White paper on increasing co-processing in Indian cement plants

Indian cement industry is the second largest in the world with total installed cement capacity of about 323.02 million tonnes per year (as of March 2011) with annual growth rate of 9% during the five year period 2006-2011. Though the Indian cement industry has achieved excellence in energy efficiency & productivity through initiatives like adopting the latest technology, best practices, etc alternative fuel and raw material (AFR) usage still remains a major area of concern. Use of alternative fuel in Indian cement industries has a huge potential thermal substitution of just 5% in cement industry can reduce India’s emissions by about 0.1%. The objective of this paper is to facilitate development of enabling policies and framework by regulatory agencies (State and Central Pollution Control Board) to facilitate use of urban & industrial waste as raw material/ alternate fuel in the cement industry, thereby moving towards a low carbon economy.