Biogas Magazine Edition 08

EDITION 08 | 2019

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B I G A S Magazine *Biogas Plant in President House : Pg 6 * Waste product poten�al for producing biogas is standing by in the hull : Pg 23 * Biogas Plant and Community Mobiliza�on : Pg 28

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Index

Case Study

06

Biogas Plant in President House

IBA News Adding life to Biogas industry: Joint Pavillion of Biogas

08

International Corner Biomethane production in agriculture and evolution of the European and Italian regulatory framework

12

Waste product potential for producing biogas is standing by in the hull

23

in India

Success Story 28

Biogas Plant and Community Mobilization

Research and Development Brigding the Skill Gap in India’s Clean Energy Market: Biogas Centric

31

National Corner

Published by

Status of Indian Biogas programme: An opinion

17

Biogas and its barrier in India

36

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Coordinated by

In-Cooperation with

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 05 5

Foreword Dear Readers, We are excited to bring to you our eighth edition of the quarterly biogas magazine.

In this edition, we are covering an exciting case study of Biogas plant installed at President house, a success story of a biogas plant which has set an exemplary social model to secure the supply of the feedstock and offtake of fertilizer, harnessing biogas from cruise ships’ waste, and special coverage of biogas & its upgradation. The magazine also covers status of biogas programs of India, and biogas production in agriculture sector and regulatory framework scenario in Europe, with special emphasis on Italy.

Ever since we transgressed into the second phase of the BIG-P (Indogerman Biogas Partnership), the flagship partnership program between the Associations (Indian Biogas Association and German Biogas Association), we are working to building a healthy activity pipeline in 2019, which comprises the launch of Online Biogas Training, organization of Joint Pavilion of Biogas at Renewable Energy India Expo 2019, commencement of a first regional group of IBA in

the southern part of India, a joint round table meeting of stakeholders association’s meeting, and so on. Each of these activities are expected to which can contribute significantly to the growth of the Biogas sector.

The online Training will be launched in coming months, where Biogas enthusiasts will be able to learn the Biogas basics and shall also feature some specialization modules on Biogas, which shall facilitate entrepreneurs to foray into the sector.

A Joint Pavilion of Biogas, has been planned, which shall witness the participation of numerous exhibitor companies along with the visit of many international and national companies, investors, bureaucrats, and government officials under single umbrella. The joint pavilion will be increasing the visibility of the sector at national platform along with supporting several government led initiatives to achieve the desired targets, as envisaged in these scheme. For more details about the upcoming programs, please check the magazine.

We would also like to extend our gratitude to all of

our members for their indispensable contribution in the membership survey and joint pavilion survey. The inputs provided by the members have provided us with some important key-insights on which IBA has started working and soon the results will be presented to the members in the third edition of our General Assembly.

As always, we are keen to present to you interesting opinions, suggestions, case studies, and best practices happening across the globe related to Biogas. We hope that you’ll enjoy the diverse collection of contributions from our authors. We’ll keep coming with the finest content to our readers to keep them apprised with the progress of the green sector in the most exciting manner.

Happy digesting!

Gaurav Kedia Chairman Indian Biogas Association

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Case Study Biogas Plant in President House

S

ustainable economic and environmental concerns have resulted in a great number of researches on renewable sources of biomass and bioenergy to treat organic waste scientifically in the past decades. Decentralized biogas technology is one of the most potential technologies of biomass and bioenergy by using organic waste materials (e.g., animal manure, grass cuttings and kitchen waste) as feedstocks.

In this article, Indian Biogas Association is concentrating on the state-of-the-art biogas plant recently installed and commissioned at Rashtrapati Bhawan (President house - which is an imposing edifice located at the west end of the Rajpath in New Delhi with the India Gate at the opposite end). Our team visited the site on April 9, 2019. The biogas site location is near the stables of president’s bodyguards.

The two tonnes per day organic waste processing biogas plant mainly takes horse manure, cattle dung, and kitchen waste. The horse dung was earlier a problem mainly due to the absence of the waste processing mechanism before a decentralized biogas plant was installed. Now, horse manure is being treated in the plant along with cow dung

and kitchen residual to generate biogas and Bio-slurry.

One of the local officer said that such a project is not only good from energy production and waste management perspective but also avoids contamination of surface and ground waters and emissions of odors, Ammonia, and greenhouse gases.

One of the operation team’s member told us that the horse manure and cow dung have been collected in a separate pit, where recycled slurry is mixed in it and then fed into the digester with the help of feeding pump. The food waste is being separately collected and brought to the plant by the local staff. It is then segregated by the plant operation team, crushed and fed into the digester.

The cylindrical shaped horizontal digester is then heated with the help of heating rods to maintain the temperature. The retention time of the waste is typically 20-25 days in the digester. The biogas generated out of the digester is stored in the Biogas balloon from where it goes to the canteen and to partially fulfill their cooking gas need. The total biogas storage capacity of the balloon and the di-

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gester tank is 150 cubic meters. The slurry gets collected in an underground tank.

It is thereafter mainly used in the president house gardens.

The plant is commissioned and operated by the Arun Green Ventures Pvt Ltd.; a Bangalore based company.

The foundation of the state of art biogas plant was laid in December 2018 and it started working from January 2019. “This plant is successfully running for over three months. It is a pride for the Biogas industry to get a place in the President House of India�, said Mr. S. R. Kumar, Director of Aruna Green Ventures Pvt. Ltd. Summarizing, this decentralized containerized biogas plant encompassing the in-house waste generation, biogas, and bio-slurry utilization can set a benchmark and be a way forward, particularly as their complexity has

Biogas Baloon

been identified. It can also deliver beneficial synergies for the decentralized biogas production in industrial regions/resorts responsible for food processing and waste management.

Abhijeet Mukherjee Project Coordinator Indian Biogas Association

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Adding life to the Biogas Industry: Joint Pavilion of Biogas

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enewable energies have become the buzz-word in the Indian market since COP 21 where India set an ambitious target to reach 175 GW by 2025. To achieve this target, the present government ramped up its efforts and introduced many new policies and revamped old policies to support solar energy, wind energy, bio-energy, and other RE energies alternatives. The result was skyrocketing growth of the solar sector followed by the wind energy sector. While these two sectors are witnessing steep growth, Bio-energy especially Biogas is moving a bit slowly to achieve its true potential.

