Concrete

How Energy-Efficient Are We?

Published

4 years ago

September 19, 2022

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As the cement sector moves towards a sustainable future, energy conservation takes centrestage. ICR looks at the efforts taken and challenges faced in achieving energy-efficient manufacturing processes

The power or energy generation in India is shared between national public utilities (around 40 per cent), state utilities and private companies (around 30 per cent each). This management sector of energy is split between several ministries: the Ministry of Power (MoP) for electricity and the coordination of energy conservation programmes; the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG); the Ministry of Coal; and, finally, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE).

According to the India Energy Report, 2021 by Enerdata, the total energy consumption per capita remained around 0.7 tonne of oil equivalent (toe) in 2021, which was about half of the Asian average consumption. Electricity consumption per capita reached 970 kWh in 2021, about a third of the Asian average. Total energy consumption reached 927 Mtoe in 2021 (+4.7 per cent), which was still 1.2 per cent below the 2019 level. It had increased rapidly over 2010-2019 (4 per cent per year). Coal is the country›s top energy source with a share of 44 per cent in 2021, followed by oil (24 per cent) and biomass (22 per cent). Natural gas covered 6 per cent and primary electricity (hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind) was at 4 per cent.

The energy sector aims to achieve an ambitious target of 450 GW of solar and wind in 2030 as it has pledged to reach carbon neutrality by 2070. What makes this target seem achievable is that the renewable capacity of the Indian energy sector (excluding large hydro) overtook 100 GW in 2021. While three quarters of the energy requirement is still met by fossil fuels, the overall consumption of energy has gone down by 5 per cent in 2021.

Cement plays a vital role in building the economy of a nation. The sector is largely dominated by players with large manufacturing capacities, making the cement industry one of the largest in the country and one that is energy intensive.

The Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme of the Ministry of Power, Government of India has so far covered 126 numbers of cement plants in India targeting to reduce specific energy consumption since its inception from 2012 onwards.

The Bureau of Energy Efficiency states that based on the threshold defined, 85 numbers of cement plants were included as DCs and their cumulative energy consumption was 15.01 million MTOE in PAT Cycle-1. Based on their specific energy consumption level, these DCs were given SEC target reduction of an average 5.43 per cent resulting in 0.815 million TOE energy consumption reduction in absolute terms. The cement sector constituted 12.19 per cent of the overall energy saving target under PAT Cycle-1.

The total savings achieved by the cement sector covering 75 numbers of designated consumers in PAT Cycle-1 is 1.48 million MTOE which is 0.665 million MTOE in excess of the target. At present, the energy consumption of these cement units as designated consumers is 23.246 million tonnes of oil equivalent. The target given for them from PAT Cycle –II onwards is 0.94 million tonnes of oil equivalent.

The cement sector is highly energy-intensive, consuming approximately 7 per cent of global industrial energy consumption each year. The manufacturing process is carried out in stages. From grinding of raw material in raw mill grinders, to pyroprocessing and clinkerisation and then grinding of clinker in roller press mills, vertical mills, balls mills etc., to obtain the final product, cement. Each stage consumes a significant amount of energy and organisations are constantly looking at solutions, technology, automation and better equipment to optimise the quantum of energy consumed in the process.

Pictorial depiction of cement manufacturing process.

Given the significant impact that the manufacturing industry has on global sustainability and considering the increasing economic pressure introduced by a competitive market and the reduction of available energy resources, optimising the energy efficiency of production systems has become a primary concern.

According to the Technological Energy Efficiency Improvements in Cement Industries Report, 2021 published at MDPI, energy consumption in the cement industry is provided by electricity and fuels.

Over 90 per cent of fuels used are consumed in the production of clinker. Electric energy, on the other hand, is used for about 39 per cent for the finishing process, for around 28 per cent for both processing the raw materials and burning the clinker, and for less than 5 per cent for other operations.

“An area where energy is majorly consumed is the grinding stage of cement manufacturing. Here is where there is a large scope of reduction of the same. The industry has worked upon the same and come up with solutions to make that happen. At one point of time, cement grinding used to take up to 50 units to 60 units of power. With the new, energy efficient mills we are able to grind clinker while using 20 units to 25 units of energy and this is a major benefit that the industry has been able to derive of the vertical roller mills or the pre-pressed grinding mills,” says Jamshed Cooper, Managing Director, HeidelbergCement India Ltd. and Zuari Cement Ltd.

