Power availability and quality is one of the stumbling blocks for the growth of the foundry industry in the country, according to the Managing Director of Magna Electro Casting N. Krishna Samaraj.
Inaugurating a workshop on “Strategies to Promote Energy Efficiency in the Foundry Sector” organised by the Southern India Engineering Manufacturers' Association (SIEMA) and The Energy and Resource Institute (TERI) here on Friday, he said India had the fourth largest foundry industry globally.
It was expected to move up to the third position by 2012. But, the stumbling block was non-availability of consistent quality of power.
In Tamil Nadu, the problem was power shortage. At the national-level, it was distribution of power. Globally, there were issues such as global warming and carbon emissions.
The Indian economy was doing well under conservative norms. But, its expenditure on energy was huge. Power and energy constituted 12 to 17 per cent of the sales cost in foundries.
The global benchmark was seven to 10 per cent. Some of the issues that were significant to achieve energy efficiency were cleanliness of raw materials, engineering, reduction of rejection rate, good management practices, technology and equipment. “We should find ways to use the wasted energy,” he said.
Binu Parthan, Deputy Director General of REEEP International, said energy efficiency gains were mostly intangible. Resource efficiency was a key factor to achieve energy efficiency.
Indian foundries had to improve on technology, and process management and emphasise more on resource and energy efficiency.