Biogas sector can play a crucial role in RE portfolio of the country because it can not only provide on-demand energy but can also manage fluctuation in energy generated by solar and wind. In addition to the energy aspect, it is a solution to the waste management problem and can stop the contamination of the groundwater and soil by processing organic waste in Biogas plants instead of dumping it into the landfills.

To showcase the potential of Biogas to the country, IBA presented the Biogas sector at Renewable Energy India Expo 2018 by organizing an exhibition booth and a day-long conference session, which received overwhelming response. IBA was also present at the International trade fair IFAT 2018, Munich.

In September 2018, Government policies like

Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT) scheme created the demand in the Indian market. In SATAT, it is planned to roll out 5,000 Compressed BioGas plants across India in a phased manner, with 250 plants by the year 2020, 1,000 plants by 2022 and 5,000 plants by 2025.

These plants are expected to produce 15 million tonnes of CBG per annum, which is about 40% of current CNG consumption of 44 million tonnes per annum in the country. At an investment of approx. Rs. 1.7 lakh crore, this initiative is expected to generate direct employment for 75,000 people and produce 50 million tonnes of bio-manure for crops. The scheme created big demand in the market and opened up new dimensions for Biogas to establish itself in energy portfolio of India.

(Source pib.nic.in) IBA understood the demand in the market and to bridge up the gap between demand and supply, IBA is coming up with a Joint Pavilion of Biogas this year at Renewable Energy India Expo 2019, in Greater Noida from Sep 18-20. The main objective of the pavilion is to project Biogas as one of the best solution to the waste (organic) problem and an alternative resource for renewable energy and producer of organic fertilizer. The Pavilion is expected to witness the participation from different national and international companies covering the whole value chain of the sector and will provide all biogas related solution under one roof.

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It will also offer the Biogas companies a the cost-effective option of branding, marketing, lead generation, networking with central & state government officers, investors, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and stakeholders. The pavilion will also be accompanied by a day-long conference on Biogas, Bio-CNG and waste management.

the government and Joint Pavilion will be a stepping stone of the bright future of Biogas”, said Dr. A. R. Shukla, President of Indian Biogas Association. To summarise, I can say that It’s an effort of the association to add life to the Biogas industry to push it to reach its true potential in coming years to assure the greener and sustainable future of the country.

“It is the right time for the Biogas industry to bloom with necessary push provided by

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 12

Biomethane production in agriculture and evolution of the European and Italian regulatory framework

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ecently the European debate has significantly focused on the goals and strategies for implementation of renewable energy policies.

The European Union, as well as the entire planet, actually, is faced with many challenges in the energy sector, such as the increase of global energy demand, the growing threats due to climate change and the increase of greenhouse gas emissions, the lack of energy efficiency as well as the need for further integration and interconnection of global energy markets.

Worldwide, the energy sector is responsible for over two thirds of global greenhouse gas emissions and for 80% of CO2 emissions. In this context, in 2016 the CO2 production from China rose 28%, the United States 15% and the European Union 8% and together emits half of global emissions.

Figure 1: ENAMA projection of World Bank Data

European energy policies, over the past few years, have provided for the development of a wide range of actions aimed at creating a competitive and integrated energy market in the EU, at improving the security of energy supply and at increasing the environmental sustainability. Renewable energy support policies have been instrumental in the expansion of renewable energies and are very important for the future and development of a country.

The continuous and plentiful availability of energy and its competitive prices is one of

the most important factor for a sustainable development of the system, also necessary in order to strengthen the competitiveness of the single country within an increasingly globalized world, with the purpose of maximizing the positive impacts on employment sector and of achievement of higher well-being of citizens.

Eu Legislation on Promotion of Renewable Energies European Union has a global key role in the fight against global change and, in this frame, has adopted many strategies for the development of renewable sources aimed at increasing energy efficiency and clean technologies and innovation in industrial processes, also thanks to the binding targets of the Kyoto Protocol adopted on 1997.

In EU, according to European Commission data, the adoption of policy strategies and long-term objectives have led to strong growth in the sector of renewable energy consumption, estimated from 9% in 2005 to almost 17% in 2015.

In order to achieve these goals, the European Union has promoted specific proposals included in the 2020 European climate-energy package.

The objectives for 2030 are even more ambitious and EU has adopted one of the most ambitious renewable energy policies in the world: indeed new Directive 2018/2001 on

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Figure 1

the promotion of the use of energy from renewable source has recently been approved.

This Directive has been formally adopted in December 2018 and promotes the growth of the share of renewable energy sources in final energy consumption by 2030.

Each Member State shall establish a longterm renovation strategy to support the renovation of the national stock of residential and non-residential buildings, both public and private, into a highly energy efficient and decarbonised building stock by 2050.

It aims to provide guiding principles on financial support schemes for RES, renewable energy self-consumption, energy communities and district heating. It also seeks to enhance mechanisms for cross-border cooperation, simplify administrative processes, strengthen the sustainability and greenhouse gas emissions-savings criteria for biofuels, and mainstream the use of RES in the transport sector and in the heating and cooling sector. The revised Renewable Energy Directive 2018/2001 establishes a binding EU target of at least 32% for 2030 with a review for increasing this figure in 2023.

Italian Legislation on Promotion of Renewable Energies Italy plays also a key role in order to fight global climate change and in this frame the Italian Government has updated its National Energy Strategy in which are defined strategic medium-long term energy issues.

The main aspects of the new Directive are: • overall renewables target 32% + upward review clause in 2023 • to improve the design and stability of support schemes for renewables.

• to deliver real streamlining and reduction of administrative procedures.

• to establish a clear and stable regulatory framework on self-consumption.

The other revised Energy Efficiency Directive (EU) 2018/2002 sets a 2030 target of 32.5%, also with a possible upward revision in 2023.

The NES sets a plan of actions and objectives to be achieved by 2030 in line with the energy strategies of the Energy Union, with the aim to improve the competitiveness, reducing the energy prices and costs in Italy, in order to achieve the goal of full decarbonisation of the energy system in 2030 and to improve the security of energy supply and energy independence of the country.

As regards the biomethane sector, the new Italian Decree on the promotion of the use of biomethane and other advanced biofuels in the transport sector (2 March 2018) promotes the use of biomethane through subsidies (CIC - Certificates of biomethane injection for consumption) for its production, plus the biomethane market value based on the sales price recorded on natural gas market demand.

www.biogas-india.com Furthermore, the incentive system applies to new biomethane and biofuel plants in the agricultural sector produced by wastes, agricultural crop residues and livestock manure and also to existing biogas plants that have been totally or partially converted to biomethane production.