“With the use of EFR and alternative fuels also the industry can save on energy. These are not directly energy efficient. Yes, the quantum of heat generation requirement for the clinkerisation process will be the same, but that can be substituted with alternative sources. Also, recycling the waste heat with the Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) unit is also a great way to save energy and use it for further processes,” he adds.

Automation and Technology
The world is moving towards digitalisation. From switching on your home lights to a manufacturing unit, the controls are moving from human to digital across the board. Technological advancement in the area of cement manufacturing has led to a lot of advancement in its functioning and has led towards achieving the goal of energy conservation by reducing its usage in the operations.

“The role of automation in the cement industry is very high. If we look back, the cement plants in the later part of 1970 or early 1980s used to have local substations or local control systems. But today with automation, plants are operated and controlled from a single location (CCR). The control room operator can see the entire plant operation from a single monitor. Functions like start or stop, alarms, process interlocks etc., are major benefits of automation that a cement plant experiences” says Kiran Patil, Managing Director, Wonder Cement.

“Furthermore, industries have used robotics in the plant, and Wonder Cement is one of the cement plants to have robotics for quality control. In this digital world, we cannot be behind and so, we are working towards the implementation of digitalisation in operation and maintenance to get better efficiency” he adds.

The cement industry is realising the importance of process control and automation to achieve their goals of energy efficiency and for a trouble free continuous operation leading to improved productivity at optimal energy levels. Automation also takes care of optimal operation in mining and hence longer life of mines and consistent desired cement quality is assured. Instrumentation and control logic can also be used effectively for taking care of human and equipment safety and to monitor equipment health and implement preventive maintenance in the manufacturing facility.

Organisations are continuously analysing and seeking advanced technical equipment that help streamline their processes and align them with the goals of achieving a similar or higher productivity level with a lower amount of energy input. This not only saves on their costs and enhances profitability for the organisation but also helps achieve their sustainability targets by reducing direct or indirect emissions caused by the cement manufacturing unit’s energy requirement.

While the input of energy is optimised by technology and automation, audits support the need of constant monitoring of the performance of the units individually as well as on a group level. A dedicated professional, certified in the area of energy consumption is stationed at every unit with the key goal of monitoring everyday consumption. Audits play a key role in achieving this goal.

Energy management bodies like Centre for Mining, Environment, Plant Engineering and Operations (CME), under the National Council for Cement and Building Materials (NCCBM), run programmes that offer technical services related to Energy Audits and WHR feasibility studies to cement plants of India.

Their services include energy audit studies in cement plants including captive power plants, management, monitoring and target setting, heat and gas balance studies, identification of potential for thermal and electrical energy savings and recommendations for remedial measures and Techno economic feasibility studies for waste heat recovery system (WHRS) in cement plants.

These audits are conducted by means of site visits and data collection, preliminary data analysis and detailed data analysis. Post which a detailed report and recommendations on economic viability is presented to the organisation in audit.

Hitesh Sukhwal, Dy General Manager – Environment, Udaipur Cement Works, says, “Our company is covered under PAT scheme. We are an ISO 50001 certified company under energy management. We have a dedicated resource under the designation of ‘energy manager,’ who is qualified to keep a check on the energy consumption of the plant and continuously optimise the same.” A periodic energy audit (once in three years) as per EC Act is done. Half yearly internal audits and external audits once a year are performed under energy management. Moreover, power monitoring reports are discussed on an everyday basis during the desktop production meeting” he adds.

Many cement producers have lowered energy costs up to 20 per cent by adopting a holistic approach to industrial energy management. The Petroleum Conservation Research Association lists some key areas where cement manufacturing units can work upon for having a more energy efficient plant:

Use improved insulating bricks/blocks in kilns and preheaters.Use energy efficient equipment like high efficiency fans, improved ball mill internals etc.

