Maharashtra, Punjab top producers of green energy from farm waste

Every November, farmers in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan burn their agricultural waste increasing the air pollution in the national capital region and neighbouring cities — home to over 25 million people.

Updated on: Aug 31, 2015, 01:18:27 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Three years ago, when representatives from Sukhbir Agro approached farmers in Punjab proposing they sell their farm waste to the company to generate bio-energy, no one believed them.

In Maharashtra’s Satara district, molasses from sugarcane is processed to generate power and also used as fertiliser for crops. (HT file photo)

“They proposed to buy our waste… We didn’t believe them,” said Amolak Singh, a farmer.

However, as the farmers slowly came around to the idea the green benefits of this move became apparent.

Every November, farmers in the northern states of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan burn their agricultural waste increasing the air pollution in the national capital region and neighbouring cities — home to over 25 million people.

The waste collected is enough for the company’s biomass plant to generate green electricity around the clock, which then is sold to the Punjab government at a price higher than thermal power.

“They buy my produce and my waste,” said an elated Amolak Singh, adding that by selling the waste helps him cover his annual farm labour costs.

Since the quality of the waste is also good, the company’s efficiency is about 80% — almost the same as thermal power and much higher than that of solar power which currently stands at 13-18%.

Maharashtra shows the way

A 2012 study by IIT-Kharagpur said that since most farmers do not find buyers for their waste, they burn it — which releases a huge amount of emissions — or dump it leading to soil and water contamination.

India generates about 350 million tonnes of agricultural waste every year, which can generate more than 18,000 MW of power a year. While its productive use is limited, Maharashtra’s Satara district has shown it can be done by processing sugarcane molasses for to generate electricity and act as fertilizer for fields.

A unit, set up by a company in collaboration with Sugarcane Farmers’ Cooperative and German federal technical agency GIZ, collects the waste from around 10,000 sugarcane farmers. It is then treated and fed into a boiler at the unit to generate electricity.

Suresh Aklekar, chairperson of the cooperative, told HT it is a win-win situation. “The productivity has improved since the fertiliser was used and the problem of dealing with the waste has also been taken care of,” he said, adding many other cooperatives in Maharashtra have now started adopting this new development model.

Biomass mission

While Punjab and Maharashtra have taken a lead in setting up biomass plants, other states like Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh — which contribute half of India’s annual agricultural waste worth Rs 50,000 crore —are lagging behind because of low tariff.

The ministry of new and renewable energy’s review found that tariff as low as Rs 2.2 in Kerala, Rs 3.3 in Madhya Pradesh, Rs 3.6 in Karnataka and Rs 4 in Uttar Pradesh as compared to Rs 5.05 per unit in Punjab and Rs 4.98 per unit in Maharashtra, thus making them attractive destination for investors in the new-age green power.

To provide a level-playing field across the states and give them an incentive, the government had planned to set up a national biomass mission to harness 620 million tonnes of bio-resources.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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