The subsidies for biomethane production will be provided for a maximum period of 10 years.

STATE OF THE ART OF BIOGAS AND BIOMETHANE PLANTS Over the last few years, the sector of renewable energies in the EU has considerably grown. The amount of energy production from renewable sources in the EU-28 increased overall by almost 70% between 2006 and 2016, in the amount of an average increase of more than 5% per year.

The EU’s share of renewable energy sources in gross final energy consumption increased from around 8% in 2004 to around 17% in 2017, according to the European Environment Agency data.

Figure 2: ENAMA projection of EU’s share of renewable energy sources in gross final energy consumption2004-2016.

The biogas plants’ number in Europe has significantly increased. Between 2009 and 2016, the total number of biogas plants increased from 6,227 to 17,662 plants, with a growth of

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 14 180%. This exponential development of the sector derives mainly from the increase of plants mainly fed by agricultural raw materials. This development can be explained as this sector represent an important opportunity for farmers, to one hand it stands for an additional income for farms, on the other it actively reduces greenhouse gas emissions, with real benefits for the country and for agricultural value chains.

In line with the development of the biogas sector, the biomethane production has also increased since 2011. Only in 2016 the production of biomethane in Europe has increased by 40%, especially in Germany, France and Sweden. Actually in Europe 503 biomethane plants are operating, with a growth of 165% as compared to 2011.

Figure 3: ENAMA projection of EU biomethane system in 2016.

In Europe, energy crops and agricultural residues are the main raw materials used for biomethane production in Europe, followed by wastes and sewage sludge.

There are many reasons for this exponential development of the sector. As regards the production of biomethane, the general development of the reference legislation in Europe and the related implementation of its subsidies system, in particular for the production of biomethane as fuel for the transport sector.

Figure 2

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Figure 3

Final considerations Biogas upgrading processes are the subject of increasing attention in Europe and Italy due to the advantages that its use can bring.

First of all, the enhancement of biomethane is one of the best way of managing waste and organic residues, transforming the cost of the waste disposal into a possible other profit.

Besides, the biomethane production can also represent an additional income deriving from the activities of the agri-food business sector, with the possibility of diversifying and increasing the agricultural production, allowing the cultivation even in those lands that they are marginalized or abandoned, with the aim of preserving the agronomic quality and reducing the risk of hydrogeological instability and desertification of the agricultural land.

At European level, biomethane sector is increased thanks also to the regulations and incentive policies that have encouraged investments by the stakeholders. For example, the German incentive system, the country

Natascia Maisano ENAMA

with the highest number of biogas/biomethane plants in Europe, has been able to offer fixed and high prices for 20 years. Besides, the national regulations have regulated and ensured easy access to the electrical and gas grid for thd operators.

Also in Italy, the subsidy systems have fostered the growth of biogas plants. At present, the Government has decided to strongly focus on the biomethane sector for its use in the transport sector .

The biogas sector - and biomethane in particular - represents a new and very important opportunity for alternative use of agricultural biomass and a strategic opportunity especially for farmers, inasmuch the virtuous development of this sector is able to concretely increase the farms competitiveness, promoting residues and wastes, with an important outcome for the income of agricultural farmers.

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 17

Status of Indian Biogas programme: An opinion

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re we going in the right direction in the implementation of Biogas Programme in India? This question arises very often among various stake holders involved in the Biogas Programme. Even though we had lost the momentum in between, compared to the status when it was launched by the then Department of Non-conventional Energy in 1982 followed by separate Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources at the later stage and now it is picking up by renaming it as Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

When the National Project on Biogas Development was launched in 1982, it had received more than 50% of the fund allotment, compared with other Renewable Energy Programme in tne Ministry. Now it may be less than 10% of the MNRE fund allocation for the New National Biogas and Organic Manure program (NNBOMP). During the last decade, the subsidy was available for 1 cum and 2 cum capacity only. The same subsidy of 2 cum (Rs 9500) was applicable up to 6 cum capacity.

But now in the NNBOMP, the subsidy have been extended up to 20 cum capacity Biogas plants starting from Rs.7,500 for one cum

plant, Rs 12,000 for 2-6 cum size plants, Rs 16,000 for 8-10 cum size plants, Rs. 20,000 for 15 cum size plant and Rs. 25,000 for 2025 cum size plant under General Category.

Other salient features of NNBOMP, launched during 2018-2019 includes the following: 1. Additional subsidy is Rs 1,600 per plant up to 10 cum size plant for cattle dung based biogas plant if it is linked with sanitary toilets for individual household biogas plants.

2. A turnkey job fee of Rs. 2,500 per biogas plant up to 10 cum sizes, Rs. 4,500 per plant for 15 to 25 cum size plants for construction, supervision, commissioning and free Operation & Maintenance Warranty for five years trouble free operation of plant including quality control at all levels.

3. Incentive of Rs 3,000/- per plant up to 10 cum sizes and Rs.4,000 per plant for plants of 15 to 25 cum is provided for the purchase of 100% biogas engines and transportation of biogas from the site of the biogas plant to the site of the biogas engine.

4. Higher subsidy is paid for the plants, installed in NER States including Sikkim and Special Category States (Jammu & Kashmir,

www.biogas-india.com Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhandand Andaman& Nicobar Island) and schedule Castes Scheduled Tribe of all other states.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is providing Central Financial Assistance for smaller size Biogas based power Generation systems under the Biogas Power (off-grid) programme at Rs. 40,000 per KW for 3-20 KW power generating capacity, Rs. 35,000 per KW for 20-100 KW power generating capacity and Rs. 30,000 per KW for 100-250 KW power generating capacity system for North Eastern States and at Rs. 35,000 per KW for 3-20 KW power generating capacity, Rs. 30,000 per KW for 20-100 KW power generating capacity and Rs. 25,000 per KW for 100-250 KW power generating capacity system for other states. The Central Financial Assistance is half of the above rates for thermal power application.

The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy had recently (during 2017-2018) modified its program for Energy generation from Urban Industrial and Agricultural Wastes Residues by introducing the power generation or production of Bio-CNG / Enriched Biogas from biogas produced from industrial waste, Sewage Treatment Plants, Urban & Agricultural Waste / Residue. In this Project, projects based on any bio-waste from urban waste (cattle dung, vegetable & fruits market, slaughterhouse, poultry waste etc.), Agricultural Waste (paddy straw, agro-processing industries residues /effluents green grass etc.) and Industrial Waste /effluents (Agro-processing industry, paper& pulp in-

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 18 dustry, milk processing and sugar industry etc (excluding bagasse).

