Madura Coats is India’s leading manufacturer of sewing, craft threads, and garment accessories. It is a part of the Coats Group PLC which is headquartered in the UK. The group is a world leader in Industrial thread and customer textile crafts. Since 2000, the group has taken great initiatives in reducing their energy consumption at all their facilities. This has been achieved by focusing on energy efficiency, investing in new technologies, and buying increasing amounts of renewable energy. In India, the company has multiple manufacturing units spread across nine locations, one of which is located in Ambasamudram, Tirunelveli district, where the company wanted to explore the opportunity of reducing energy costs by adopting a green and sustainable source of power.
In phase one, a captive rooftop solar power plant was recommended to reduce a portion of the energy requirement at the facility. The Solar plant was an ideal fit as it offered a great opportunity to use existing shadow-free roof space to generate and self-consume power, thereby helping them reduce
operational costs and carbon footprint at the facility.
A 510 kW grid-connected rooftop solar PV system for captive consumption was installed at the facility. The system has been designed and implemented by U-Solar Clean Energy Solutions using the Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) model. The solar financing option allows the client to lock in risk-free savings and avoid the steep initial costs of installing such a system. The company has signed a long-term power purchase agreement (PPA) with a third-party energy company at a price lower than the retail price of electricity being offered by the state utility along with a mutually agreed escalation year on year.
The 510 kW system consists of 2,000 solar modules supplied by ReneSola India of 255 Wp capacity and 10 units of 50
kVA Delta RPI-M50A commercial series inverters along with Delta’s Remote monitoring system. The 510 kW grid-connected system is generating approximately 2,300-2400 units/day. The system was commissioned on January 4th, 2016. The facility pays a monthly bill to the energy company for the metered solar power.
The BOOT model offers the client an opportunity to acquire the requisite infrastructure needed for solar to be added to the energy mix without the high capital expense and also offers low risk as the plant is owned and maintained by a third-party energy company.
Congratulations to Madura Coats Pvt. Ltd. for adding solar power to their energy mix. We are looking forward to them consuming many more units of solar power in the years to come.
U-Solar is proud to be a part of the project and helping the facility “Go Solar”.