Recover waste heat from the preheater and use it for cogeneration of power.
Prevent idle running of equipment by providing The interlocking arrangement and operating with PLC system. Generate daily reports on idle running of equipment, also in terms of monetary losses.
Optimise the fuel mix and raw mix by including alternative fuels and supplementary cementitious materials.
Establish an efficient management information system for identifying various important parameters for efficient operation of the equipment and taking timely remedial measures.
Regularly monitor and calibrate flow metres.

Carry out regular audits.
Other areas that it focuses on apart from the main manufacturing process are the various overheads and other operations where energy is consumed in smaller quantities but when clubbed together can be a large value of consumption.

“The cement industry affects climate change as it contributes 7 per cent to 8 per cent to the global carbon pool. To curtail this, stakeholders that include members of the United Nations Principal of Responsible Investment and such have begun to reach out to cement industry players across the globe to come up with solutions to cut down on CO2 emissions to see investments flow in.” says Dr Arvind Bodhankar, Executive Director, ESG & CRO, Dalmia Bharat Limited.

“Dalmia Bharat are leading the pack with commitments that encourage the circular economy. Global visionaries such as our honourable Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, have also stated that India will become a carbon-neutral country by 2070 and committed to 520 GW of renewable energy by 2030.

This has helped ease new policies as far as renewable energy is concerned and enabled sector leaders such as us to stay the course to meet our goal of becoming carbon negative by 2040,” he adds.

Alternative sources of energy like solar power plants and Waste Heat Recovery (WHR) are also a key in achieving energy efficiency and sustainability goals for every cement organisation. UltraTech has imbibed Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a business objective and is working towards reducing its energy consumption and carbon emissions. It was one of the first in the Indian cement industry to embrace the technology of WHRS. Waste heat recovery has proved to be an inexpensive energy source in addition to moderating the carbon footprint.

This has enhanced energy security (accounting for 20 per cent of power needs) for the company. UltraTech Cement has an aggregate capacity of about 59 MW in waste heat recovery systems.

In a report published at SAUR Energy International, May 2022, a major issue in the cement industry is the very high particulate matter (PM) emissions from production processes. The pollutants commonly emitted by cement plants are dust or particulate matter, NOx, SOx, carbon oxides and methane and others. Energy consumption is also an issue, with the approximate required per tonne of cement, roughly two thirds of which is used for particle size reduction.

About 65 per cent of the total electrical energy used in a cement plant is utilised for the grinding of coal, raw materials and clinker.

Some of the key players are adaption to alternative sources of energy. Ultratech Cement has a power generation capacity of 156 MW through waste heat recovery systems. The waste heat recovery capacity is expected to reach 302 MW by FY2024. In the area of renewable energy, the firm professes plans to invest in solar power generation for captive usage.

This is in addition to existing contract capacity of 148 MW renewable energy plants. UltraTech is committed to increase the share of green energy in its electricity mix to 34 per cent by 2024 from the current level of 13 per cent.

Utilising its waste heat recovery plants, and solar and wind power plants, Shree Cement boasts a renewable energy portfolio of over 234 MW. Consequently, during FY 2019-20, 45 per cent of the total energy needs of the company was fulfilled by renewable energy. The firm has a 62 kW Solar PV Power Plant at Beawar.

In 2021, Ambuja Cement and ACC announced investments in Waste Heat Recovery Systems (WHRS) across six sites in India to reduce 5.61 lakhs tons of CO2 emissions per year. ACC committed to reducing scope 1 GHG emissions by 21.3 per cent per tonne of cementitious material and scope 2 GHG emissions by 21.3 per cent per tonne of cementitious material by 2030.

Dalmia Bharat’s carbon footprint is 40 per cent lower than the global average for a cement company which places it at the top, globally in the race of decarbonising the cement sector. Dalmia Cement has been progressively producing cement with ‘greener’ alternatives.

Energy is key to the cement sector, however, the time has come to re-look at the conventional sources and to tap into the more readily available alternative sources of energy. With advancement of technology and automation across the globe, there are various equipment and machinery that make these alternative sources more effective and affordable for the cement manufacturers. It is a conscious choice that the industry shall have to make to safeguard the environment for the future generations to come in terms of availability of energy sources and the quality of surroundings they leave behind.

