YAMAHA TAPS GREEN POWER IN INDIA

Yamaha Motor Co plans to tap more green energy to drive production in India, the latest sign that renewable power could boost profit for industrial manufacturers.

The Japanese motorcycle maker wants solar power to supply a quarter of the energy needs at its northern Indian factories near Delhi, according to company executives. It wants to double capacity to 8 megawatts by 2018 at a facility in Surajpur, said Sanjiv Paul, vice-president for manufacturing.

“Solar power is much cheaper at 5.80 rupees a kilowatt-hour compared with the government’s tariff of 8.5 rupees,” he said, adding that the company obtained about 12% of its current power needs from renewables for northern operations.

Falling solar-power prices have encouraged companies from manufacturers to miners to generate at least part of their energy needs from renewables. Yamaha Motors’ decision to boost solar is primarily business driven, according to Paul. Over the next 20 years, once the installations are fully amortised, the panels will help save US$10 million and become company property, he said.

Yamaha used Amplus Solar, a rooftop solar company, backed by the US-based private equity fund I-Squared Capital, to set up its initial 4MW rooftop installation at Surajpur. Amplus invested 330 million rupees ($4.9 million) in setting up the project and has signed a power-purchase agreement with Yamaha.

Meanwhile, SMCC Construction India Ltd has installed a 340-kilowatt rooftop solar plant for Yamaha at its new Chennai facility, where manufacturing capacity will be expanded to 1.8 million units by 2020 from 600,000 at present. The company has a current production capacity of 1.3 million in India.

Bloomberg