Punjab Government has urged the Central Government to provide Viability Gap Funding (VGF) for lowering the cost of biomass power to Rs five per kwh at which price the utility is ready to purchase the power.

The information was shared by the state Additional Chief Secretary (Power) and Principal Secretary (New and Renewable Energy Sources) Ravneet Kaur during  a brainstorming session-cum-interaction meet on Biomass Based Power Plants/Co-Generation Projects/Bio-CNG/Bio-Ethanol/Bio-Coal Projects organized by Punjab Energy Development Agency in collaboration with Indian Council for Agriculture Research (ICAR), Bhopal.

The inaugural session focused on utilization of rice straw, causing lot of environmental pollution, which can be used in various technologies like Biomass Based Power Plants, Co-Generation Projects, Bio-CNG, Bio-Ethanol or Bio-Coal Projects etc.

Responding to the state’s demand, the Union Ministry of New and Renewable Energy Joint Secretary Dinesh Dayanand Jagdale said that MNRE was working on this and will shortly bring out some policy or support mechanism for promoting Biomass Power Projects.

During technical session, major companies — Bioendev AB Sweden, VERBIO INDIA — gave presentation about their ongoing projects being set up in the state of Punjab of conversion of rice straw into torrified bio-coal pallets and Bio-CNG respectively.

Sukhbir Agro director Harbhajan Singh also shared their experiences of setting up two 18 MW 100 percent rice straw based biomass power plants in the State by utilization of boiler technologies from company in Denmark.

Gurkeerat Sekhon from Punjab Renewable Energy System gave presentation on their strategy and action plan for rice straw collection and supply chain mechanism including setting up of projects for conversion of rice straw into steam into industrial process using.

In the second technical session, presentation was made by Manas Puri, Food and Agriculture organization of the United Nations (FAO), regarding their study and experience with regard to managing rice straw and utilization for conversion into valuable products.

Cities Innovative Biofules CEO Dr Gurjot Singh briefed about their upcoming Bio-CNG project based on technology from a company in Switzerland.