IndianOil to invest $3.7bn in green energy projects

Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) plans to invest Rs25,000 crore in alternative energy and sustainable development projects and scale up its renewable energy generation capacity from 212 MW to 260 MW by next year.

The plan includes expanding the company’s PV portfolio from 28.1 MW of off-grid and 20.5 MW of grid-connected solar generation capacity.

“IOCL has an installed capacity of 216 MW of renewable energy, including 167.6 MW of wind and 48.6 MW of solar,” IndianOil chairman Sanjiv Singh wrote in the company’s annual report for last year. “During FY2018-19, 14.2 MW of solar PV capacity was added and installation of another 13 MW is in progress.”

The ‘solarization’ of fuel stations is one of IndianOil’s breakthrough initiatives and a record number of 5,033 facilities switched to solar power in the last fiscal year. To date, more than half the network of fuel stations – 14,173 sites with a 77 MW generation capacity – have made the switch.

IndianOil has 12.68 MW of solar generation capacity at its refineries and offices. The company recently commissioned a 500 kW rooftop and ‘solar tree’ installation at its Barauni refinery.

EV plans

Taking its cue from the government’s electric vehicle (EV) push, IndianOil wants its refuelling stations to become ‘fuel solution centers’, featuring EV chargers alongside petrol and diesel facilities, and has already installed chargers at some outlets. The company has also installed solar lights and pumps under its Jal Jeevan scheme.

In the last fiscal year IndianOil generated 388 GWh of energy from renewables, according to the annual report, and claims to have diversified into 2G and 3G ethanol, waste-to-energy and compressed biogas as alternative fuel types.

IndianOil is the nation’s largest oil refiner and provides almost half of India’s petrol demand. With a group refining capacity of 80.7 million metric tonnes per annum, the fossil fuel giant was ranked 137th in the Fortune Global 500 listing of the world’s largest firms last year.