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and gives rise to pollution owing to production of gases like employment opportunities are enhanced because of the local
CO2. labour (skilled and unskilled) required for the maintenance
In order to contrive an effective solution to this problem, a and operation. A number of local people are bound to find
thorough diagnosis of the current scenario has to be chalked employment in the form of workers in biomass plant as well.
out. The plan to be devised depends on how the existing The proposed methodology provides a comprehensive
resources in the village are being utilized and how they can sustainable energy solution for the village community with
be turned into useful and clean forms of energy for the village the present level of proven technology solutions [12-16]
households and the village itself in general. which are robust, reliable, easy to maintain, inexpensive and
Recent work or field activities have tried different easy to handle.
approaches. Integrated Renewable Energy Systems (IRES),
first proposed in [4], has gained appreciable popularity. The II. ENERGY PLAN
proposal in [2] experiments with different scenarios of
renewable energy usage based on availability and feasibility, A. Current Resource Use Scenario
while [8] deals with not renewable sources alone, but uses The work presented in the paper is fully based on the
hybrid technology where diesel plant is used as a supplement survey conducted, which provided the authors with enough
for hydro, solar and other non-conventional technology. The particulars of the village like population, main occupation,
inequality in the energy consumption pattern in the rural literacy, land in acres, both cultivated and uncultivated, major
community is studied in [3] while the potential of tapping the crops, types of crop residues, livestock, electricity demand for
energy from municipal waste is discussed in detail in [6]. agriculture, domestic and street lightning etc. It also revealed
This paper completely deals with a survey conducted by all the practices followed by people in order to meet their
the authors, in a village, namely “Bacharam”, near daily energy requirements. The conventional practices did
Hyderabad in India. This village comprises 231 households. indicate an unhealthy way of living with no utilization of the
The energy needs of the village based on the survey are available renewable resources. These practices are not only
mentioned where appropriate. The renewable sources of energy inefficient, hazardous but also pose the problem of
energy proposed to be put to use for improving the overall environmental pollution.
energy scenario include biomass, biogas and solar energy. The current practice scenario depicted by the survey could
Biomass can be produced from agro waste, mainly paddy convey:
in the case of this village, and can be utilized to generate Cooking: LPG cylinders and fire wood.
electricity in a biomass plant. The biomass plant has been Heating: Burning fire wood.
proposed as a community plant where the excess electricity Electricity: 10 out of 231 houses unelectrified and
generated can be fed back to the grid. remaining receive highly discontinuous power.
Biogas is produced from animal dung. The village has B. Proposed Solution in Brief
been found to have households owning cows, buffaloes and
By changing the above practices of resource management
goats. The biogas plants are proposed to be common for a
to clean and eco-friendly techniques, the dependability on
group of 2 or 3 households according to the villagers’ need.
conventional energy would be reduced while overcoming the
The biogas produced supplements the gas needs of the
energy shortage and assuring more continuity in supply. In
villagers and avoids wood being used as a fuel.
the following sections, cost effective, reliable, eco-friendly
Solar Power is an alternative source to biogas for cooking
and easily adaptable methods of energy conversion are
purposes in the form of solar cooker technology. The solar
presented.
power is however proposed as an unopposed solution for the
The plan, as depicted in fig. 1, proposes separate enhanced
heating purposes. The solar heater and cooker are rated based
and cost effective ways of utilizing these resources, for
on the amount of water usage for heating and average food
different requirements like:
needs for cooking, respectively.
i. Agro waste is collected and used for power
The aim is to use the resources in the village itself to
generation with the help of a biomass based
satisfy the needs as much as possible within the cost
community plant which serves the purpose of
capability of the village economy. The economic analysis of
electricity demand from households, street
proposed scheme also provides the details about the payback
lighting and agriculture.
period of the fixed investment for electrical energy generation
ii. Animal waste is used for the production of bio-
system.
gas which serves as cooking gas.
The goal of this approach is to not only bring about a
iii. The proposed usage of solar energy is for water
major improvement in the energy scenario of the village but
heating and cooking.
also impart a considerable uplift to the village economy. This
is achieved by ensuring both the complete electrification of
the region and the continuous supply of energy. Moreover, the
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requirement is 3 cu.m of biogas for a collection of 3 water required for bathing in total would be 4 buckets, which
households. However, the demand on the biogas plant can be is nearly 80 litres. A capacity of 100 litre per day (lpd) can
put down to an approximate 2 cu.m for the plant given that thus be chosen for a household. If the household consists of
the solar cookers are an evident alternative during the day more members, the same capacity would be enough as the
time. total quantity of water heated need not be used for bathing.