Concrete

CarbonStrong Raises Rs 125 Million To Scale Low Carbon Cement Tech

To build capacity of 100,000 tonnes a year

Published

13 hours ago

August 28, 2026

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CarbonStrong has raised Rs 125 million (125 mn) to scale a low carbon cement technology and build commercial production capacity. The startup was founded in 2022 by Harsh Jain and Vikramaditya Singh and has moved from customer trials to plans for industrial supply. The company said its material replaces up to 50 per cent of cement in concrete while reducing costs and improving durability.

CarbonStrong states the product is around 30 per cent cheaper than cement and compatible with existing concrete plants, reducing the need for new equipment and operational disruption. Trials and paid pilots have been conducted in Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai with demonstration projects involving ready-mix firms and precast manufacturers. Compatibility with current workflows forms a central part of the commercial strategy, aiming to ease adoption by builders and contractors.

The funding will support construction of a facility with capacity of up to 100,000 tonnes (100,000 t) a year over the next two years to supply early customers commercially. The firm is also developing materials from steel slag, copper slag and mine tailings to expand its feedstock base, while noting the technical challenge of homogenising different waste streams. Recognition by HCL ClimaForce in 2026 and by the Avaana-Startup India-NITI Aayog AIM Grand Challenge in 2025 has underscored progress.

Industry adoption remains the principal test and will require consistent material performance, supply reliability and competitive economics. CarbonStrong projects the Indian market for cement substitutes could reach Rs 250 billion (250 bn) by 2030 and has set an ambition to produce 10 million tonnes a year by 2035 (10 mn t), a target far above its near term capacity. Moving from pilots to production demands capital, manufacturing discipline and customers willing to specify the material beyond demonstrations. The recent Rs 125 million raise is intended to fund the next phase of scale and to demonstrate that industrial waste can become a dependable input for lower carbon construction.

Concrete

Protect Your Margins

Published

13 hours ago

August 28, 2026

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In a research-backed article, Dr SB Hegde examines why carbon-adjusted profitability and LC3 will decide the next set of winners in cement manufacturing.

The Indian cement industry has achieved world-class operational efficiency through lower specific energy consumption, high plant utilisation and a reduced average clinker factor of approximately 67.5 per cent. These traditional measures of operational excellence remain essential. However, they are no longer sufficient. Carbon now carries a measurable financial cost under India’s Carbon Credit Trading Scheme (CCTS) and under European carbon markets. Future leadership will be defined by carbon-adjusted profitability, the ability to generate strong returns while systematically lowering the carbon intensity of every ton sold.
Limestone calcined clay cement (LC3) offers a practical, scalable pathway to achieve this dual objective. By replacing up to 50 per cent of clinker with calcined clay and limestone, LC3 can reduce CO2 emissions by 30–40 per cent while delivering comparable or superior durability performance.
This article examines the technical foundations of LC3, European industrial practices, the emerging Indian carbon market and a concrete roadmap for Indian companies to embed carbon-adjusted metrics and LC3 into daily operations, incentives and commercial strategy.

Limits of traditional operational excellence
For many years, plant performance has been judged primarily by five indicators: specific heat consumption, specific power consumption, kiln and mill utilisation, clinker factor and overall equipment effectiveness. These metrics drove continuous improvement and helped the industry reduce energy use and increase the share of blended cement. Three structural changes have rendered them incomplete as sole measures of success.
First, carbon now carries a real or opportunity cost. Plants that improve volume or lower cash cost while raising or stagnating emissions intensity create a hidden liability that will surface as CCTS trading matures and as green procurement expands.
Second, lower-carbon products such as LC3 and high-performance blended cements are creating differentiated market segments. Customers in infrastructure, real estate and export-oriented construction are beginning to specify embodied-carbon limits.
Third, investors and lenders increasingly treat carbon intensity as a financial risk factor. Traditional KPIs can mask the divergence between short-term cash profit and long-term carbon-adjusted value.

What is carbon-adjusted profitability?
Carbon-adjusted profitability evaluates normal profit after explicit adjustment for carbon performance. A practical expression is:
Carbon-Adjusted EBITDA = Conventional EBITDA – Carbon Cost + Green Premium Income
Carbon cost may be an internal carbon price, the actual cost of purchasing Carbon Credit Certificates under CCTS, or the opportunity cost of high emissions relative to peers. Green premium income arises when customers pay more for verified lower-carbon cement or when the company sells surplus credits. Tracking both conventional and carbon-adjusted profit side-by-side gives management a clearer picture of value creation under evolving market rules.

