Infosys takes a step towards going green.

Infosys, the country’s second-largest information technology services company, is pushing the use of renewable energy to reduce its carbon footprint. It is installing solar power plants that can produce 55 MW of electricity by end of next year. This would cater to close to a third of its annual energy requirement.

'By December, we would be commissioning 15 MW of solar plants in our campuses, including a 7-MW solar power plant, set up at our new campus in Hyderabad. We would also be adding 40 MW next year,' said Ramdas Kamath, executive vice-president and head of infrastructure, facilities, administration. Last year, Infosys consumed 257 million units for all its facilities in the country. Of that, around 30 per cent were renewable energy purchased either from the wind energy or hydro power producers.

“We need another 178 MW of installations to convert our entire power consumption to renewable energy, which we would do over a period of time. It requires land and other things. But technically, it is possible, as we can do it by purchasing green energy.”

As a part of its assurance to the United Nations in 2008, Infosys had said it would reduce its per capita consumption of power and water by 50 per cent each.

“We have achieved almost 46 per cent reduction in per capital power consumption without compromising on employees’ comfort. We have also reduced the per capita water consumption by 30 per cent,” said Kamath. In 2008, Infosys’ per capita power consumption was 297 units per employee, which has now come down to 156 units.

In May this year, Infosys became the first Indian company to join RE100 renewable energy campaign because of its commitment to use renewable power.


BS