The details regarding the cattle heads required for The temperature which can be attained is 85 decrees C. So, a
different capacities of biogas plants to be installed are mixture of hot and cold water would suffice. On the other
provided in the Table I. As per the survey conducted, the 231 hand, households requiring lesser amount of hot water can
households have an equivalent of 1.67 cattle heads each, on adjust the temperature to lower range with the knob.
an average, resulting in a total of about 5 cattle heads for 3 The cost of the solar water heating system ranges from Rs.
houses. From the details below, a range of 4-6 cattle heads 15,000 to Rs. 20,000 for a typical 100 litre system, or
would correspond to a 2 cu.m capacity plant. Rs.110/- to Rs.150/- per litre for higher capacities. The life of
the system is around 10-15 years if maintained properly. The
TABLE I operation and maintenance cost is negligible.
PLANT CAPACITY DETAILS
c. The grid utility is now rid of the burden to supply some cases.
energy. In fact it can purchase the excess energy and
B. Electricity Demand for Household and Agriculture
transmit to the needy and high tension areas.
The annual electric consumption in the village, as
IV. COST EFFECTIVENESS OF ENERGY PLAN calculated before from the billing details, is 619.794 MWh.
Meanwhile, the potential production from the community
The plan idea laid out in the paper so far comprised
biomass plant stands at an approximate 1275.45 MWh at a
addressing the main concerns of the village’s energy
plant capacity factor of 0.8. It is thus not only possible to
requirements. How effective enough the proposal of the idea
supply the connected load but further electrification of the
can be deemed is understood by the observations noted below.
village is also feasible.
A. Domestic Needs like Cooking The plant cost calculated as before is around Rs. 0.728
Currently, the households are using firewood and LPG crore. The fixed cost can be recovered by the community
cylinders. The use of firewood is not environment friendly as plant utility, based on two aspects, one being the current tariff
well as not efficient. LPG cylinders use a conventional source at which the village connected load is currently supplied from
of energy, gas. However, the biogas plant proposed in the grid, and the other, the rate at which the excess power can
common for 3 households comes with a fixed initial be sold to the grid. In addition, the villagers benefit too as
installation cost. they can always sell the agro-waste at a uniform rate rather
A biogas plant of a capacity of about 2 cu.m costs around than how they do so now randomly for any kind of return.
Rs. 3000 for a single household on an average, according to The rate of return on the biomass plant may seem rather
the calculation done before. On an average, the LPG gas linear as shown in fig. 5, given it is based on the cost the grid
cylinder costing around Rs. 315, as per current rates, lasts is currently levying per unit consumed by the village. The
about 40 days for a family of about 4-6 members. If the fixed monthly or bi-monthly consumption in the village is
initial cost of the solar cooker is assumed to be around Rs. attainable from the billing details. Though the monthly or
2000, the total fixed cost of Rs. 5000 accounts for up to 16 seasonal demand may vary, the annual amount does not
periods of LPG cylinder usage, i.e., about 640 days. The deviate very much in the rural areas. The calculation done
payback cost of the plant can thus be fixed at 21-22 months or here does consider varying demand over a month’s duration,
even approximately 2 years. but the rate of return considered annually is pictured quite
A graphic representation in fig. 4 shows the payback uniform as shown.
capability of the combined resource of biogas plant and solar
cooker, with LPG cylinder usage taken as the reference. The
cylinder usage may not tally with the same figure every
month. The graph shown takes into consideration, random
usage of the cylinder for a home every month and calculates
the payback period on a monthly basis, for the combined cost
of the plant and cooker.
V. CONCLUSION
The motive of the paper is to essentially draw out a plan to
integrate the abundantly available renewable sources of
energy which are currently discarded or untapped for no
reason. A field survey compiled by the authors could reveal a
Fig. 4. Payback period for technology used for cooking clear insight into the lack of awareness to exploit free and
clean sources of energy at a time of energy crisis when the
The random flat lines in the graph signify the true fact that
energy scenario is far from acceptable. The village is not
the cylinders may last for more than a month’s duration in
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