OFB eyes solar power, rainwater harvesting

Nagpur: The Ordnance Factory Board (OFB) has recently increased its focus on non-conventional energy and rain water harvesting, as a part of activities other than its core business. After participating in the national solar mission, targets have been drawn up to meet 45% of the factories’ total energy requirements through solar power. This is expected to bring down the cost of power consumption by a considerable extent.
The installation of grid connected solar power projects in various OFB units has resulted in generation of around 1,47,12,072.14 units of electrical power till November 2018. This comes to nearly 8.24% of the total power consumed during 2018-19. The solar initiative has helped bring down the cost of power consumption significantly, said a press release issued by OFB.
The OFB release said the organization has also taken steps for rain water harvesting. During 2017-16, six new projects with rain harvesting facilities were completed by the organization. The number went up to 32 in 2018-19. Now there are plans to take up 60 new projects for rain water harvesting.
The OFB has units in Nagpur as well as Chandrapur and Bhandara in Vidarbha region. It also has a major presence in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh with three key units in Jabalpur. The Gun Carriage Factory at Jabalpur is also engaged in making the Dhanush guns — which is the indigenous version of 155mm Bofors guns.