The Hindu Business Line : Unlocking alternative sources for electricity

With conventional fossil fuel stocks proving to be prohibitively expensive, various innovations are being put to test across the country for power generation, including the use of jatropha oil across four States, a tidal waves project in West Bengal and a project based on coconut shells in Tamil Nadu. The projects are being seen as having potential to be replicated on a larger scale in order to provide off-grid connectivity to remote regions of the country.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has taken up a pilot demonstration project to study the feasibility of producing electricity from jatropha and other non-edible oils in the four States of Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh and it has been concluded that electricity can be generated from these sources. The projects are being funded through Central assistance.

Detailed Project

Financial support is also being provided to the West Bengal Government for the preparation of a detailed project report and environmental impact assessment study for a 3.65-MW demonstration tidal power project at Durgaduani in Sundarbans.

The Centre is bullish on the use of coconut shells as fuels for power generation in capacities ranging from a few kilowatts (kW) to a few mega watts (MW), depending upon the availability. R&D projects have been supported at the Indian Institute of Science and a 1-MW power station based on coconut shells has been commissioned at Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu.

The Ministry is also implementing an accelerated programme on energy recovery from urban wastes under which financial assistance in the form of capital subsidy ranging from Rs 1.5 crore to Rs 3 crore per MW with an upper limit of Rs 8 crore is being extended per project.

Energy Recovery

All the municipal corporations have been asked to develop proposals for setting up projects for energy recovery from urban wastes. Projects based on the technologies of biomethanation and combustion of refuse derived fuel (RDF) produced from municipal solid waste have been set up for energy recovery from different urban wastes.

Projects based on RDF route have been set up at Hyderabad and Vijayawada, with each plant generating 6.5 MW of power. Studies indicate that as much as 5,800 MW of power can be generated by setting up 900 power plants spread over in different parts of the country, which can be fuelled by municipal waste.

Besides, projects based on biomethanation have been successfully set up at Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh, for vegetable market wastes and at Medak, Andhra Pradesh, for slaughterhouse waste.

Power Generation

The country's largest off-grid solar power plant of 120-kW capacity has been set up at village Kaylapara on Sagar Island in the Sundarbans by the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency in collaboration with the Centre.

It is providing six hours of electrical energy to 33 villages of Sagar Island and the model of standalone Solar Energy System has the potential to be replicated in remote, hilly areas and island regions.

According to the National Hydrogen Energy Road Map recently prepared by a Steering Group on hydrogen energy constituted by the Centre, around 1,000 MW of hydrogen-based aggregate power generation capacity will be set up in the country by 2020.

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