What is the energy use and carbon footprint of the Veraval seafood processing cluster?

TERI's 2016-17 profile puts Veraval's 60 processing units at 9,423 toe a year: 106 million kWh of PGVCL power and 320 kL of diesel, for about 108,000 t of seafood. At today's grid factor that is about 72,400 t CO2, roughly 0.67 t per tonne processed (estimate).

Sixty plants, a monsoon gap

• 60 registered processing units; about 10 export to the EU, the rest to South and East Asia and China.
• Category A plants process about 50 t a month, B about 150 t, C about 250 t; about 40 are B and about 10 are C.
• Ribbon fish, croaker, cuttlefish, squid, shrimp and lobster, sold as ready to cook frozen products.
• During the June to September monsoon fishing ban there is no fresh catch, and almost every unit runs only its cold store; the freezers and ice plants work the rest of the year.

Power is the footprint

Electricity is 97% of the cluster's energy. Refrigeration drives for freezers, cold stores, chillers and ice machines take about 80% of a plant's power, on ammonia systems with reciprocating compressors, mostly controlled by hand. Diesel gensets keep the cold stores at minus 18 C or below through outages and use under 3% of the energy. Energy is only about 2% of processing cost, which is why it is rarely measured closely.

Why EU buyers will ask

Seafood is not a CBAM good. The question reaches Veraval through EU buyers working out their own supply chain footprints, who ask processors for CO2 per kg of product. A plant that keeps 12 months of bills, genset diesel and refrigerant top ups beside its production log can answer in a day.

Savings TERI listed

• Re-pipe and insulate refrigerant lines: 5 to 8% of electricity, payback under a year. Each 0.1 bar of extra pressure drop costs about 7% more power.
• Evaporator fan VFDs with automatic controls: Rs 10 to 12 lakh, payback 1.5 to 2 years.
• Condenser fan VFDs: 20% lower fan speed, about 50% less fan power.
• Desuperheaters to capture the heat in ammonia leaving the compressor at over 100 C.

Veraval cluster, CO2 a year at FY 2025-26 factors (estimate)

• Electricity: 106 million kWh x 0.675 kg = 71,550 t
• Diesel: 320 kL x 2.645 kg per litre = 846 t
• Total: about 72,396 t, against TERI's 104,695 t at an older grid factor
• Per tonne processed: 72,396 / 108,000 = about 0.67 t, or 0.67 kg CO2 per kg

Units, output and energy from TERI's cluster profile of Veraval seafood processing industries (2016-17 data). Refrigerant leaks are not included and add to the total where gas is topped up. CEA FY 2025-26 grid factor; diesel 2.645 kg CO2 per litre.

What Senseible does here

Senseible reads PGVCL bills and diesel invoices into monthly CO2 and hands an EU buyer a per kg figure traced to each bill, as supplier evidence.

• Your MSME carbon number
• Seafood plant kWh per tonne
• Veraval plant emissions method
• Shrimp processing footprint per kg

Sources: TERI, Cluster profile: Veraval seafood processing industries (SAMEEEKSHA), CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, version 22.0

Last reviewed 2026-11-01.