What do the typical unit sizes in the Chennai aluminium die casting profile use per tonne of castings, and how do I read its garbled table?

The profile's table shows units of 600, 1,200 and 2,400 tonnes a year using 382,000, 1,445,000 and 2,664,000 kilowatt hours (kWh). That is 637, 1,204 and 1,110 kWh a tonne, against the 1,050 to 2,000 the same profile states for resistance furnace units. Two cells are misprinted; the tonnes of oil equivalent column settles them.

What is printed

• Typical annual energy in aluminium die casting units: 600 tonnes a year, 382,000 kWh, 360 litres of diesel, 33 tonnes of oil equivalent (toe), bill rupees (Rs) 2.9 million.
• 1,200 tonnes: electricity printed as "1445,0000", 500 litres, 125 toe, Rs 10.9 million.
• 2,400 tonnes: electricity printed as "2664,000", 210,000 litres, 421 toe, Rs 31.6 million.
• The cluster table below it is captioned "Belgaum foundry cluster", but its 12,340 toe is the Chennai total in the text, so I read the caption as a leftover.

How the two garbled cells settle

1. The profile's own cluster ratios: 9,426 toe for 110 million kWh is 0.0000857 toe a kWh, and 2,914 toe for 3,200 kilolitres (kL) of diesel is 0.000911 toe a litre.
2. 600 tonnes: 382,000 x 0.0000857 = 32.7 toe, plus 0.3 for diesel, 33.1 against 33 printed.
3. 1,200 tonnes: 1,445,000 kWh gives 123.8 plus 0.5, which is 124.3 against 125 printed. A tenfold 14,450,000 would give about 1,239.
4. 2,400 tonnes: 2,664,000 kWh gives 228.3, plus 210,000 litres at 191.2, which is 419.5 against 421 printed.
5. The bills agree to within their rounding. Take away diesel at the profile's Rs 55 a litre and divide by the kWh: Rs 7.54, 7.52 and 7.53 a kWh in the three rows, and Rs 7.49 for the cluster (824 million over 110 million kWh).

Per tonne of castings

• Electricity: 600 tonnes 637 kWh a tonne; 1,200 tonnes 1,204; 2,400 tonnes 1,110.
• Diesel: 0.6, 0.4 and 87.5 litres a tonne. Only the largest row has a diesel figure large enough for bulk melting; the profile says only that a few larger units melt on diesel.
• The text says resistance furnace units use 1,050 to 2,000 kWh per tonne of good castings, of which 530 to 550 is for molten aluminium. The 600 tonne row sits below that range, near the molten-metal figure, and the 2,400 tonne row is diesel-melted, so the range does not apply to it.
• At cluster level, 110 million kWh over about 60,000 tonnes is 1,833 kWh a tonne and 3,200 kL of diesel is 53 litres a tonne. All three typical units sit below that average, and the profile does not say why.

Measure your own

Divide a month's kWh by the tonnes of good castings sent out, not metal melted. Keep diesel litres on a separate line. Compare with the 637 to 1,204 range as a rough guide for units of your size, and with 1,833 as the cluster average.

The same three units in carbon dioxide (CO2), energy only

• 600 t: 382,000 x 0.675 = 257.9 t; 360 L x 2.645 = 1.0 t; total 258.8 t, 0.43 t a tonne
• 1,200 t: 1,445,000 x 0.675 = 975.4 t; 500 L x 2.645 = 1.3 t; total 976.7 t, 0.81 t a tonne
• 2,400 t: 2,664,000 x 0.675 = 1,798.2 t; 210,000 L x 2.645 = 555.5 t; total 2,353.7 t, 0.98 t a tonne

Before the alloy, which is the larger share of a die casting's footprint. The 0.675 kg a kWh grid factor is for financial year 2025-26 and 2.645 kg a litre is the diesel factor used on this site.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads fuel invoices and electricity bills into monthly records, so you have your own litres and kilowatt hours to hold against the profile's. It does not check a published report for you.

• Chennai die casters: energy and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)
• Chennai die casting: four savings in tonnes
• Die casting footprint per kg
• Pune die casting: melting energy by furnace
• How to calculate specific energy consumption

Sources: The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), Cluster profile: Chennai aluminium casting industries (SAMEEEKSHA), Central Electricity Authority (CEA), CO2 Baseline Database

Last reviewed 2026-11-05. Figures are the profile's for 2014-15. The correction of the two cells is my reading from the toe and bill columns; the profile does not publish an erratum. Use your own meter and dispatch records.