2011 International Conference on Alternative Energy in Developing Countries and Emerging Economies
- 99 -
Abstract
-- Agro residue is the most abundant and
versatile form of renewable energy in the world.
Currently, several technologies are available for
transforming crop residues into utilizable energy such
as direct combustion and fermentation. In Punjab,
million of tons of agricultural residue being generated
every year, but it is spatially scattered. Due to
increasing costs, decreasing margins and lack of
alternative methods compel the farmers to follow the
cheap harmful way of disposal of agro residue; mainly
by burning in the fields, which causes environmental
pollution that leads to severe health problems. The
thrust area of this paper is to present the prevailing
agricultural scenario of Punjab state and to assess
various types of agro residue in state, collection of agro
residue samples for its detailed analysis (proximate,
ultimate analysis) and to explore the technology
viability for clean power production.
Index Terms--
Agro residue, Decentralized power,
Strategic, Ultimate analysis, Strategic.
I.
I
NTRODUCTION
Punjab, a north Indian state has made a great
progress not only in agriculture but also in industrial,
transport and household sectors resulting in tremendous
increase in energy demand. The electricity consumption
has increased from 15.8 billion kWh in 1995-96 to
32.12 billion kWh in 2005-2006 and the average annual
growth-rate of electricity consumption is 14.98 %. It is
feared that conventional resources may not be able to
meet the rising electricity demand as the annual growth
rate of installed capacity during the last five years has
declined to 2.85% in comparison to more than 7%
during the three decades. The consumption of
petroleum products in Punjab has also experienced a
nominal rise. Punjab state does not have its own
resources of conventional fuels such as coal, petroleum
products and hydel energy. The state has to depend on
neighboring states for hydel energy and the far off
states like Bihar for coal. Therefore, the development
of the state can be jeopardized by any natural calamities
not within the control of the state government, thereby
threatening
the
sustainability
of
economic
development.[1-2]
.
The state occupies 1.5 % of the
geographical area of the country (India) and two- third
of the food grains procured annually in the country
come from this state. Cultivation area has been
increased to 42.68 lakh hectares, which is 85% of the
gross state area 50.36 lakh hectares. With better supply
of irrigation water through canals and electric motor
pumps, which is 97% of the cultivated area the
foodgrain production improved to 3.16 million tones
[3]. Main crops are rice, wheat, maize, cotton, oilseeds,
ground nut, sugarcane, bajra, jowar, pulses and cereals
barely etc. During the crop cultivation large volume of
agricultural residue has been produced in the fields, It is
estimated that 22.65 million tones of agro residue and
agro industrial / processing waste is produced annually.
But unfortunately its major part it is being burnt in the
fields, which alone has a potential of producing
1500MW of electricity [4]. Beside power potential
burning of 01 tonne of residue releases 3 kg of
particulate, 60 kg of CO, 1460 kg of CO
2
, 199 kg of ash
and 2 kg of SO
2,
which causes severe health problems
like white cataract, asthma, cancer, lung diseases and
other breathing related problems [5]. So wealth is
being burned in the fields which create pollution
problems in the state and decreasing the land fertility.
Punjab has made tremendous progress not only in the
agricultural sector but in the industrial, transport and
household sectors also. [6-7]. To meet the supply and
demand gap and to address the problem of pollution
due to agro waste, state government has changed
energy policy and under the (NRSE) policy 2006,
government of Punjab offered a financial and fiscal
incentives to add a generation capacity of 1000 MW by
the year 2020 bringing the share of NRSE to the level
of 10% of the conventional power. Punjab state
electricity commission has issued directives under the
section 108 of the electricity act 2003 for the
compliance of the NRSE-2006 policy [8-9].
II. M
ATERIALS AND METHODS
The methodology for conducting the present study is
being adopted as following:
A. Selection of Geographical region:
Proximate and Ultimate Analysis of Agro Residue
for a Strategic Approach of its Utilization
J. Singh
*
and L. Singh
**
*
Department of Mechanical Engineering , SLIET Longowal, (
India
)
**
Department of College of Engineering & Management, Punjabi University Neighbourhood Campus, (
India)
