The Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) plans to diversify its business verticals and make significant investments to the tune of ₹250 billion (~$3.48 billion) in clean energy projects like solar, wind, biomass and solar panels at its filling stations.

The IOC also aims to invest ₹2 trillion (~$28 billion) in the next five to seven years to develop future-ready corporations that provide comprehensive energy solutions. The company is preparing for the energy transition and looming technology disruption in the energy industry. Indian Oil is also working on developing new technology for clean fuels. The company is focusing on renewable energy, biofuels: 2G (second generation) and 3G (third-generation) ethanol, waste to energy, and compressed biogas.

The company is preparing to scale up its solar and wind power portfolio to 260 MW by 2020 from its current capacity of 216 MW, which includes 167.6 MW of wind and 48.6 MW of solar (comprising 20.5 MW of grid-connected and 28.1 MW of off-grid solar installations). According to the company, it has installed 14.2 MW of solar projects during the financial year (FY) 2018 and installation of another 13 MW is in progress. It owns more than 14,000 solar panel operated fuel stations with a cumulative installed capacity of 77 MW.  In FY 2018, more than 5,000 fuels stations were converted to run on solar energy.

The most significant boost is going to be in the biofuel arena. The company plans to invest in 2G ethanol projects and a pilot facility for 3G ethanol projects. It is also integrating the refinery processes with biofuel production. It has issued letters of intent to entrepreneurs to set up 75 projects to supply 792 tons per day of compressed biogas (CBG) under the government’s Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) program that targets setting up 5,000 CBG projects over the next few years. In October 2018, the petroleum ministry launched SATAT program to promote compressed biogas as an alternative green transport fuel.

Recently, the Indian Oil Corporation Limited had tendered a 3 MW ground-mounted solar PV project to be constructed at Indian Oil Kadapa Bottling Plant premises located in the state of Andhra Pradesh.

Earlier, the IOCL also issued a tender for the engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) of a 2 MW grid-interactive and ground-mounted captive solar power project at its LPG bottling plant, located at Dhanaj in Washim district of Maharashtra.

Image Credit: IOCL