Access to sources of energy
Topic: Secondary Activities: Manufacturing and Industrial Location · NCERT: Class 12, Ch 5 "Secondary Activities"
Meaning
Access to sources of energy is a factor in industrial location, which means where a factory chooses to set up. Some industries use a lot of power, so they set up close to a cheap and steady energy supply. This cuts their costs and keeps the machines running.
Coal was once the main source of energy, and it pulled many industries towards coalfields. Hydroelectricity (power from flowing water) and petroleum later became common. Because of this, coal's pull on industrial location has become weaker.
Example
Aluminium smelting is the classic case, because it needs huge amounts of electricity. In India, the aluminium plants at Hirakud in Odisha and Renukoot in Uttar Pradesh use cheap hydropower. Abroad, Norway, Iceland and Quebec in Canada smelt aluminium with hydropower for the same reason.
Don't confuse with
- Access to raw material: here a factory sits near its inputs because they are heavy or spoil quickly. Sugar mills, for example, sit near sugarcane fields. An energy-based factory sits near cheap power, even when its raw material comes from far away.
Related concepts
- Industrial location
- Access to market
- Weight-losing raw material
- Regional policy
- Agglomeration economies