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NEW DELHI: Indian Oil Corp (IOC), the nation’s biggest oil firm, on Monday said it will set up a new technology development centre focussed on clean and alternative energy solutions.
The new centre at Faridabad on the outskirts of the national capital will be the second R&D campus of IOC, the company said in a statement.Oil Minister Dharmendra Pradhan and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal laid the foundation stone of the Technology Development and Development Centre.
IOC Chairman Sanjiv Singh said its R&D centre has had a long journey starting with making Nutan wick stove for the rural population in the late 1970s to the development of Indmax technology that helps maximise production of higher value products from crude oil.
“The new campus, coming up on a 60-acre plot at a cost of Rs 2,200 crores, would focus on demonstration and deployment of a wide range of technologies developed by IOC R&D and will work in tandem with the existing campus at Sector-13, Faridabad,” the statement said.
With its detailed project report prepared by a consortium of internationally renowned architects and science planners, the new R&D Campus will house four centres of excellence in alternative and renewable energy, nano-technology, synthetic biology and corrosion research.
“The R&D Centre is designed to achieve the highest sustainability rating of LEED Platinum certification and has been designed to be a net-zero campus in terms of energy and water use; its power (9 MW) and water needs will be met through on-campus solar energy and water-harvesting systems,” it said.
The new campus will be an extension of IOC”s R&D Centre, set up at Faridabad in 1972 to establish domestic capabilities in producing a wide range of lubricating oils.Since then, the centre has developed over 4,500 formulations, and IOC today markets over 800 grades of OEM-approved lubricants and greases to suit virtually every application across all sectors.
The R&D centre has over the years blossomed into a state-of-the-art institution for downstream petroleum R&D, focussing on indigenous technologies and processes to suit Indian conditions, it said.The centre recently crossed the milestone of 1,000 patents.
While many refinery process technologies and catalysts developed by the centre have been adopted by various IOC and non-IOC refineries in the country, its IndMax technology was recently licenced to NIS, Serbia – a group refinery of Gazprom Neft, Russia.
Speaking on the occasion, Pradhan said the new centre will be a laboratory for alternative, clean and indigenous energy solutions and is a big step towards realising the goal of making India a self-reliant in the energy sector.
He said Haryana can play a leading role in converting the agro-residues into clean energy. Stating that R&D was a key element of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, he urged IOC to provide further impetus to waste-to-energy programmes.