Table 1. Traditional KPIs versus Carbon-Adjusted Leadership Metrics
Traditional Focus New Leadership Metric Why It Matters
Specific energy consumption Emissions intensity (kg CO2/t cement) Directly linked to future CCTS and CBAM costs
Kiln utilisation Carbon-adjusted contribution margin Reveals true value of incremental volume
Clinker factor Share of lower-carbon products sold (incl. LC3) Measures commercial success of the transition
Power cost per tonne Effective carbon cost per tonne sold Expose hidden liabilities
Absolute EBITDA Carbon-adjusted EBITDA + green premium Aligning profit with future market reality

LC3: Technical foundations and performance advantages
LC3 is a ternary blended cement that typically combines approximately 50 per cent clinker, 30 per cent calcined clay, 15 per cent limestone and 5 per cent gypsum (the classic LC3-50 formulation). The decisive technical advantage is that clay is calcined at 700–850 °C, far below the 1,450 °C required for clinker production. This lower temperature, together with the substantial reduction in clinker content, delivers CO2 reductions of 30–40 per cent relative to ordinary Portland cement (OPC).
Chemistry is synergistic. Calcined kaolinitic clay (metakaolin) reacts with calcium hydroxide from clinker hydration and with limestone to form additional C-A-S-H gel and carboaluminate phases. These phases densify the microstructure, reduce porosity and improve durability.
Field experience shows superior resistance to chloride ingress, sulphate attack and alkali–silica reaction. Early-age strength can match OPC with high-reactivity clays; later-age strengths routinely meet 42.5 and 52.5 grade requirements.
Importantly, LC3 does not require high-purity kaolin. Clays with 40 per cent or even lower kaolinite content can be activated successfully, expanding raw-material availability across India. Calcination can use adapted rotary kilns or dedicated flash calciners, making the technology compatible with existing plant infrastructure and far less capital-intensive than carbon capture.
Economic analyses show that LC3 can be produced at equal or lower cost than OPC in many locations because of reduced energy demand and cheaper clay. Life-cycle assessments consistently report 30–40 per cent lower embodied CO2 per tonne of cement.
Table 2. Comparative profile: OPC versus LC3-50
Parameter OPC LC3-50
Typical clinker content ~95 per cent ~50 per cent
CO2 emissions (relative) Baseline (≈0.85 t CO2/t cement process + fuel) 30–40 per cent lower
Clay calcination temperature Not applicable 700–850 °C
Key hydration products C-S-H, portlandite, ettringite C-A-S-H + carboaluminates
Chloride & sulphate resistance Good Superior
Production cost potential Baseline Equal or lower in most locations
Infrastructure compatibility Existing High (minor adaptations)

In India, commercial adoption has begun in earnest. JK Cement commenced the first commercial production of LC3 in the Indian subcontinent at its Mangrol plant in Rajasthan in 2025 under BIS standard IS 18189.
By early 2026, approximately 2,000 tonnes had been produced and sold, avoiding an estimated 500 tonnes of CO2. JK Lakshmi Cement followed with commercial launch of its Green PRO LC3 grade from the Jaykaypuram plant. As of mid-2026, two producers are supplying LC3 to the market. The first large-scale infrastructure application is the Noida International Airport (Jewar), where LC3 was used in the runway and a building complex, demonstrating full constructability and performance under demanding conditions. These early volumes are still small relative to national cement demand, but they mark the critical transition from pilot to commercial reality. Companies that scale capacity now will be positioned to capture both CCTS credits and emerging green-procurement demand.

