Reminiscing the determinations of energy efficient tea production in South India by SRINIVAS Shroff Nagesha Rao & K Shanmuganathan

‘A cup of tea would restore my normality’ said by Late Douglas Adams, the famous English Author and Environmentalist underlines how this cup of pleasure drink has become an integral part of our daily routine. Tea made from the plant Camellia sinesis, is the world’s most consumed drink after water. According to bulletin by WorldTeaNews, 25,000 cups of tea consumed globally for every second – 2.16 billion cups per day. It is believed that tea originated from North-East India, South-West China and North Myanmar; however the exact place where tea first grown is unknown. With its distinct quality among all beverages, progressive demand and supply, tea production and processing supports livelihoods for millions of people in many developing countries, especially in remote and economically disadvantaged. Tea intake brings health benefits and wellness due to its anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidants and weight loss properties. Valuing its long history, economic significance, medicinal benefits and deep cultural, the United Nations General Assembly, announced 21 May as ‘International Tea Day’. With its first year of celebration in 2020, the ‘International Tea Day’ aims to promote for sustainable production and consumption of tea.

Backpedaling to eighteen century, in Colonial India, British was importing tea from China which caused huge dents in their economy treasury. In-order to curb the increasing cost of tea imports, East India Company started large scale tea plantations in Assam. With India’s geographic landscapes and favorable climatic conditions, the tea sector started to witness multi-fold times growth. Today, India stands as the second largest tea producer with an estimated annual production of 1,322 million kg of tea in 2017, sharing 23% of global production (Tea Board of India, Statistics - https://bit.ly/2WWrIm3). At the same time, India is also the largest tea consumer in the world, consuming about 70-75% of its own production. In India, tea is cultivated in 18 states of which, the four states Assam, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and West Bengal accounts for 98% of country’s total production. 

According to the 64th Annual Report 2017-18 of Tea Board of India, India witnessed a record high production increase of 74.56 million kg of tea in 2017-18 over 2016-17. With its progressive growth and expansion, tea production leaves a cavity with environmental space due to its obsolete traditional manufacturing processes and unorganized nature. The process of conversion of nature tea leaves to black tea used in our home entails significant amount of fuel combustion and electricity consumption, making it as an energy intensive sector. Typically, a tea manufacturing unit spends about 35-40% of the total manufacturing/conversion cost (conversion costs include direct labour, fuel, electricity, factory rent and production utilities except cost of tea leaves) on energy, trailing to steel and metal making process. Furthermore, the green ferns processing leaves a large footprint of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with burning of firewood and electricity consumption. Understanding its immense energy consumption levels and its associated GHG impact, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), India and The Tea Board, Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, with support from Global Environment Facility (GEF) initiated a project in 2008 aiming to remove the barriers to adoption of energy efficient practices in tea manufacturing units in Southern India. The 300 tea manufacturing units in Southern India contributed 25% of country’s total tea production and provided employment opportunities to lakhs of people living in hilly rural terrain. The project aimed at (i) establishing baseline energy consumption in the tea processing units by providing free energy audits; (ii) improving energy reduction and costs; (iii) identifying proven technology interventions and creating trustworthy technology providers; (iv) conducting capacity building programmes on Standard Operating Process (SOP).

Each factory introduced a few of them depending on the situation, need and decision of owner of tea processing unit with inputs from experts in Project Management Unit set up for implement the project. About 90 tea processing units participated in baseline audits, installed energy efficiency measures and also conducted post implementation audits. Tea processing units used firewood as fuel for generating hot air for drying of leaves, while electricity is used for crushing, withering, fermentation, sorting & grading and packaging. Thermal energy use contributes to 90 to 92 % of total energy consumed and the rest is in the form of electricity. 

Baseline audits revealed that each kg of made tea (kgMT)

(i)                 Consumed 1.5 – 2.0 kg of firewood and 0.5 – 0.8 kWh of electricity

(ii)               Costed Rs. 8.25 to 9.50 for energy (Electricity – Rs. 4/kgMT and Thermal Rs. 4.25 to 5.5/kgMT).

