BENGALURU/BAGALKOT: India’s first flex fuel station will come up at Jamakhandi in Bagalkot district and this will later be expanded to 21 stations in 14 other districts in the state. Jamakhandhi is located some 500 km away from Bengaluru.
With increasing global warming, TruAlt Energy, a company owned by Industries Minister Murugesh Nirani, has taken the eco-friendly initiative. The Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Nitin Gadkari, launched India’s first ethanol-ready flex fuel hybrid car recently.
Flex fuel is an alternative fuel in which petrol is combined with methanol and ethanol, which simply makes flex-fuel vehicles emit less toxic fumes. The flex fuel station will provide CNG, ethanol-blended gasoline and a charging facility for electric vehicles.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah, referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s statement, had recently said, “In June 2021, the Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government had set a target of achieving 10 per cent ethanol blending in petrol by November 2022, which was achieved five months in advance. If India achieves the target of blending 20 per cent ethanol with petrol by 2025, it will save around Rs 1 lakh crore of foreign exchange. “
TruAlt Energy tweeted, “We at TruAlt Bioenergy are ecstatic to launch India’s first flex fuel station and are grateful to be a part of this new green revolution! “
The TruAlt flex fuel station at Jamkhandi will have sugarcane-based bio-compressed natural gas (CNG) and ethanol. The power supply for EV charging will also come from sugarcane waste.
In April this year, the Union Cabinet approved amendments to the National Policy on Biofuels, 2018. Of the current ethanol production in India, 4.26 billion litres is derived from molasses-based distilleries and 2.58 billion litres from grain-based distilleries. This is expected to expand to 7.6 billion litres and 7.4 billion litres, respectively, and will require six million tonnes of sugar and 16.5 million tonnes of grains per annum by 2025.
Vijay Nirani, Managing Director of MRN Group, said, “Currently, India is losing foreign exchange by importing crude. If we stop crude and switch to ethanol, the money will go to farmers. Ethanol is available at Rs 63 a litre, which is comparatively more cost-effective than other crude oils. Compared with one litre of petrol, ethanol will offer the same mileage for 1.3 litres at half the price”, a Bengaluru-based publication house quoted him as saying.