Why the shift is accelerating
According to the World Bank’s State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2026, direct carbon pricing now covers nearly 30 per cent of global greenhouse-gas emissions and generated more than US$107 billion in public revenue in 2025. The average global carbon price stands at approximately US$21 per tonne, although regional prices vary widely.
In Europe, the EU ETS price has traded near €80–85 per tonen in mid-2026. Free allocation for cement is being withdrawn in parallel with CBAM. European producers therefore face a clear signal: every tonne of avoided CO2 improves both compliance and competitiveness. Holcim has scaled calcined-clay production, including Europe’s first dedicated line at Saint-Pierre-la-Cour (France) and a second line in the Czech Republic (2026). Heidelberg Materials, Cementir (FUTURECEM) and others have commercialised low-clinker calcined-clay blends across multiple markets, showing that carbon-adjusted profitability is already reshaping capital allocation in the world’s most mature carbon market.India’s CCTS is now operational. Binding emission intensity targets apply to 186 cement facilities for FY 2025–26 and FY 2026–27. Average required reductions for integrated plants are modest (around 2.7 per cent by FY 2027), yet the direction is clear.
Trading of Carbon Credit Certificates is expected in the second half of 2026, with early prices likely in the `800–1,500 per tonne range. Plants that outperform targets can sell credits; those that underperform must buy them or face compensation. Cement is well positioned to be a net supplier of credits if clinker factor continues to fall through LC3 and other low-clinker systems.

Way forward for India
India starts from a strong baseline, world-class energy efficiency and a clinker factor already lower than the global average. The next competitive frontier is the deliberate reduction of process emissions through clinker substitution at scale. LC3 is uniquely suited to Indian conditions because suitable clays are widely distributed, the technology fits existing kiln and grinding infrastructure, and the resulting product can meet the performance demands of both infrastructure and building construction.
A practical national pathway contains five interlocking elements:

Standards and acceptance: Accelerated finalisation and promotion of BIS specifications for calcined-clay and limestone–calcined-clay cements will remove a key barrier to commercial uptake. Alignment with European practice (EN 197-5) can facilitate knowledge transfer and export readiness.
Supply-chain development: Investment in flash calcination capacity and systematic characterisation of regional clay deposits will secure reliable, low-cost feedstock. Existing rotary kilns can be adapted for initial volumes while dedicated calciners are built.
Incentive alignment: Part of variable compensation for plant managers, sales teams and senior leadership should be linked to emissions intensity reduction and to the volume of lower-carbon products (including LC3) sold. Without this link, traditional volume and cost targets will continue to dominate behaviour.
Product-level carbon accounting: Reliable measurement of emissions intensity at the individual cement grade level, supported by third-party verification where required, is essential for both CCTS compliance and credible green claims.
Demand-side pull: Green public procurement policies that specify maximum embodied-carbon thresholds for major infrastructure projects will create a predictable market for LC3 and other low-carbon cements, accelerating scale and cost reduction.
Companies that treat LC3 as a strategic product line rather than a niche offering will be better positioned to generate surplus Carbon Credit Certificates, capture any emerging green premium, and protect margins as carbon costs rise.

Organisational changes required
Technical capability alone is insufficient. Three organisational shifts are required.
Daily management: Emissions intensity must appear on the same daily and monthly dashboards as heat consumption, power consumption and utilization. Plant reviews should examine both conventional and carbon-adjusted results.
Incentives: A meaningful portion of bonuses for plant heads, technical teams and sales leadership should be tied to lower emissions intensity and successful commercialisation of LC3 and other low-carbon grades.
Commercial approach: Sales teams need clear volume and pricing targets for lower-carbon products, supported by technical service that helps customers specify and place the material correctly. Without commercial pull, excellent technical performance remains under-utilised.

Table 3. Three-stage roadmap to carbon-adjusted profitability
Time Horizon Priority Actions Expected Outcome
Next 12 months Add emissions intensity to plant dashboards; establish internal carbon price; initiate LC3 pilot production and customer trials Visibility and early organisational learning
12–24 months Revise incentive systems; scale LC3 and other low-carbon grades to key accounts; secure third-party verification capability People and sales aligned with carbon goals
24–36 months Embed carbon-adjusted metrics in board reporting and capital allocation; expand calcined-clay capacity Full system integration and competitive advantage

Questions senior leaders should ask
Boards can accelerate the transition by insisting on answers to a short list of questions:
• Is our carbon-adjusted profit improving, stable or declining relative to conventional EBITDA?
• Did recent volume growth improve or worsen our emissions intensity?
• What share of sales already comes from lower-carbon products, including LC3, and what is the trajectory?
• How exposed is our capital expenditure plan to rising carbon costs under CCTS and potential CBAM-related requirements?
• Do our incentive systems still reward only volume and cost, or have they been updated to include carbon performance?
Treating carbon with the same seriousness as energy cost or kiln utilization does not diminish operational excellence; it expands the definition of excellence to match the new competitive reality.