The Central Financial Assistance has been fixed as Rs 1.0 crore for the capacity of 12,000 cum size plant and it is Rs. 3.0 crore for the power generation and it is Rs. 4.0 Crore for Bio-CNG/Enriched Biogas for the biogas generator from Urban waste / Agricultural waste / Industrial waste / Effluent or mix of these waste.

The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation has recently introduced a new scheme viz. Galvanizing Organic Bio-Agro Resource (GOBAR-DHAN) to support villages in generation of wealth and energy from waste with a maximum subsidy of Rs.7 lakhs for a Gram Panchayat up to 150 households, Rs.12 lakhs up to 500 households and Rs.20 lakhs for

more than 500 households. The Ministry has planned to implement the GOBAR-DHAN scheme under the following four models.

Model A: In this model, individual household is the lead partner supported by technical agency, installed in own land with own waste for self-consumption plan.

Model B: In this model, self Help Group (SHG) federation of Non-Government Organization (NGO) is the lead partner, supported by technical agency installed in Leased Land / Gram Panchayat Land with Village waste for the gas supply to the village.

www.biogas-india.com Model C: In this model, Bulk generator i.e., the enterprise or NGO or social Enterprises is the lead partner (Bulk generator) in own land or lease land with own waste and /or village waste for self-consumption or supplies to village and/or self-consumption.

Model D: In this model any enterprises are the lead partner in own/lease land with village waste and sells output to fuel companies.

As far as the implementation of New National Biogas and Organic manual programme (NNBOMP) by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy is concerned, it had established 9 Biogas Development and Training Centers throughout the country. These centers are mainly conducting the following 4 types of training programmes.

1. Construction cum maintenance Course / Refresher Counter for masions for 10 days.

2. User Courses for one day for farmers and beneficiaries.

3. Turn-key workers Courses for 15 days for underplayed youth.

4. Staff courses for 4 days to Government and NGO staff.

5. Biogas Skill Development Courses for 10 days for educated youth.

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 19 Even though, installation of biogas plants is in progress, some time it hard to achieve its target. The services of BDTC is not available for the end users particularly for the installation and maintenance of biogas plants.

Hence the promotional activities should be decentralized by creating Biogas Extension at the District Level. The District Llevel Biogas Extension Centers which was created as pilot level during Eighth plan period is not extended in the subsequent plan periods.

Centralized agencies like Indian Biogas Association should take active role by becoming National level implementing agency so that awareness creations, demonstration, training, technical guidance can be ensured up to the timely release of subsidy for the installed plants. At present, in many states the end users are not sure when the eligible subsidy will be released to them.

It is an urgent need to bring all the stake holders involved in the biogas program to bring on the platforms like Indian Biogas Association, Biogas Forum etc. Even though these agencies had already undertaken some efforts/step to solve the above issues, still more concrete steps have to be taken by becoming

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National Level Implementing Agency in the promotion of biogas programme.

Even though Government of India had declared 100 % electrification of villages, still many tribal hamlets/villages are not electrified. Most of the tribal villages in the Western Ghats of Tamil Nadu and Kerala states are not at all electrified. The same may be true in northern states and north eastern states.

Sometimes, there is no possibility at all to electrify such tribal hamlet/villages, since they are located in the remote area of the forest land including Tiger Reserves without any proper road/transport facilities. But these locations are having great potential for decentralized hybrid Renewable Energy sources like Biogas, Solar, wind and Hydel power plants.

Bringing Light to Thalinji through Biogas Power Generate System IIRE had electrified one tribal villages viz.

Thalinji of Amravati Forest range area in Udumalpet Taluk of Tirupur district, Tamil Nadu state, with Biogas based power generating system. The Thalinji tribal settlement is a cluster of villages, which had no electricity because they were six kilometers off the main road. The lack of roads made the construction of the biogas plant required for electricity generation as more difficult task.

Now thanks to the International Institute of Renewable Energy, established under aegis of Non-conventional Energy and Rural Development (i.e.,NERD Society) project initiated here, the community has been empowered by the electricity generated through biogas.

They now live in a more environmentally sustainable manner with the biogas based power generating system.

The project from the very start had some clearly stated (expected) outcomes. Electrification of the Thalinji hamlet would help prevent the cutting of trees and create a healthy atmosphere. It will work to reduce the bar-

Prof. S. Kamraj Director International Institute of Renewable Energy

rier in adopting renewable energy technology besides reducing the Greenhouses Gas Emissions, happening through conventional thermal power generation and the burning of firewood in inefficient conventional chulhas.

The communities have also formed a federation, an institutional body to manage resource like the power tiller, oil engine, tractor and trailer, which were given to the federation of SHGs by the district authorities. All the SHGs are members of the federation. Each member pays about Rs. 20 per month to the federation for the maintenance of the system.

The hired tractor charges and other miscellaneous transactions are booked in the Federation account.

Project Results of Thalinji through Biogas Power Generate System The project has resulted in enabling the people of this remote hamlet gain access to many facilities. About 120 families received free television sets from the Government of Tamil Nadu. They could not use these earlier due to lack of electricity. Even though solar panels have been installed for six street lights and 40 individual houses, the power obtained from these was not sufficient to operate the 120 television sets. The biogas-based power is useful for the operation of these television sets.

Besides promoting an ecologically sustainable life for the community, IIRE had a strong focus on the social and cultural life of the area. To encourage a healthy atmosphere of co-operation, NERD Society has given time to develop interpersonal relationship and build mutual trust within the communities. The locals have been trained in the management of resources and today they are able to manage both technical and financial aspects. They are continuously supporting the programme. The approach of community volunteers is a great payoff in the project!

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 21

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 22

S AVE T H E DAT ES

FO R 201 9 EVE N TS

BIOGAS CHINA FORUM 2019 19 September, Qingdao International Convention & Exhibition Center, Qingdao, People‘s Republic of China Co-located with EuroTier China Animal Farming, the world’s leading trade fair for animal production.

With the aim of increasing regional cooperation in the development of biogas projects, the Biogas China Forum brings together stakeholders from across Asia Pacific and China keen on exploring collaboration opportunities. By working with EuroTier China Animal Farming, this event will bring together an unprecedented number of potential and existing project owners generating biogas from agricultural waste.

