By Business India Editorial

Chennai-based chemicals trader, Ram Charan, will be investing ₹1,500 crore to set up two waste-to-energy plants in Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, reports PTI. The little-known chemicals trader has been developing technologies and equipment to convert industrial and municipal waste into energy that leave no residues.

While the Tamil Nadu unit will come up in the Rameswaram district on a 70-acre site which will be acquired by the end of the month, the Gujarat plant will come on a similar-sized plot in the Kutch district.

Both the plants will see an investment of ₹7,500 crore each and will be up and running in the third quarter of 2022, Kaushik Palicha, a director of the company, and the third generation of the founding family, told PTI from Chennai.

Palicha’s father hailed from the Kutch region of Gujarat and had moved into Kerala’s Alleppey in the early part of the last century and then moved to Madras (now Chennai) in the 1950s where they began chemicals trading in 1965.

Before entering deep-tech research in 2016 they had set up a joint venture with Japanese firm Shinji Kato in Baroda to manufacture speciality plastic components.

Its waste-to-energy products and services are delivered under the brand name ‘Entity One’ and does not leave any residual waste, Palicha added.

In early December 2021, Charan had announced a $4.14 billion investment from the New York-based impact fund TFCC International for an equity consideration of 46 per cent, valuing the company at around $9 billion and making it among the largest private equity investments in the country. Charan’s R&D is focused on developing end-of-life chemicals converting unsegregated waste into energy and manufacturing new-generation energy storage devices, which was the primary reason for TFCC International to go in for such a high valuation and equity partnership.

Within weeks it signed a U$2.2-billion deal with the Ghana-based Masri Company to supply waste to energy units that are expected to generate 300MW of power in the African nation. Late last week, it also bagged a $700-million contract to supply similar units to the Azerbaijan-based Kafkans Finanz, which is into logistics, infrastructure, and imports, to set up waste management units that will generate at least 200 MW of power.

Both the orders will be completed by the middle of 2023, he said.

Palicha said while supplies to the Ghana company will begin from November 2022, the same to Kafkans will begin in December 2022 as he expects to get the proposed manufacturing units up and running by the third quarter of 2022.

TFCC International is a deep impact fund with investments from high-net-worth individuals, government agencies and financial institutions, this marks their entry into the country. The fund is also looking at more impact investments here in areas of environment solutions, renewable energy and low-cost housing. Currently, with a portfolio of $20 billion invested in South Asia.

Ram Charan has to deploy the TFCC money into environment-to-energy management systems and renewable energy devices with high storage capacity that are made from sodium silicate.

The technology used by Ram Charan allows for zero toxic residue, and can be used to convert all types of unsegregated waste into energy, making it the first of its kind globally and also the safest. Charan is also amongst the first globally to set up end product responsibility for their products, he said, adding this is a globally first innovation.

The technology, developed in-house after research from 2016 has been branded under the name Entity1, and has a slew of products lined up for release from 2022 till 2024 that allows for zero toxic residue, and can convert all types of unsegregated waste into energy.