Technology Informatics Design Endevour (TIDE) and Tea Board in Coonoor, implemented the project on-ground. After brainstorming with several experts, tea processing units, 14 energy efficiency measures were identified for intervention. They are (i) Operation of lower HP motors in star connection; (ii) Downsizing of higher HP motor when the kW loading is low during operation; (iii) Use of energy efficient motors replacing the standard motors; (iv) Use of flat belt drive mechanism for running fans and doing away with V - belt drives; (v) Variable Frequency Drive control for rotor vane in CTC (Cut Tear Curl) and rollers in Orthodox tea manufacturing; (vi) Maximum demand controller to effect optimum drawl of power from grid; (vii) Individual Capacitor Bank for higher horsepower motors and APFC (Automatic Power Factor Controller) for central bus-bar; (viii) Effective loading of transformer in HT industries; (ix) Replacement of General Lighting System by Compact Fluorescent Lamps; (x) Replacement of vapour lamps by LEDs; (xi) VFD for flue gas fan; (xii) Hot water generator; (xiii) Fuel handling - split of firewood & shed for fuel storage; (xiv) Optimal operation of DG sets. Each of 90 tea processing units made interventions of about 4 to 6 technology packages and on an average invested Rs 10 lakhs. The post implementation audits indicated the following

(i)                 Reduction of firewood to 1.2 to 1.7 kg per kg of made tea

(ii)               Reduction of electricity to 0.37 to 0.67 kWh per kg of made tea

Thus the benefits to the tea processing units are:

(i)                 Reduction of 0.31 kg of firewood per kg of made tea (reduction of 15 to 20%)

(ii)               Reduction of 0.13 kWh of electricity per kg of made tea (reduction of 15 to 20%)

Over 200 factories implemented energy efficiency interventions. However, 90 of them participated in all audits and allowed the use of data. The tea produced from these 90 audited factories accounts to tea production of 101 million kgMT annually. These 90 tea processing units invested about Rs 240 million. The estimated benefits for these 90 tea processing units are as follows;

·      Energy benefits

o  Reduced electricity of 12.4 million kWh annually

o  Reduced firewood consumption by 31 million kg annually. This translates to about 45,000 grown up eucalyptus trees. Each grown up tree weighs about 700 kg. (https://forestlearning.edu.au/images/resources/How%20carbon%20is%20stored%20in%20trees%20and%20wood%20products.pdf)

·      Cost-benefits

o  Reduced annual energy cost by Rs. 280 million

o  Payback on investment is just 10 months

·      Environment benefits

o  Reduces 128,000 tCO2e/y (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent per year), bringing-down the emissions from 17 grams to 12 grams per cup of tea.

Replicating such interventions to all factories across India can potentially mitigate an estimated greenhouse gas of 851,368 tCO2e annually with the current 2017-18 annual production statistics of 1,322 million kgMT.

Tea production and processing directly contributes 6 out of 17 Sustainable Development Goals namely: to the reduction of extreme poverty (Goal 1), the fight against hunger (Goal 2), the empowerment of women (Goal 5), the affordable and clean energy (Goal 7), the climate action (Goal 13) and the sustainable use of terrestrial ecosystems (Goal 15). Tea harvest and production is highly sensitive to agro-ecological conditions. The adverse effects of climate change due to increasing emissions of greenhouse gas can significantly impact the terrestrial ecosystems with changes in annual precipitation, droughts and floods. These disruptions can directly affect the tea yields, quality, and prices and plausibly threatens the livelihood of millions of people associated with this sector. Henceforward, now it’s time for action for all tea producing countries to strategize the necessary mitigation and adaption measures to alleviate climate risks confronted.

#International Tea Day, #Energy Efficiency, #GHG Emissions, #Tea, #SDGs

Views expressed are personal and does not reflect any of the institutions. The Authors were part of UNDP Tea Project.