Hindustan Zinc’s innovative solar plant wins CII’s ‘Best Application & Uses of Renewable Energy’ award

Udaipur : Exemplifying the company’s motto of ‘Innovating for a Sustainable Future’, Hindustan Zinc’s Rampura Agucha Mine has won the ‘Best Application & Uses of Renewable Energy (Large Project)’ award at the 5th Edition of CII National Energy Efficiency Circle Competition 2021. Agucha Mine’s unique waste to wealth initiative, a solar power plant developed on a waste yard, won this award. The innovative design involved setting up of the solar power plant on a waste dump yard, with a triple benefit of – making efficient use of the waste land, saving environmental footprint through a renewable energy source and annual GHG savings of over 45,000 tCO2e.

Commenting on the achievement, CEO of Hindustan Zinc, Mr. Arun Misra, said,“At Hindustan Zinc, we have empowered our people to think of innovative ideas that contribute towards a sustainable and greener tomorrow. Our solar power plant that is developed on a waste yard at Agucha is a green energy initiative that has contributed to a carbon emission reduction of 45,528 tCO2e in just one year. This is in line with our commitment to achieve the Sustainability Development Goal of 0.5MN tCO2e GHG savings by 2025. I am proud of my Agucha team for their efforts and this achievement.”

Faced with the challenge of a waste yard where any plantation or constructing any major structure due to its load-bearing capacity and height was a challenge, the team of Prafulkumar Patel, Vinoth Jaroli, Rajesh Chaudhary and Upendra Totamalla had to engineer something unique. They developed a plan to utilize this infertile land and indigenously set up a 22 MW solar plant. This ground mounted ‘Gold Standard’ solar plant generated 48,083 MWh green energy in FY21, contributing to 40% of RAM’s energy requirement and leading to a GHG saving of 45,528 tCO2e.

Hindustan Zinc actively works on adopting renewable energy sources for captive use and has a portfolio of around 40 MW capacity solar projects across their locations in the state of Rajasthan. In FY21, the company reduced 5,51,695 MT of CO₂ through use of green power while generating 83,420 Mwh of renewable solar energy. This green energy is part the company’s commitment to responsible mining and the larger purpose of running operations towards ‘zero harm, zero waste, zero discharge’ principle.

Furthermore, ranked first in the Asia- Pacific region and seventh globally in the metal and mining sector by the Dow Jones Sustainability Index, the company has made a name for itself in the global community. As a COP26 Business Leader, the company participated actively in shaping the agenda for tackling climate change. HZL is also among the only two mining companies globally and among only four Indian companies to be a part of the coveted CDP ‘A List’ 2020.