Looking ahead
By 2030 the gap between leading and lagging cement companies will not be decided by who records the lowest specific heat consumption. It will be decided by who delivers the strongest carbon-adjusted profits.
Absolute emissions may still rise as national production grows. That is not the issue. Companies that reduce intensity year after year and successfully sell cleaner products will pull ahead in both domestic and export markets. Those that do not will fall behind, even if their traditional efficiency numbers look strong.
Operational excellence built the Indian cement industry. It remains the foundation. It is no longer the complete picture. Carbon-adjusted profitability is the clearer measure of success.
LC3 is not a distant technology. It is available now. It cuts CO3 by 30–40 per cent, works with existing plants, and is already in commercial production in India. Companies that treat it as a strategic product, not a pilot, will protect their margins and generate tradable credits.
Leaders who act now will place carbon metrics on daily dashboards, link incentives to intensity reduction and LC3 sales, invest in calcined-clay capacity, and build commercial capability to sell lower-carbon products. They will shape the next chapter of the industry.

References

World Bank. (2026). State and Trends of Carbon Pricing 2026. Washington, DC: World Bank Group.
International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP). (2026). India Carbon Credit Trading Scheme – Status and Coverage. Berlin: ICAP.
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change / Bureau of Energy Efficiency. (2025). Greenhouse Gases Emission Intensity Target Rules, 2025. New Delhi: Government of India.
Scrivener, K., Martirena, F., Bishnoi, S., & Maity, S. (2018). Calcined clay limestone cements (LC3). Cement and Concrete Research, 114, 49–56.
RMI. (2024). The Business Case for LC3. Rocky Mountain Institute.
European Commission. (2026). EU Emissions Trading System – Allowance Price Data and Free Allocation Phase-out Schedule. Brussels.
Holcim. (2025–2026). Scaling Calcined Clay for Sustainable Building – Corporate Updates on European and Latin American Capacity. Zurich: Holcim Ltd.
LC3 Project / EPFL. (2026). LC3 – A Guide to Best Practices for Scalable, Affordable and Sustainable Low-Carbon Building. Lausanne: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.
Business Today / Industry Reports. (2026). First Large-Scale LC3 Application at Noida International Airport, Jewar. New Delhi.
NITI Aayog / Industry Analyses. (2026). Roadmap and Baseline Performance Indicators for the Indian Cement Sector. New Delhi.
Springer / Innovative Infrastructure Solutions. (2026). LC3 Systems: A Review of Chemistry, Performance, Durability and Sustainability toward Market Adoption.
Cementir Holding / Industry Sources. (2025–2026). FUTURECEM and Related Low-Clinker Technologies in Europe.
Climate Risk Horizons & Independent Analyses. (2026). Assessment of Emission Intensity Targets under India’s CCTS for Cement and Other Hard-to-Abate Sectors.
GCCA / TERI. (Various years). Decarbonization Roadmaps for the Indian Cement Industry.
EN 197-5:2021. Cement – Part 5: Portland-composite cement CEM II/C-M and Composite cement CEM VI. European Committee for Standardization.

Concrete

More Oversight Makes Cement Plants Less Safe

Published

13 hours ago

August 28, 2026

admin

Dijam Panigrahi makes a counterintuitive but data-backed argument that routing every sensor alert through human approval does not make cement plants safer.

India’s cement industry has spent the last two years wiring kilns, mills and coolers with sensors and automated control systems, and the safety case for doing so is strong on paper. Contract workers still make up the majority of the industry’s workforce, and fatal accidents remain a recurring problem. The Indian National Cement Workers Federation has noted that around 83 per cent of workers in the sector hold precarious positions, a fact that resurfaced after an oxygen cylinder explosion killed three contract workers at a plant in Chhattisgarh.
Industry tallies compiled by IndustriALL found cement plants recorded at least seventeen accidents in one year with 21 workers killed, and ten accidents the following year with nine killed, most of them contract staff. Automated monitoring, in theory, closes that gap. A sensor never gets complacent and never skips a check because a shift is short staffed.
However, plants that respond by routing every anomaly reading to a person for approval are quietly building a system that fails the same way understaffing does. When operators receive dozens of flagged deviations a shift, most of them minor, they learn a simple lesson: the fastest way through the queue is to approve without reading closely. The safety benefit disappears, not because the technology failed, but because the humans supervising it adapted to the volume.

