Advantages of decentralised biomass based power plants
That the centralised power sector has failed to be the motor of development
for the rural areas is clear from the national statistics. Of the
half a million or so villages in India, about 3,10,000 villages have
been declared to be electrified and 80,000 more villages remain completely
un-electrified.
In actual practice, most of the so-called electrified villages
do not have reliable, regular, adequate, or good quality power.
No commercial investments in micro enterprises can therefore be
made by either individuals or companies without installing diesel
generators which have a very high generating cost.
In addition, with the advent of mature renewable energy technologies,
the supply of power to remote rural areas from the centralised grid
is no longer competitive, for example, with a modern biomass gasification
based decentralised power plant.
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Centralised Vs Decentralised
Power Supply
|
|
|
| |
| MW |
Cost Rs |
MW |
Cost Rs |
MW |
Cost Rs |
| Centralised Grid Supply |
1 |
35 million |
0.3 |
5 million |
0.7 |
57 million |
| Decentralised biomass
power plant (gasification) |
1 |
35 million |
0.1 |
5 million |
0.9 |
44 million |
| |
| Generation / End Use |
0.2 MW per MW generated |
22% |
13 million Rs/MW |
29.5 % |
|
| CO2 emissions |
|
|
|
|
5500 t/y per MW |
The economic consequences are quite dramatic. For 80000 un-electrified
villages, a modest 50 kW of installed capacity per village will lead
to total saving of 52000 million Rs (Rs 5200 Crore / 1100 million
US $) in power plant investments. In energy terms, the saving in T&D
losses will release a generation capacity of 800 MW for profitable
sale. Reduced pollution and reduction of CO2 emissions will be the
other advantages of a decentralised renewable energy based system
for the rural areas.
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