India's monsoon-dependent rainfall regime will be crucial to ensure that the country achieves E20, a goal of incorporating 20% ethanol into gasoline by 2025, officials from the country's sugar-energy sector said.

In contrast, the partnership with Brazil fuels hopes that the goal will be reached by before the deadline, said the president of the Indian Association of Sugar Mills (Isma), Aditya Jhunjhunwala, and the executive director of the Association of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam), Prashnat Kumar Banerjee.

They were in Brazil last week in an entourage, at the invitation of the Sugarcane Industry Union (Unica), to know the operation of ethanol plants and automakers with technology for hybrid-flex vehicles.

Partnership

Although it is the second largest sugar producer in the world, the Asian country is still incipient in ethanol production and cannot convert a considerable part of sugarcane into biofuel by technological lags. Since 2019, the partnership with Unica aims to promote the use of biofuel and reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

"In India it doesn't rain as much as in Brazil, so we depend on the monsoon. We hope to have good monsoons for many years that enable the supply of ethanol. That's a big question," Banerjee said.

According to Aditya Jhunjhunwala, collaboration with Brazil tends to help in this process. "The Brazilians were very transparent in the discussion, they are telling us what problems they face and what we should do in this type of situation. So we can think in advance of solutions to achieve E20," said the President of Isma.

Goal

In the current season, India has produced about 40 million tons of sugar from sugarcane and has directed 22.5 million tons to the domestic market. Earlier this month, the country reached the E10 target five months before the deadline, which aimed to incorporate 10% ethanol into the gasoline mix.

Thus, 3.4 million tons of sweetener were converted into biofuel production. With the E20 target, Isma estimates that at least 4.5 million tons of sugar will be directed to ethanol production in the current 2022/23 season.

While India pursues the goal of doubling the percentage of ethanol incorporated into gasoline in three years, since 2015 the mandatory percentage in Brazil is 27%.

Context

"It was in this context that we decided to visit Brazil. The country has been doing this longer and we need to understand what might be the best model to adopt in India," said Aditya Jhunjhunwala.

"The Indians fell in love with Brazilian football and now is the time to make a new friendship with ethanol," Banerjee added.

In the last three years, Brazil has partnered with the Indians, highlighting the environmental and socioeconomic benefits of ethanol production and use as a renewable energy source.

Private sectors

Earlier this year, the then Minister of Mines and Energy, Bento Albuquerque, was in India and met with the country's Minister of Oil and Natural Gas, Hardeep Puri. At the time, both pledged to deepen cooperation between the private sugar and automotive sectors of the two countries.

"Many of the Brazilian car manufacturers, such as Toyota, Volkswagen, General Motors (Chevrolet), Hyundai, are all operating in India. So technology is available and now it's just achieving the goals synergistically," said Siam's CEO.

Concrete effects of Brazil-India cooperation are already seen in the automotive sector. In the second half of 2022, India will start producing cars with flex fuel engines, a Brazilian technology that allows the use of 100% ethanol or the mixture of biofuel with its fossil equivalent.

The Asian country is the third largest carbon emitter in the world and has great dependence on imported oil to supply the transport sector. In Brazil, flex fuel technology was introduced in 2003.

Source: Canal Rural