BIOGAS UPGRADING AND CBG ROUNDTABLE 2019 14 - 16 August, Northern Science Park, Chiang Mai Recently in the market, we are seeing a resurgence of interest in renewable natural gas and biogas upgrading with Thailand leading the way with a couple of projects due to come online this year. Several more projects from around the region also look at upgraded biogas as a vehicle fuel, and to meet the heating needs of several nearby industries. This forum will give project owners more information about biogas upgrading and renewable natural gas and help them make better decisions.

BIOGAS ASIA PACIFIC FORUM 2019 26 - 27 November, Balai Kartini Exhibition & Convention Centre, Jakarta, Indonesia Our flagship event will be moved to Jakarta this year with strong support from KADIN and the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in Indonesia. Combined with ANGVA 2019, the CNG-NGV flagship event of the region, this event will be a major focal point for policy makers, industry and users of biogas to come together and advance our biogas agenda. Welcome to join us to know more!

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 23

Waste product potential for producing biogas is standing by in the hull Cruises have become one of the most popular holiday trips in the world. According to the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA), an estimated 30 million people will go on a cruise in 2019, which is 6 % more than in 2018. On large ships, waste and wastewater disposal is a complex issue. This is reason enough to start thinking about bioenergy utilisation options.

By Jessica Hudde, Maik Orth and Thilo Seibicke

E

xperts predict further growth in the trend toward shipboard holidays. In order to provide the necessary passenger capacity, 18 new cruise ships for traveling on the high seas and rivers as well as special cruise ships will be commissioned in 2019.

The largest ships now provide space for more than 5,000 passengers. Thus, they are frequently called floating towns.

The particular challenges here are the disposal of waste and wastewater. Though there are feasible disposal options on land and high capacity treatment facilities on board, they are slowly reaching their limits due to increasing environmental requirements, and with regard to energy, they are inefficient and cost-intensive to some extent. Therefore, there is great interest in alternative disposal options.

In addition to the actual operation of the ship, the on-board hotel must also be kept running.

Enormous amounts of energy are required and enormous amounts of waste and wastewater are produced. The cruise ship line AIDA CRUISES is the market leader in Germany and has set a goal of making its business dealings as environmentally sound as possible.

The Innovations- und Bildungszentrum Hohen Luckow e.V. (IBZ) is a non-profit research institute working mainly in these areas: • Maritime technologies • Sustainable raw materials/renewable energy • Sustainable development

www.biogas-india.com For years, the IBZ has been working intensively with the development of products and methods as well as process improvement in the area of biogas production. At the end of 2012, together with the cruise ship line AIDA CRUISES, the IBZ devised a study to discover the biomass potential on board a cruise ship and to determine the amount of energy associated with it in consideration of possibly producing and using biogas. The material characteristics of the biomass obtained in this way are outstanding for use in the biogas process. The total solid contents of up to 15 percent are in a optimum range for operating mesophilic biogas reactors. Extensive drying processes are not necessary, i.e. energy costs are saved.

The cruise ship in the AIDA fleet under consideration is a Sphinx class ship with a capacity of 2,500 passengers. In the context of the study, the existing ship disposal system was analysed, samples of various biogenic materials at various stages of treatment were taken and characterized with respect to material, gas yield tests were carried out, and options for utilising the gas on board were demonstrated.

Challenges of on-board disposal Currently, the wastewater generated on board is purified in high performance sewage treatment facilities before the permeate is flushed into the sea, and the wastewater sludge and food leftovers are collected, dewatered, dried and burned. In protected areas, such as the

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 24 Baltic Sea, the operation of the respective incinerators is now banned. In this case, the dried biosludge must be stored and disposed of on shore.

The on-board drying process needed to store the sludge requires a great deal of energy and generates odour emissions. Based on the waste categorization in Regulation (EC) No. 1069/2009, in which waste is classified with regard to its risk to the health of people and animals, kitchen waste in international transport is considered material in category 1, the most problematic form with particularly high requirements for disposal.

In general, this waste cannot be used to generate energy on land and must be burned in an approved facility. Alternative methods for treatment are incorporated in Implementing Regulation (EC) No. 142/2011. It also includes a separate biogas process with upstream pressure sterilisation and hydrolysis, which is, however, seen in a negative light from an energy efficiency perspective. Those responsible for disposing of waste with a special waste classification charge high rates. For this reason, shipping companies prefer to dispose of food leftovers in the ocean. According to MARPOL ANNEX V (International Convention on the Prevention of Pollution by Garbage from Ships), this is still allowed.

Flushing wastewater into the Baltic Sea will be sharply limited in the future. At the beginning of the year, the Marine Environment

Source Algoa FM

www.biogas-india.com Protection Committee of the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) approved new resolutions for flushing ship wastewater. To reduce the nutrient input into the Baltic Sea, for the first time the new Performance Tests for Sewage Treatment Plants [MEPC.227(64)] include binding limit values for effluent containing phosphorous and/or nitrates.

Most of the on-board wastewater treatment facilities are reaching their limits in terms of complying with these values. As an future alternative, passenger ships can also dispose of their wastewater at special reception facilities in harbours. However, due to uncertainty with regard to the actual amounts of wastewater, many harbours have not yet established the respective facilities. For this reason, shipping companies have great interest in alternative treatment options on board and disposal options on land.

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 25 and blackwater are rather low, but very large quantities of these substances are generated.

Due to the limited space on board, it makes no sense to ferment the fresh wastewater portion because large storage capacities and digesters would be needed.

The on-board treatment facilities precipitate the solids in the wastewater with an increasing degree of purity, so the solid portion, which contains potential energy, can be found in wastewater sludge tank. Wastewater sludge and food leftovers are dewatered and mixed to form biosludge. Because the food leftovers were also sampled separately, a comparison establishes that about the same amount of energy is produced from all of the dewatered wastewater sludge as with food leftovers.

Results During the investigation, the following material flows were sampled: • Blackwater fresh from the blackwater tank • Greywater fresh from the greywater tank • Shredded food leftovers from the vacuum unit • Dried biosludge (mixture of wastewater sludge and food leftovers) • Deep fryer grease • Flotate sludge from the grease trap

For this reason, wastewater potential should absolutely be used as well. In comparison with agricultural biogas plants, the target capacity is similar to an average plant capacity. With regard to the energy required by a cruise ship, this capacity covers only a very small proportion. Thus, shipping companies are not particularly interested in energy production, but instead in alternative disposal options that comply with the mandatory environmental requirements and in increasing the efficiency of the overall system and saving costs.

