DESI Power Orchha
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Experience of Power Generation with Biomass Gasification
- by Keshav Kumar, NETPRO Renewable Energy
Ltd
- Shiv Kumar, DESI Power (Decentralised Energy System
India Pvt. Ltd.) Bangalore.
Presented at IIT Delhi, November
1999.
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Electrical power is the most essential input for economic development.
In post-independence India, however, the centralised power has not
been able to provide adequate amounts of electricity required for
the economic growth of the rural areas where the majority of Indian
live.
The possibilities of decentralised generation systems in Indian
villages have been assessed in the light of this situation and concept
of Independent Rural power producers (IRPP) has been evolved to
take advantage of the changed government policies and legal framework
for the power sectors. IRPPs can be used as a social market instrument
to provide power and energy services to rural areas. Similar in
its structure to the IPPs in the centralised power sector, IRPPs
based on local sources of renewable energy, can under today's conditions,
be competitive with power supplied from conventional fossil fuel
power plants at point end-use.
In the global context, no energy planning exercise today should
ignore the potential of renewable energy technologies in reducing
the Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Since decentralised energy
systems are the ideal vehicles for the large scale commercialisation
of renewable energy and the simultaneous promotion of sustainable
development of villages, the IRPP solution presents an ideal win-win
situation.
is a private, no profit-to-the-promoters company whose mission is
to build decentralised energy systems in rural areas on large scale
and on a commercial basis for meeting local energy needs and promoting
the creation of substantial local livelihoods.
DESI power is registered in New Delhi and was formed jointly by
Development Alternatives, India's largest International sustainable
development NGO, through its commercial wing, Technology and Action
for Rural Advancement (TARA), and DASAG, a Swiss engineering company
internationally active in renewable energy field for the last two
decades. DESI's first cluster company was formed as DESI power Orchha
in 1996 at TARAgram Orchha.
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TARAgram is a training-cum-production centre set up
by Development Alternatives (DA), New Delhi in Tikamgarh district
of Madhya Pradesh, about 7 km from Orchha town. The centre is only
6 km away from Jhansi. The main objective behind starting this centre
was to initiate various activities for sustainable development of
the region.
When TARAgram was being set up, no grid connection
was available for the centre. At that time, DA decided to try out
the new and upcoming technology of gasification for power generation.
The technology developed by IISc, Bangalore and commercialised by
Netpro Renewable Energy (I) Ltd, Bangalore was to use a locally
available weed called Ipomea for generation of power. Based on a
renewable energy, the technology was certainly attractive. So, at
the planning stage itself, a 100 kW plant based on this technology
to run two diesel engine of 62.5 kVA capacity was considered to
be the main source of supply of power for TARAgram. The gasifier
based power plant was commissioned on April 19, 1996, while TARAgram
was formally inaugurated on April 22, 1996.
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The major activities in TARAgram are production of hand made paper
and low cost building materials. These units are a part of TARA,
the commercial wing of DA. These units are thus profit centres.
On similar lines, it was decided to run the gasifier based power
plant as well on a commercial basis to test the commercial viability
of such a venture. In August '96 DESI power Orchha Pvt. Ltd. was
set up. This company henceforth referred to as DPO, was to sell
the power from the gasifier based power plant to various users of
power in TARAgram. The main users of this power at TARAgram are
hand made paper unit, low cost building materials production unit,
workshop, pumping water and for illumination in the complex. It
is also proposed to use the waste heat from two dual-fuel diesel
engines to supply hot air for drying the paper during monsoon months.
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| Big beater |
22
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| Small beater |
16
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| Agitator-1 |
2.2
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| Agitator -2 |
2.2
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| Agitator -3 |
3.7
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| Calendering machine |
7.5
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Total |
53.6
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| Cylinder mould |
19.9
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| Paper cutting machine |
7.3
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| MCR |
2
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| Mixer |
2.5
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| F/C machine |
1.4
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| Crane |
2.5
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Total |
35.6
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Parasitic loads of the
power plant
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Total connected
load to the power plant: 94.8 kWe
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| Water pump |
2.23
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| Blower |
0.735
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Wood cutter
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2.23
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| Illumination to the power plant |
0.5
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Total |
5.69
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After the plant was set up, the most crucial part was to
have a sustained supply of biomass. The biomass used for the
plant is a locally available weed ipomea, which grows in marshy
areas. On direct combustion, this gives a very pungent odor
and hence is not used as fuel wood for cooking purpose. This
biomass is totally unused in the region. For the purpose of
gasification, ipomea needs to be harvested from the marshy
areas and near water body. It further needs to be chopped
in to small pieces of about 2-3 inches. The chopping is done
in the green condition. It is then dried from an original
moisture content of about 65% to 12-15%, before it can be
fed in to the gasifier.
Since TARAgram was set up essentially to assist in the development
of the local region, the above activities of biomass harvesting,
chopping and transport were considered as a source of income
for the local people. Staff members of TARAgram who were already
interacting with the villagers for different development programmes,
put a lot of effort to mobilise local people to undertake
the above activities for the supply of Ipomea. While the social
interest had to be taken care of, It was also required to
keep the cost of Ipomea with in reasonable limits for this
would have had a direct bearing on the cost of power supplied.
Many arrangements were tried out like -
to contract to certain
villagers for supply of chopped biomass
harvesting on daily wages
and chopping on weight basis
Different alternative arrangement suits for a particular
season based on the availability of labours.
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Performance of DesiPower's
Power Plant at Orchha from 1996 - 2002
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Performance of DesiPower's
Power Plant at Orchha from 1996 - 2002
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The cooling water required for the gasifier is taken from
the wastewater coming out from the paper unit.
The water coming out from the paper unit carries some of the
waste materials. This water is filtered using a mesh and then
used for cooling in gasifier.
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The stem of the Ipomea is of cylindrical cross section with
cylindrical annuls space at the centre. Ipomea sucks salts
from the earth and stores it in this annular space. When this
is used for the gasification purposes, the cooling water has
a lot of effluents. After a sustained research done by IISc
- DASAG specialists, a method has been found to treat this
water to remove the effluents after coming out from the power
plant at a very reasonable cost.
The water coming out from the power plant is allowed to pass
through filter beds. The design ensures adequate residence
times and flow rates to bring down the levels of contaminants
to acceptable values. The treated water can be safely discharged
or be re-circulated.
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