Some steel and cement manufacturers in India are moving towards use of electric vehicles (EVs) for their mining and transportation processes, marking a small step in their effort to decarbonise their operations.
India’s steel, cement and chemicals industries account for the massive of industrial carbon dioxide emissions.
Tata Steel has teamed up with an Indian startup to assist deployment of EVs for steel transportation. The firm has contracted for 27 EVs, each with a
carrying capacity of 35 tonnes of steel. The firm plans to deploy 15 EVs at its Jamshedpur plant and 12 EVs at its Sahibabad plant.
“While we have multiple initiatives focussed on customer service, this is a definitive step towards our commitment to the environment. This initiative is also aligned to the government’s larger climate agenda and will surely serve as a cornerstone and a way forward for the industry to follow,” stated Peeyush Gupta, vice president, supply chain, Tata Steel.
Tata Steel India was lately recognised as ‘Sustainability Champions’ by the World Steel Association (WSA).
JSW Steel is planning to invest close to Rs.2,450 crore to entirely change its mining operations and to procure electric mining equipment.
“We usually have separate contractors to do mining. For the recently procured mines in Odisha, we observed that the contractor’s equipment are inefficient and not sustainable…so we have plans to replace them and buy equipment on our own,” JSW Steel’s joint managing director, Seshagiri Rao, had stated in an interaction.
“When we are buying, it will be state-of-the-art, completely digitised, and it will be all EVs,” he added.