The gas yield for each group was determined at the batch scale according to the Association of German Engineers [VDI] 4630. The highest gas yields were obtained with the grease portion, the biosludge and the food leftovers. The gas yields from the greywater

About 160,000 euros could be saved per year on just one ship by eliminating the required drying and change in disposal costs. By using the biogas produced, the capacity side could be increased by another 190,000 euros per year; this would require substituting biogas

www.biogas-india.com for marine diesel oil (MDO). There is a wide variety of options for using biogas on board.

For example, it would make sense to use biogas for auxiliary thermal or electrical energy while in port in order to reduce gaseous ship emissions in the harbour.

Likewise, progress in LNG technologies in the shipping industry offers utilisation options.

However, in order to install as few technologies as possible on board that require extensive oversight and maintenance by specialized personnel, shipping companies prefer disposing of waste on land. In this case, the capacity of a facility on land could even be expanded with the waste of other ships. Every year there are approx. 350 cruises on the Baltic Sea alone. The effects on cost savings, the contribution to renewable energy production, and the positive ecological effects would be considerable.

Outlook Due to the wide variety of ideas for implementing a marine biogas plant, the IBZ Hohen Luckow e.V. founded the “Biogas Maritim” network in 2015. Twelve companies in the areas of energy and the environment are currently working together on technical solutions for using the wastewater and waste potential in the maritime sector. They are supported by various corresponding organizations such as the German Biogas Association [Fachverband Biogas], the Rostock Port Development Authority [Hafenentwicklungsgesellschaft Rostock], and scientific institutions such as the University of Applied Science at Stralsund and the University of Rostock.

According to the companies, the greatest hurdles to implementing the ideas are the legal requirements, particularly the limited options due to the categorization of waste when used on land as well as the environmental requirements for plant operation on board. In addition, strict safety regulations on board and options for the most self-sufficient operation possible on the sea must be taken into consideration.

Moreover, the technological developments must be carried out such that the needs and requirements of the shipping companies and shipyards as well as the respective harbours are taken into account. The network works closely with the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 26 State Office for Agriculture, Food Safety and Fisheries as the permitting authority and has, for example, created a common strategy for anaerobic treatment on land in compliance with the legal waste classification according to EU law. The goal is to have the process included in Regulation (EC) No. 142/2011 as an alternative treatment method in order to unify and simplify the approval process for an energy-efficient method across the entire EU. In this context, the “Waste to Sludge to Energy (WAS2E)” project started in December 2016 for a period of two years. In the meantime, the hygienic harmlessness of the process has been proven. Now a pilot plant is to be implemented and the procedure to be included in regulation EC No. 142/2011.

Furthermore, the network partners work on a variety of other projects together, e.g. the development of an on-board wastewater treatment facility coupled with an anaerobic treatment step that is to ferment not only wastewater sludge and wastewater containing unwanted organic elements, but also food leftovers. In a EU project in the context of the EU Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region, the technologies are transferred into the countries adjacent to the Baltic Sea. The first pilot plant on an AIDA cruise ship is to be built by autumn 2019.

The network is supported by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and is open to new network partners that can add their efforts to achieving the network’s goals.

Contacts Jessica Hudde IBZ Hohen Luckow e.V. Maik Orth IBZ Hohen Luckow e.V. Thilo Seibicke Carnival Maritime GmbH Netzwerk Biogas Maritim Bützower Str. 1a 18239 Hohen Luckow, Germany Phone: 0049 38 29 57 41 24 e-mail: jessica.hudde@ibz-hl.de www.biogas-maritim.ibz-hl.de

Photo credits: AIDA CRUISES

What to expect: » Lectures on current topics within the industry » Key topics: · Biomethane · LNG · Best practice examples in Europe and worldwide · Innovations

Organiser:

10 – 12 December 2019 Nuremberg, Germany

The world‘s largest meeting of the biogas sector: an international biogas exhibition, organised tours around the fair for international guests and an evening event!

Excursion to ts on biogas plan r 13 Decembe

Co-Organiser:

Programme and further information at:

www.biogas-convention.com

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Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 28

Biogas Plant and Community Mobilization

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ndia has a lot of potential of biogas and the question to harness it is always open.

The biogas industry has also picked up the pace because of the supporting policies like SATAT launched by Government of India. The success of the biogas sector mainly depends upon the technical, financial, and social aspects. There is no dearth of technologies in this industry and lot of national/ international companies are ready to provide customized solutions for the Indian market.

The push of government has also attracted the investors to explore the biogas industry, which will overcome the financial challenge.

But social engineering is still a challenge in Indian context. Securing feedstock supply is one of the top challenges. But, one plant of Haryana state has crossed this hurdle especially by mobilizing the community and we are going to talk about it in this article.

The Amrit fertilizer biogas plant is situated at a 13 kilometers distance from Karnal city at Bada Gaon Road, in Kunjpura village in Haryana. The plant has four digesters each of 800 cubic meter digester capacity based on floating dome technology with a total capacity of 3200 cubic meters. The main substrate is cow-dung, which is collected from the nearby Goshalas. Other than that, pota-

toes are also used in the winter season to maintain the Biogas yield, which is collected from the nearby cold storage houses.

The cow dung is fed into the mixing pit (as shown in figure 1), where water is mixed in it. From the pit, it is fed to the digesters. The digesters are based on floating dome type and do not have any heating support. The digesters work on the mesophilic range. The typical hydraulic retention time is 80 days.

The generated biogas is mainly used in three gensets (one is of 50 KW and two of 100 KW each) to generate power, which is used to run the factory situated in the same premises.

The digestate from the tanks is stored into an open tank. From there, the slurry is separated into the liquid and solid slurry by a vibrating sieve machine. The liquid slurry is then stored into a different tank from where it is fed into the tractor mounted tanks to transfer to the nearby farmers as per demand.

The dried solid part of the slurry is then packed and sent to farmers, poly-houses, nurseries, and kitchen gardeners of different nearby locations of the plant. The filtered part is sent for drip irrigation and hydroponic farming. Some of the solid parts of the slurry is upgraded, packed and sold to those Goshalas, which provides input for the Biogas plants at very cheap rates in comparison

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of the market rates. These goshalas operators then sell the fertilizer bags to the public and earn money, which is an alternative revenue source for the sustainability of Goshalas.

due to the sale of organic crops. They have created a network of Goshalas and farmers ,twhich assure the availability of raw material and offtake of the bio-slurry.

