Saint-Gobain India agree energy supply contract that will last the next 25 years

Saint-Gobain India and Green Infra Wind Energy Ltd (GIWEL) have agreed on an energy supply contract that will last the next 25 years. Green Infra Wind Energy Ltd is a subsidiary of Sembcorp – Singaporean-based energy and urban development company. Sembcorp will supply over 33MW of locally generated renewable energy to Saint-Gobain’s manufacturing plants in multiple locations, including Sriperumbudur, Perundurai, and Tiruvallur.

This deal aligns with Saint-Gobain’s goal of being carbon neutral by 2050. With this deal, a Special Service Vehicle partly owned by GIWEL (74%) and Saint-Gobain (26%) will supply the energy to the latter’s manufacturing facilities.

Saint-Gobain continues to be one of the companies committed to becoming carbon neutral by 2050, in line with India’s Sustainable Economy goals. The company has already hit its 2025 mid-term carbon-neutral goals. They achieved this by making a couple of changes, including Switching from solid fuels to biomass, waste heat recovery & reuse, circularity actions, and moving away from high carbon fossil fuels to natural gas.

Saint-Gobain also aims to get at least 44% of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2023. The company has already built multiple solar plants in India that are generating over 22 million units of electricity.

According to AR Unnikrishnan, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Glass Business, their new partnership with Sembcorp is a step in line with the company’s purpose of making the world a better home. He went on to say that having like-minded partners like Sembcorp will enable Saint-Gobain to embark on a low-carbon to no-carbon era, which is a world that all of us can be proud of and for future generations to enjoy.

Venkat Subramanian, Managing Director, Saint-Gobain Gyproc Business, also expressed his excitement about this partnership. Venkat said, “This association shall further support our aim to manufacture sustainable construction material in India. Aimed at fulfilling the ambitious target of 100 percent Green Power by 2027-28, the agreement with Sembcorp is also another step in our continued efforts to add more green capacity through collaboration with green power generators and to meet our sustainability targets.”

In the same spirit, Vipul Tuli, CEO-South Asia, Sembcorp Industries, highlighted the fact that this partnership is a strong endorsement of their competitiveness and capabilities in renewable energy and aligns with Sembcorp’s Brown to Green transformation. He went on to say that having green energy partnerships with a company at the level of Saint-Gobain demonstrated their long-term commitment to India’s green energy transition.