Page 176 - Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation

156 Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation

Majority of capacity additions in power generation using renewable energy
is gaining momentum in the present energy scenario. In recent years, dra-
matic increase in renewable energy technologies for power generation was
accelerated and deployed several plants in the country.
India is one such country, where the technology to use biomass- derived
fuel is essential to develop a matter of policy. Use of energy from biofuels
cannot be neglected as India has comparatively more villages and many
villages still do not have any electricity access, i.e., about 289 million peo-
ple still do not have access to electricity in the conventional sense [36].
It is imperative that any proposed system for off-grid power generation
should be economically viable and should not depend on conventional fu-
els. However, under present conditions, economic factors seem to provide
the strongest argument of considering gasification technology. In many sit-
uations, biomass gasification can provide an economically viable system,
provided the suitable biomass feedstock is easily and abundantly available.
Biomass gasifier projects for decentralized power supply in India and their
financial evaluation have been investigated [37, 38].
Per capita electricity consumption is 733 units, while world aver-
age is 2596 units as per 2005 data. However, India has already installed
150,000 MW generating capacity from renewable energy sources and is
moving toward decentralized power generation on a large scale for rural
electrification. Biomass fuels in various forms are abundantly available in
most of the countries. Comparing to more advanced countries, the biomass
scenario in India is completely different. The GDP of India still depends on
agricultural sectors; therefore, huge amount of agricultural residue is avail-
able in India. The total biomass reserve is expected to be a little more than
700 million tons during 2010–11 with the possibility of 1127 million tons
in 2024–25. Biomass provides 32% of all the primary energy used in the
country at present. The amount of biomass resources in India is estimated
to be about 565 million tons per year, including agricultural residues and
forest residues. The surplus biomass resource available for power generation
annually is about 189 million tons, which could support roughly 25 GW of
installed capacity. Different woody biomass and agricultural residues cor-
respond to a potential of about 18,000 MW and total installed capacity
of biomass-based power in India is 2559 MW. The country has a potential
to generate an additional 20 GW of electricity from biomass residues. The
world biomass production is estimated at about 146 billion metric tons per
year [37, 38]. Biomass accounts for 35% of primary energy consumption.
Further, Government of India has planned to create employment for the