# What does the Mehsana mixed industries cluster use in energy, and what should a plastics unit record?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/mehsana-plastics-engineering-cluster-carbon

kWh per tonne, from your monthly bill and output, because grid power is a plastics unit's whole energy. An average Mehsana plastics unit uses about 273,000 kWh a year, roughly 0.36 t CO2 per tonne at the FY 2025-26 grid factor. The cluster's 3,400 toe (2016) was 79% electricity.

## Four trades in one cluster

- Plastics: 40 units, 20,400 t a year of pipes and fittings, carry bags, sheets and granules.
- Road construction equipment: 32 units, 13,920 t of asphalt plants, drum mixers, bitumen sprayers and sweepers.
- Micron powder from Rajasthan dolomite and calcite: 11 units, 12,000 t. Corrugated boxes: 17 units, 21,000 t.
- About 4,000 jobs and Rs 700 crore of turnover.

## Who uses the energy

- Micron powder: 1,656 toe, in ball mills and gas fired thermic fluid heaters.
- Plastics: 940 toe, all electricity, with barrel heating among the largest loads.
- Corrugated boxes: 729 toe, mostly wood in steam boilers. Road equipment: 76 toe, over half of it welding.
- Cluster: electricity 79%, wood 17% (1,680 t), natural gas 4% (144,000 scm).

## What a plastics unit should record

1. kWh from each month's bill, and from sub-meters on each extruder or blown film line if you have them.
2. Tonnes produced per line in the same month.
3. Polymer bought by grade (HDPE, LDPE, LLDPE, PP, PVC) and tonnes of in-house regrind reused.
4. DG diesel, even if small.
5. Rejects reground, so they are not counted as output twice.

## Cutting the kWh

- Radiant barrel heater bands with thyristor control and proper insulation: 20 to 30% less barrel heating energy.
- A VFD on the extruder screw motor: up to 20%.
- VFDs on ball mills and thermic fluid pumps for the powder units.

## The bigger number upstream

In a product footprint, the polymer you buy usually outweighs your own power. That figure comes from the resin supplier or a named database, reported as Scope 3 purchased goods.

## One plastics unit and the cluster (estimate)

- Average plastics unit: 940 toe / 40 = 23.5 toe = about 273,300 kWh
- CO2: 273,300 x 0.675 = 184 t a year
- Output: 20,400 t / 40 = 510 t, so 536 kWh and 0.36 t CO2 per tonne
- Cluster: 31.3 million kWh = 21,100 t; 144,000 scm gas x 2.05 kg = 295 t; 1,680 t wood reported as biogenic

Energy and output from TERI's cluster profile (2016). Electricity at the CEA FY 2025-26 factor; the profile itself used an older one.

## What Senseible does here

The calculators give a plastics unit its CO2 per tonne from kWh and output; for a running monthly record, Senseible reads the electricity bills directly.

- [Carbon calculators](https://senseible.earth/calculators)
- [Polymer resin emission factors](https://senseible.earth/answers/polymer-resin-emission-factors-pp-hdpe-pvc)
- [PVC pipe CO2 per kg](https://senseible.earth/answers/pvc-pipe-carbon-footprint-per-kg)

Sources: [TERI, Cluster profile: Mixed industries cluster, Mehsana](https://sameeeksha.org/pdf/clusterprofile/Mehsana-Mixed-Industries-Gujarat.pdf), [SAMEEEKSHA, Mixed industries, Mehsana cluster summary](https://sameeeksha.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=242&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.