# What does the Hooghly mixed industries cluster use in energy?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/hooghly-mixed-industries-cluster-carbon

The power bill, for most units. Hooghly's 950 MSMEs and 50 large units used 853 million kWh in 2022-23, about 576,000 t CO2 at the FY 2025-26 grid factor, against 46,300 t of coal, furnace oil, LDO and LSHS: 105,800 toe in all.

## Four trades along the highways

- Foundries for engineering, railway and auto buyers; rolling mills making billets, pipes, tubes and coils.
- Engineering units making tractor and auto parts, farm and industrial machinery, and jewellery.
- Chemical units making rubber, resin, FRP and antioxidants.
- By contract demand: 850 units below 300 kVA, 100 at 300 to 1,500 kVA, 50 above.

## Typical units

- Micro and small: about 302,500 kWh and almost no fuel.
- Medium: about 1.55 million kWh and 1,471 t of fuel.
- Large: about 8.8 million kWh and 1,637 t of fuel.

## Per tonne, by process

- Induction melting: 600 to 770 kWh per tonne, in crucibles of 500 kg to 5 t.
- Forging furnaces: 100 to 180 litres of oil per tonne; heat treatment 100 to 150.
- Reheating furnaces for rolling run on pulverised coal and LDO at 1,100 to 1,200 C, often with the fuel control bypassed.
- Chemical unit boilers burn coal, wood or rice husk at about 55% efficiency, mostly without economisers.

## Cheap fixes first

- A lid on the induction crucible: open crucibles lose 4 to 6% of input as radiation; a lid saves up to 3% and pays back within months.
- IE3 motors on lathes, presses and drills.
- Plug compressed air leaks at joints and valves.

## The cluster and two units (estimate)

- Electricity: 853 million kWh x 0.675 = about 575,800 t CO2
- Fuel: 46,300 t at 1.76 (all Indian coal) = 81,500 t, or at 3.13 (all furnace oil) = 144,900 t
- Medium unit: 1.55 million kWh = 1,046 t, plus 1,471 t of fuel at 2,589 to 4,604 t: about 3,640 to 5,650 t in all
- One tonne melted in an induction furnace at 700 kWh: 473 kg CO2

Energy from TERI's 2022-23 energy profile of the cluster. The fuel is a mix the profile does not split, so its CO2 is shown as a range; your own fuel bills fix it. Electricity at the CEA FY 2025-26 factor.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads your electricity bills and coal, furnace oil and diesel invoices into dated records with their CO2, so a medium unit sees its power and fuel lines side by side.

- [Your MSME carbon number](https://senseible.earth/msme-carbon-number)
- [Induction furnace kWh per tonne](https://senseible.earth/answers/induction-furnace-kwh-per-tonne-benchmark)
- [Forging furnace fuel benchmark](https://senseible.earth/answers/forging-furnace-fuel-per-tonne-benchmark)

Sources: [TERI, Energy profile: Hooghly mixed cluster (2022-23)](https://sameeeksha.org/pdf/Hooghly%20mixed%20cluster.pdf), [SAMEEEKSHA, Hooghly mixed cluster summary](https://sameeeksha.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=309&Itemid=502), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy (fuel emission factors)](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol2.html), [CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector (grid factor 0.675 kg CO2 per kWh, FY 2025-26)](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-view?mappingId=234&lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-31.