complete systems for printing, dyeing, coating and finishing plants and offers their years of accumulated expertise, know-how and services to the textile industry.

Central Salt Research Institute, now known as Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute, inaugurated by Late Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, the First Prime Minister of India on 10th April, 1954 has recently entered into an agreement with the US-based automobile major General Motors to produce biodiesel based on jatropha oil. CSMCRI will conduct a research, produce and supply jatropha oil for two years using two acres of land at GM India’s Talegaon plant at Maharashtra.

Surana Telecom and Power (BOM: 517530), a subsidiary of Surana Group, plans to set up a 5MW solar farm in Andhra Pradesh with an investment of Rs 100 crore. In the year 2007, the company diversified into the power sector with the manufacturing of low tension and high tension power cables and setting up a 1.25MW wind power generation plant. In 2008, the company ventured into solar photovoltaics by establishing a modules manufacturing plant at Cherlapally, Hyderabad with an installed capacity of 12MW.

The company also made a strategic investment in solar energy sector by forming a joint venture with M/s Bhagyanagar India Ltd., investing about Rs 300 crore in a 60MW plant at Fabcity, a solar and semiconductor hub in Hyderabad. It is expecting to commence operations this month.