(ET)
Global steel and mining giant ArcelorMittal has started supplying clean energy to AMNS India in Gujarat from its 1-gigawatt (GW) solar and wind project located in Andhra Pradesh. The $0.7 billion project has been developed, constructed and commissioned by its wholly-owned AM Green Energy, ArcelorMittal said.
The company said its “largest renewable energy venture…located in Andhra Pradesh has recently started providing clean electricity to AMNS India”.
AMNS India is a 60:40 joint venture of Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal and Nippon Steel of Japan.
The project is expected to reduce AMNS India’s carbon emissions by 1.5 million tonnes per year, supporting the steel maker’s target to reduce the Co2 intensity of the steel it produces by 20 per cent by 2030 (against a 2021 baseline).
ArcelorMittal CEO Aditya Mittal said investing in renewable energy generation is an exciting new business area for ArcelorMittal. It provides cost-effective clean energy security for steelmaking operations and supports decarbonisation objectives.
The project is the company’s first major renewables projects to be commissioned. It is a large and ambitious project that has been completed efficiently and safely in approximately 18 months – one of the fastest projects of this scale delivered in India – with clean electricity now being provided to AM/NS India, he said.
The project is one of several renewable energy projects ArcelorMittal has been developing. In total, the company has 2.3 GW of renewable energy projects underway, in India, Brazil and Argentina.
It is also part of ArcelorMittal’s suite of strategic growth projects, from which the company expects to generate incremental annual EBITDA of $1.9 billion when all are completed by the end of 2027, Mittal said.
Vast in scale, the solar site is spread over 2,400 acres – enough to hold more than 1,700 FIFA size football fields – and the wind site is spread over 700 acres. Now fully commissioned and running at nameplate capacity, c. 1.5 million solar panels and 91 wind turbines will generate 2.5 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) of power annually, equivalent to powering nearly 10 million Indian households.
