India’s first terminal powered by RE

Bharat Mumbai Container Terminals Pvt Ltd (BMCT) at JNPA, has become India’s first container terminal to be fully powered by renewable energy on the back of a 7.8 MW solar farm commissioned in partnership with O2 Power Pvt Ltd.

BMCT, the largest of the five container terminals operating at Jawaharlal Nehru Port, by berth length and capacity, handled 2 million twenty-foot equivalent units in calendar year 2023, the highest since starting operations in February 2018.

BMCT is run by Singapore’s PSA International Pte Ltd, a wholly owned unit of Temasek Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, the state holding company owned by the Singapore government.

Describing it as a “major milestone” in its emissions reduction journey, BMCT (branded PSA Mumbai) said the solar farm will be expanded to 10 MW by June 2024, providing over 75 percent of its electricity requirements, with the remaining renewable power sourced from Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd (MSEDCL) and other providers.

The terminal’s CO2 equivalent emissions will be reduced by a projected 16,000 tonnes annually and more than 350,000 tonnes over its life.

O2 Power, an Indian renewable energy platform backed by Sweden’s EQT Infrastructure and Singapore’s wealth fund Temasek Holdings (Pvt) Ltd, has developed and will manage the solar farm in Beed, Maharashtra with an expansion facility in Motala, Maharashtra. The plants are connected to PSA Mumbai via existing MSEDCL infrastructure.

PSA Mumbai said it is targeting a 50 percent reduction in its carbon emissions by 2030. The global terminal operator is also undertaking large-scale electrification of its equipment fleet, including the deployment of an all-electric Rubber-tyred Gantry Crane (RTGC) fleet for the Phase 2 development of BMCT. Electrification of all existing RTGC’s supporting Phase 1 of BMCT is in progress and is expected to be completed by 2027.

In early 2024, PSA Mumbai said it will roll-out e-trucks through PSA BDP India to create a zero-emission green transport corridor in Nhava Sheva linking terminals, container freight station (CFS) and customer facilities.

In April 2022, PSA International acquired U.S.-based logistics company BDP International, Inc. PSA BDP provides port-centric supply chain, transportation, and logistics solutions.

PSA BDP also signed a MoU with Dow Chemical International to undertake the first-of-its-kind sustainable transport solution in India.