The Hindu Business Line : Carbon credits elusive for some RIL, Hindalco, Essar projects

The panel gives recommendations to the CDM board at the UN on each project, based on which the board decides whether or not these projects should be registered as CDM projects under the Kyoto Protocol mechanism.

New Delhi , Sept. 21

Even as several Indian firms have lined up projects to accumulate carbon credits, earning the credits may not be particularly easy as some biggies like Reliance Industries Ltd, Aditya Birla Group's Hindalco and Essar Oil are discovering for some of their projects.

The `methodology panel' at the United Nations Framework for Climate Change Convention (UNFCCC) recently recommended that four projects lined up by these companies be `not approved' as clean development mechanism (CDM) projects.

However, the recommendation is not binding on the board and these companies are also free to try again at the UN to earn credits for the same projects with different methodologies.

Hindalco had sent a proposal to the UN for registration of a project envisaging reduction in green house gas (GHG) emission from primary aluminium smelters located at Hirakud in Orissa.

The company had said that since it had adopted a cleaner smelting technology, it would result in emission reduction of 9.11 lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide per annum spread over a 10-year period.

If accepted and registered, the company could have potentially received 9.11 million certified emission reductions (CERs) or carbon credits over the period.

Similarly, RIL had sought carbon credits based on a project at its Hazira complex in Gujarat.

It had said that the company had opted for a cleaner, energy efficient technology while expanding its manufacturing capacity.

Based on the project, RIL had sought 7.02 lakh CERs over a 10-year period from 2006-07 to 2015-16.

However, it has been able to successfully register only an energy efficiency (through steam optimisation) project at its Hazira unit that could generate 23,391 CERs a year.

Two projects of Essar Oil lined up at the UN that have been hit by `non-approval' recommendation by the methodology panel.

For EOL's refinery at Vadinar, the company had claimed carbon credits based on its move to use a relatively cleaner technology (residual oil supercritical extraction) while producing bitumen.

Under this procedure, it had sought 3.57 million CERs a year spread over a 10-year period from 2007-08 to 2016-17.

The other project of EOL had sought carbon credits based on a change in primary fuel for power generation from naphtha to natural gas at Essar Power's power generation unit.

The power plant had been using naphtha as the primary fuel and shifted to partial use of natural gas from mid-December 2002.

The plant was running on both naphtha and natural gas up to middle of 2005, and fully shifted to natural gas thereafter.

The company had sought 3.59 million CERs spread over a 10-year period of 2003-2012.