Why alerts get ignored
A study cited by manufacturing technology publisher Applied SmartFactory found more than 95 per cent of alarms in a semiconductor fab were low priority, and only about 4 per cent ever triggered an action, with just 100 out of 5,000 alarms accounting for 70 per cent of all alarm activity. The mechanism is the same whether the trigger is a vibration sensor or an AI model flagging a kiln temperature swing. Once the ratio of noise to signal crosses a threshold, workers stop treating the system as a decision aid and start treating it as a formality to clear.
The scale of AI deployment underway makes this more than a theoretical risk. Stanford’s 2026 AI Index Report found organisational adoption of AI has reached 88 per cent, even as documented AI incidents rose to 362 in 2025, up sharply from 233 the year before, according to analysis of the report. The Index also found only about a third of organisations have adopted a formal governance framework, with NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework cited by 33 per cent and ISO/IEC 42001 cited by 36 per cent.
Most manufacturers are deploying monitoring systems faster than they are building the judgment for when a flagged event actually needs a person’s attention. In India, plants run by JK Cement have begun pairing CCTV feeds with AI to define safe zones around heavy machinery, a promising direction that still depends on operators trusting and reading the alerts the system generates.

A three-tier model for cement plant
The fix is not less monitoring or more monitoring. It is classifying decisions by risk and by novelty, rather than treating human oversight as a single switch that is either on or off. A workable model sorts factory floor events into three tiers.
The first tier, proceed, covers deviations the plant has seen before that fall within known safe bounds, such as a kiln feed rate adjustment within an established range. These should run without a stop for approval, because routing them to a person only trains that person to click through.
The second tier, pause, covers events that are unusual but not yet dangerous, such as a vibration reading trending toward a limit or a fuel blend shifting outside its typical mix. These warrant a brief human check before the system proceeds, giving an operator the chance to apply judgment the model does not yet have.
The third tier, escalate, covers events that are both high risk and unfamiliar, such as a pressure reading combined with a temperature spike that has no close precedent in the plant’s history. These should stop the process entirely and require a decision from someone with the authority to shut down a line.

Who should set the threshold
Where these tiers get drawn matters as much as the framework itself. Threshold setting is frequently handed to the vendor supplying the monitoring software or to a plant’s IT department, both of which understand the technology but not the specific tolerances of a given kiln, mill or line. Operations staff, who know that a particular grinding unit runs hotter under monsoon humidity or that a calciner behaves differently after a refractory reline, are better positioned to calibrate what counts as routine on their own equipment.
Handing threshold ownership to operations does not remove IT or vendors from the process, but it puts the calibration decision closest to the people who live with its consequences on the floor.

Signals that oversight is actually working
A few concrete indicators reveal whether a monitoring setup is functioning as intended or simply providing the appearance of safety. The escalation rate over time is the first: a rate that stays flat or climbs slowly as operations mature is healthy, while one that spikes and then falls sharply often means operators have started overriding the system rather than engaging with it. Time to resolution is the second: escalations that take progressively longer to close suggest fatigue or confusion about ownership, not diligence. The third, and most telling, is how accurate the system’s own uncertainty estimates turn out to be, meaning whether events flagged as high risk actually correlated with real incidents, and whether events waved through stayed incident free. A system whose escalations do not track with actual outcomes trains operators toward the same complacency that unmonitored equipment produces.
None of this argues against automation in Indian cement manufacturing, where a labor structure built on contract work and a track record of serious accidents make better monitoring an urgent need. It argues for treating human oversight as a design problem with three distinct settings, rather than a single
dial turned up whenever a plant wants to look safer on paper.

About the author:
Dijam Panigrahi, Co-founder and COO, GridRaster, is a spatial computing platform for industrial enterprises and manufacturers.