Kamal Ghorui
HYDERABAD: Climate-tech company Sow & Reap Chara Pvt Ltd and Sagar Cements Limited have signed a 10-year offtake agreement to deploy integrated biochar and gasification units at Sagar Cements’ Mattampally plant in Telangana, aiming to decarbonise the energy-intensive calcination stage of cement manufacturing and support the company’s net-zero emissions reduction target by 2030.Under the project, branded ‘CHARA’, agricultural residues—primarily cotton crop waste sourced from villages within a 20-km radius—will be collected and processed to produce syngas and biochar. Sagar Cements will use the syngas as an alternative fuel to substitute fossil inputs, while the biochar will be supplied to farmers for soil application, enabling long-term carbon storage and reducing air pollution linked to open-field residue burning.The initial deployment is expected to reduce around 6,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually, with potential to reach 25,000 tonnes per year if four units are installed at one location. Each unit will require an investment of Rs 14 crore and is designed to process about 15,000 tonnes of biomass annually, producing roughly 3,750 tonnes of biochar and mitigating around 8,000 tonnes of CO2.According to Sow & Reap, as part of Phase-1 four units are expected to go live in March 2026, with a plan to scale to 20 units in phases. With all these 20 installations going live, we are targeting an annual issuance of around 1,60,000 carbon credits targeting close to 1 million credits over the next five years.
