Sambalpur, November 27: Mahanadi Coalfields Limited (MCL) will set up a 50 Mega Watt solar power plant in Odisha at a total cost of Rs 301.92 crore, moving steadily towards its goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2024.

MCL has placed a turnkey order to set up a 50 MW solar power plant with a Chennai-based firm M/s Hild Energy Ltd, which will establish this green energy project within a timeline of 10 months.

This solar plant would cater to the captive power requirement of MCL, which had successfully set up a 2MW solar power plant in Sambalpur in 2014. 

MCL has pledged a target of installing 182 MW of solar power by 2024 in order to become a Net Zero energy company, aligning itself to use cleaner forms of energy for coal production.

This 50MW solar power project will reduce CO2 emission by 91,020 tonnes per annum and carbon offsets of around 24824 tonnes per annum.

MCL is the leading production subsidiary of Coal India, having mining operations in Angul, Jharsuguda and Sundergarh districts of Odisha.

Having achieved the highest ever Capital Expenditure of Rs 2419 crore in Financial Year 2020-21, the company has coal production and dispatch targets of 163 million tonne and 182 million tonne respectively.

MCL was the coal mining company to introduce environment-friendly surface miner technology, which contributes over 95% in coal production. As another environment-friendly initiative, the company has successfully introduced Vertical Rippers for blast-less over-burden removal in Hingula and Kaniha opencast projects.