Dairy Behemoth Amul Leaps Into Clean Power, Sets Sight On Evolution Into An Energy Company

After being deeply involved in the dairy sector for many years, Amul has now forayed into India's green energy transition journey and has already experimented with several projects.

The dairy behemoth is now working through its cooperatives to produce biogas and biofertilisers.

This was said by Jayen Mehta, Managing Director of Amul marketer Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) while receiving the he annual business line 2023 Iconic Changemaker award last week.

"With a substantial number of cattle in our possession, Amul has taken proactive steps, collaborating with its cooperatives to collect cow dung. The dung gets transformed into biogas which can used for household cooking and even powering vehicles. Furthermore, the residue serves as biofertiliser for agriculture, allowing consumers to enjoy food produced without chemical fertilisers," he said.

"This approach addresses multiple challenges simultaneously. Farmers gain additional income from cow dung, the import bill on fuel and fertilisers comes down, and most importantly, consumers benefit from food without chemical fertiliser. It's a win-win situation".

He also said that Amul is working to extract hydrogen from the methane generated by cow dung.

230 Crore Bio-CBG Project

Earlier in September 2023, Banas Dairy which is one of the biggest among the 18 dairies under the Amul, signed a tripartite agreement worth Rs 230 crore to setup four dung-based biogas plants for generating Compressed Biomethane Gas (CBG) in Banaskantha district of Gujarat.

The other partners include the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) and Suzuki R&D Center India Pvt Ltd (SRDI), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Suzuki Motor Corporation (SMC) in India.

This unique initiative is the first of its kind wherein the automobile and dairy sectors are collaborating to achieve multiple benefits such as enhance farmers’ income through dung sale, use of dung-based biogas to power vehicles, production of organic fertilizers and in the process reducing carbon footprint of dairy and automobile sector.

SRDI will provide financial assistance for establishing these plants to be setup by NDDB. Banas Dairy will arrange land for the project and also operate these plants. The biogas produced will be purified and compressed to generate CBG.

Exclusive CBG stations will come up for vehicles. The slurry produced in the biogas plants will be utilised to produce organic fertilizers, which would significantly contribute towards reducing the usage of chemical fertilisers and improve soil health.