Biomass Power-Green Energy Commitment in India

Abstract

Biomass is a renewable energy resource derived from living biological matter. It has environmental benefits because its combustion emits lesser amount of pollutants compared with the conventional fuels like coal, and so on. Another advantage of biomass is that it can be used as a fuel in the existing conventional power plants. In India, approximately 70% of the population is dependent on biomass for its energy and approximately 32% of the total energy is derived from biomass. Electricity generation from biomass uses technologies like cofiring and gasification. In cofiring, power plants a part of coal is replaced with biomass. Carbon monoxide and Hydrogen are produced by gasification as the main products, which are used for synthesizing chemicals and power production. It has been observed that the underdevelopment of technology and lack of commercialization as well as the use of fodder biomass as a fuel could be considered as the possible weakness which has to be overcome in future efforts. Furthermore, it is pointed out that in a developing country like India, an optimum approach could be to promote small power units (30-300 KW) fueled by agro residues. This article deals with the thermo chemical conversion of biomass and the reasons for biomass not being used extensively for power production.

Keywords: Barriers, biomass power generation, gasification, thermochemical conversion

Cite this Article

Sushmita Mohapatra. Biomass Power-Green Energy Commitment in India. Research & Reviews: A Journal of Life Sciences. 2018; 8(3): 97–101p