The plant is an exemplary model of social engineering. To promote the Bio-slurry, the plant owners started giving it for free to the nearby farmers and asked them to provide stover and fodder to the Goshalas. It helped goshalas to sustain themselves as they were getting stover from the farmers. In return, goshalas assured the supply of the input for Biogas plants which was crucial for the successful operation of the plant.

“We have significantly reduced the use of chemical fertilizer and promote organic farming, increased crop yield reduced the water consumption without increasing the budget of a farmer, and helped to make Goshalas self-sustainable� said Mr. Agarwal, Director of Amrit Fertilizer.

The digestate is then dried, packed and given back to the goshala owners at a nominal price so that they can sell it at market rate and get some more revenue to assure the sustainability of the goshalas. Farmers are also shifting to organic farming practices, which is eventually providing them with better revenue

To summarize, we can say that the Amrit fertilizer has set an example in establishing a social engineering model, where farmers, Goshalas and the biogas plant are interconnected for their mutual benefit as well as to promote waste management, organic farming, the sustainability of Goshalas and ensuring the greener future of the world.

Bio

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Biogas Plant

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Vishal Kanchan

Goshala

Program Coordinator Indian Biogas Association Farmers

Fodder

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Brigding the Skill Gap in India’s Clean Energy Market: Biogas Centric

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s India faces increase in fuel demand*, volatility in energy security, and the adverse impacts of climate change, renewable energy is not an option but a compulsion. Effective and applied clean energy solutions, including large biogas plant, and decentralized biogas units in dense urban areas, can help solve these challenges, while decreasing energy gaps, improving jobs, and reducing toxic pollution along with clean surrounding. In line to the Government of India’s recent initiative - Sustainable Alternative Towards Affordable Transportation (SATAT), 5000 large scale Bio-CNG plant in coming five years are to be set up. Analyzing the jobs to be created in the Biogas sector along with the related skills required in every phase of a Biogas project to reach the 5000 plants by end of 2023 suggests that India would need nearly more than 75000 manpower including skilled plant designers, site engineers, and semi and low-skilled technicians for construction and other involved operational acitivites.

Apart from this many more would be needed to keep the momentum of small and medium scale biogas segments growing.

Indian Biogas Association conducted a survey amongst its members to assess the key skills required in the various phases of biogas projects, i.e. from manufacturing to O&M. The survey aimed to capture the nature of skills required, the amount of training required per skill type and matching the skills required with the available trainings. The survey included an appropriate mix of industry stakeholders from across the spectrum of biogas industry.

Analyzing the jobs to be created in the biogas sector along with the related skills required in every phase of a Biogas project to reach the targeted 5000 large scale biogas plants suggests that India would need nearly 12,000 skilled plant design and site engineers and approximately 25,000 semiand low-skilled

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technicians for construction. As many as 5,000 highly skilled workers would be needed annually by 2023 to carry out annual and ongoing performance data monitoring of such plants.

An additional 25000 workers is estimated be needed annually by 2023 to carry out low-skill operation and maintenance functions for the multitude of Biogas projects at such scale.

Function

Manufacturing Business Development Design & Pre-Construction

Construction & Commissioning

Operation & Maintenance

Educational Skill and Qualification Level

Skill Levels • High skilled: engineering or advanced degree required • Semi-skilled: technical qualifications or vocational skills required • Low-skilled: no formal education required

Personnel needed in next 5 years to meet SATAT target

Key Skills

Training and/or Degrees Required

Highly Skilled

Research and product development

6000

Chemical, civil and environmental engineering

Highly Skilled

Tracking the market, Drafting bids, Land selection, Project Finance

2500

Master degree or diploma in business administration

Highly skilled

Plant design engineering

4000

Engineering degree in civil, mechanical or chemical engineering

Highly skilled

Site engineering

8000

Engineering degree in civil, mechanical or chemical engineering

Semi and Low Skilled

Electricals training and plant installing

25000

-

Highly skilled

Performance data monitoring

5000

Data analysis field

25000

-

Semi and Low Skilled

Above table maps the received survey reponses in form of skillsets required for identified roles in the industry along with the tentative training requirement.

Furthermore the aforemntioned survey also addressed rating of the skills considered essential needed for each phase of a Biogas project. The responses received are as portrayed underneath:

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For manufacturing, 84% of the surveryed particpants indicated to emphasize on Biofertilizer enhancement to make it marketable, next to it was manufacturing engineering and machine operators with almost 79% respondents’ nod to put these as a priority skillset. This would correspond to training for advanced biogas programs. Around 60% percent respondents have listed R&D as one of the important skillset. Management and other administrative issues didn’t get much emphasise from the respondents. A special course focusing on such skills were the need of the respondents.

In the business development phase, around

also wished by the interviewed operator to ensure full understanding and associated implications of the installed system. Particularly, in-house operators or outsourced local engineering companies, whomsoever will take care of the maintenance of the systems, should be also trained in the type of maintenance activities that have to be carried out periodically, or regularly as the case may be.

More importantly, effective training for the plant operators should be provided in an easy-to-understand format, and should occur at regular intervals.

90 % considered Biofertilizer sell as one of the very important issue along with 84 % of the respondents listing tracking of market opportunities as a priority skill. 58% of respondents recognized the ability to select the right site location and 63% emphasizing on finance model and liasioning with bank as a priority skill. Contracts and off take agreements along with Government approval, permits and clerances are also considered as priority skill, getting consideration from 74% and 47 % of the respondents.

To help resolve the skill gaps, the Government of India established the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE) in 2014 as the country’s overarching skill development agency. Some part of small scale biogas is considered in it but still a large void exists from bridging the required skill perspective. Similarly, Biogas Development and Training Centers (BDTCs) are supported for providing technical training and monitoring & evaluation and preparation of technical booklets/ guidelines/ material support for quality implementation of biogas programme in addition to technology development by Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. BDTC prime area still remains the small scale biogas plants.

Upon interacting with some of the on field technicians and operators working in a biogas plant, they emphasised on the importance of being trained on operational know how (like SOP, O&M schedules, std. troubleshooting practices, data logging, associated HAZARD and HAZOP, dos and donts ,etc.) . Prior handson training for handling specific equipment upon field visit to existing plants, interaction with experienced operational personnel was

Many universities have started offering postgraduate courses specifically focused on various renewables, however very few optional courses specific to biogas. Several training institutes in India have started aligning courses

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under Skill India and Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY) to befit the growth of interest in renewables energy, albeit rudimentary so far as biogas industry is concerned.

