Pakistan’s Kohinoor Textile Mills Change To 6 Mw Solar Power With Reon Energy

Image Courtesy of Kohinoor Textile Mills

Energy retains a share of approximately 40% in the actual conversion cost of basic textile such as spinning and weaving.

 While regional competitors in countries like Bangladesh, India and China are adopting renewable energy options such as solar and wind, it becomes critical for Pakistan’s textile industry to adopt affordable, reliable, and sustainable energy options to maintain competitiveness.

Kohinoor Textile Mills Limited (KTML), Pakistan’s largest vertically integrated textile company, partnered with Reon for a 1 MW Project in 2017 at KTML, Rawalpindi.

The pilot’s success in cost and carbon footprint reduction led to 3 succeeding projects sizing 2MW in 2018, and 2 MW in 2019 at KTML, Rawalpindi and another 303 kW in 2019 at KTML, Manga Mandi.

These projects together account to a 206,575 number of trees saved annually.

KTML, previously  relied on 3 power sources: Gas Power Generation, HFO Plant and the grid. Grid being the most expensive was given least priority.

With the addition of Solar to the energy mix, Solar Energy has now become a priority over the remaining sources as it allows the lowest weighted average LCOE (Levelized Cost of Electricity).

Green Financing

KTML opted to avail SBP Green Financing for its solar initiative.

This scheme launched by the State Bank of Pakistan offers subsidized financing to commercial entities for investment into captive solar projects.

The banking scheme has been introduced to promote the adoption of efficient and environment friendly renewable energy resources.

Operations & Maintenance

Reon’s O&M Team is managing the site operations for 2 MW site installed in 2019.  

The objective is to increase cost efficiency, maximize plant uptime and minimize risks.

The O&M services encapsulate a cloud-based real-time visualization platform, a NOC facility that allows remote monitoring and controls, warranty enforcement and an on-site team that applies various maintenance strategy techniques to enhance performance levels. The alert response time is maintained at under 24-hours.

KTML’s captive Solar Plant is creating up to 30% savings in energy.

This has translated into cost and operational efficiencies across processes.