![Yamaha Motor India upgrades its solar power plant in Chennai](https://www.eqmagpro.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Yamaha-Motor-India-upgrades-its-solar-power-plant-in-Chennai.jpg)
Yamaha Motor India upgrades its solar power plant in Chennai
Yamaha Motor India Group, a subsidiary of Yamaha Motor, Japan, has installed 1100 kW rooftop solar power plant at company’s manufacturing facility in Chennai. With this new installation, the total solar capacity of Yamaha’s Chennai plant has increased to 1450 KW and the company has plans to increase the total rooftop solar capacity to 3500 KW by the end of this year.
Yamaha has installed these solar panels to cover some of the factory building areas and walkways. Yamaha claims that the new rooftop installation would reduce CO2 emission to the extent of 1600 tons/year. Yamaha has partnered with Mahindra Susten for the installation of these rooftop solar panels.
Speaking on the initiative, Riuji Kawashima, deputy managing director, India Yamaha Motor, said, “The installation of the solar power project at our plants further reinstates our commitment towards building an energy-saving factory that is friendly to people and the global environment. We also would like to highlight that our Chennai factory is the least CO2 emission factory among the Yamaha Motor Group Companies around the world.”
In the first phase, Yamaha had installed 190 KW and 140 KW of rooftop solar panels in the Spare Parts Building and R&D Building in the plant premises in 2015. Yamaha’s Chennai factory, which was inaugurated in 2015, incorporates Zero-water discharge and recycle/reuse of wastewater and maximum use of sunlight. All the buildings are designed to bear load of the solar power system installation. All common utilities are located in the centre to minimize distribution loss and centralized management.
Similarly, Yamaha has partnered with the solar service provider, Amplus Solar for installation, operation and maintenance of solar power system at its Surajpur plant. This is claimed to be one of the largest rooftop solar power plants with total capacity of 6200 KW. This project was commissioned in two phases. Phase I was inaugurated in January 2016 with the generation capacity of 4000 kWp (kilowatt-peak) and phase II was commissioned in October 2017 with a generation capacity of 2200 Kwp.
Recently under phase II, 105 KW capacity solar power plant was installed in the car parking area inside the plant premises. Approximately, 47 cars can be parked under the solar power plant, which is also capable of meeting the future requirement of charging battery operated cars. This particular area has a power generation capacity of 500 Units per day.
Sanjiv Paul, senior vice president, India Yamaha Motor, said, “As the leading two-wheeler manufacturers, Yamaha understands its role in the industrial evolution and its responsibility in reducing the carbon footprints. The solar power project in our plants will definitely take forward Yamaha’s commitment towards enhancing their presence in the sphere of energy efficient companies while focussing on creating solutions around sustainable development.”
Yamaha aims to minimize the environmental impact of its business activities by implementing ‘5Rs’ – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Reform, Refuse through ‘3Es’ – Easy to make, Easy to Repair and Easy to Disassemble approach. Yamaha states that its plants in India are certified with Environment Management System ISO 14001:2015 and Occupational and Health Management system OHSAS 18001:2007.