NALCO bags top awards for energy conservation

National Aluminum Company Limited India’s leading manufacturer and exporter of alumina & aluminum and a Navratna PSU of Ministry of Mines Government of India has bagged the 1st Prize in the aluminum sector at the National Energy Conservation Awards 2010. On behalf of the Company, Mr AK Srivastava CMD of NALCO received the award from Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde union minister of power in New Delhi.

Mr AK Sharma production director of NALCO said that every year this award is given away by the Ministry of Power, Government of India to the energy intensive units which have achieved efficient energy utilization and conservation. This year NALCO’s Smelter Plant at Angul in Odisha has achieved commendable results in energy conservation for which credit goes to the employees.

It may be mentioned that in Aluminum Industry the power and fuel costs account for about 38% of the total production cost. Being among the low cost producers of aluminum in the world, NALCO’s prices serve as an international benchmark. In this context, NALCO has been assigning high importance to energy conservation and has been utilizing the state of the art technologies for maximizing energy efficiency.

In the year 2009 to 2010, NALCO undertook major cost saving and energy efficiency improvement projects at its Smelter plant and achieved an annual energy savings of INR 15.58 crore on fuel oil and DC energy consumption. Besides up gradation of energy efficient infrastructures, the annual energy savings are partly attributed to innovative cost saving approaches and solutions that were taken up through various process improvement teams and quality circles. Most importantly, many of these quality improvement projects that are contributing towards reduction of energy costs were developed in house with the active participation of the employees.

Further, as part of NALCO’s commitment for energy conservation, an Energy Conservation Cell has been constituted to monitor energy consumption pattern. Besides, company’s Research and Development wing also plans to undertake various new energy conservation initiatives that are scheduled to be completed by the year 2012.