Whilst, it is true that existing education and training courses and apprenticeships are the base towards meeting the main skills needs of the industry, more appropriate channels to discourse specialised skill sets needs for the industry needs to be thought of.

Summarizing, it looks very likely that if India can bridge the existing gap to fulfill its dream of 5000 large scale biogas plants by the end of 2023; the result would not only streamline renewables with the special focus of biogas but also ensure the development of future biogas plants with a higher efficiency and reliability.

Dr. A. R. Shukla Ex Advisor MNRE Indian Biogas Association

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Biogas and its barrier in India

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nternationally, Biogas production has long been a valuable technology as constant need of organic raw materials such as energy crops, manure, sewage sludge, catch crops and plant residues help produce energy around the clock. The ability to produce energy at a constant rate is a clear advantage over other renewable energy sources such as wind or solar energy, which depend on the wind or sun for production. As a result of this ability, Germany currently has around 9,000 biogas plants installed, with a total electricity output of approximately 4,500 megawatts.

Around seven percent of the electricity generated in Germany now comes from biomass.

India has a different dimension to the same technology where adaptation is need based to cope up with today’s environmental problems due to continuous increase in organic wastes. The estimated quantity of bio-waste generated in rural India includes animal waste, kitchen leftovers, crop residue, market waste and faecal sludge. In addition, according to Indian Agricultural Research Institute’s estimates in 2014, India generated 620 million tons of crop residues, of which 300 million tons are treated as waste and 100 million tons are burnt on farms.

In fact, a very large fraction of these generated bio-waste gets disposed in unsafe ways of burning, unscientific dumping, discharging into water bodies and to sum up the pollution caused by such indiscriminate disposal bio-resources such as animal dung cakes, crop residue and firewood are commonly burnt as cooking fuel leading to indoor air

pollution. Indoor air pollution is also considered responsible for a significant number of acute respiratory illnesses in young children.

WHO estimates about 5 lakh deaths in India due to use of unclean cooking fuel.

In this deteriorating situation of waste management Biogas units have shown the potential to be utilized to harness energy, fuel, and fertilizer from processing bio-waste. Waste such as cattle dung, poultry droppings, pig excreta, human excreta, crops & crop residues, kitchen waste etc., can produce biogas, through anaerobic digestion and produce clean fuel for cooking, lighting, electricity, running biogas based engines, etc. Some of the biomass waste also has potential to produce ethanol. But, despite multiple initiatives to promote Biogas out of total 4194 Biogas plants established during the 11th plan period in 8 different states around 4.5% of the inspected Biogas plants were non-functional and there has been no documented explanation for the non-functioning of these plants.

The rate of biogas dissemination is low in rural areas and the share of biogas in the fuel mix in rural households is insignificant. Around five million family biogas plants (40%) have been installed under the biogas development program against the total potential of 12 million domestic biogas gas plants estimated by the MNRE (CSO, 2014). In addition to family type biogas plants, 400 biogas off-grid power plants have been set up with a power generation capacity of about 5.5 MW (MNRE, 2015).

The share of anaerobic digestion in biological waste treatment in urban areas is present-

www.biogas-india.com ly very low due to high capital cost and low revenue growth prospects compared to other competing waste treatment technologies.

Currently, there are only 56 operational biogas based power plants in India, the majority of them are located in three states, Maharashtra, Kerala, and Karnataka (CPCB, 2013).

Several support schemes such as the National Biogas and Manure Management Program (NBMMP), off–grid biogas power generation program, waste to energy program have been implemented by the government for biogas development in India. Regardless of these efforts, diffusion of biogas technologies is constrained by several financial, social and institutional factors.

However, it was found that barriers differ in different regions depending on the degree of market maturity and availability of natural resources like biomass, land, and water. Barriers such as low ambient temperature and water unavailability in arid regions are area specific whereas others are specific to technological scale like lack of distribution infrastructure hindering the biogas expansion in a centralized system. Socio-cultural barriers like objections towards using animal and human waste as raw material are very specific to the local values and culture. Technical and informational barriers such as lack of technical capacity for construction and maintenance, competition from freely available firewood and lack of awareness mainly exist in rural areas in developing countries. Some barriers are specific to its utilization i.e. transport fuel or heat production. High variation in the seasonal demand for heat acts as a barrier for utilization of biogas for heat production whereas a limited number of filling stations act as a barrier for utilizing biogas as vehicle fuel. This indicates that barriers to biogas penetration differ based on utilization area, substrate, resource potential, technological maturity, and scale.

In terms of market Biogas faces intense competition with other fuel substitutes available in the market. Several factors like the assurance of fuel supply, ease of procurement, fuel price, and household income have an influence on household fuel choices. In rural areas, biogas competes with cheaper alternatives like traditional solid biomass, firewood, and cow dung, which are locally available for cooking applications. The negative externalities associated with the use of traditional biomass i.e. time consumed in firewood collection, indoor air pollution, loss of forest resources, are not

Biogas Magazine | Edition 07 | 37 taken into calculation by these households. In contrast, assurance of fuel supply and ease of procurement are two critical factors for high income households. Research has cited limited accessibility to liquid petroleum gas (LPG) as one of the reasons for the high rate of biogas dissemination in Sirsi area. However, biogas faces competition with LPG in areas with better LPG distribution network.

Also, there are several social-cultural barriers hindering the uptake of biogas technology in rural areas. First, people and plant owners are reluctant to the use of night soil/ human excreta in biogas plant due to the attached social stigma. Second, women are primarily responsible for cooking in rural households and primarily exposed to the indoor air pollution caused by burning solid fuels. The status of women in the rural society is very low and they have very limited decision making power which acts as a critical factor in the low penetration of clean fuels.

The technical and infrastructural barriers also play an important role as adequate supply of water and substrate are two crucial factors for the effective functioning of biogas plant. Under-feeding of inputs or feeding in wrong ratios either results in suboptimal performance of biogas plant or formation of scums, making installed plant completely dysfunctional.

These failures create a negative perception about the biogas technologies that discourage the potential users. Minimum ownership of 2–3 cattle does not fully ensure the reliable supply of substrates to the biogas plant.

There are several factors that could lead to inadequate substrates supply to biogas plant.

Cattle roam around grazing and working in the fields resulting in under-collection of cattle dung which eventually leads to improper functioning of the biogas plant due to under-feeding. Moreover, the collection of cattle dung at disaggregated places increases the transition cost. Water and cattle dung is required to be mixed in equal ratios in the biogas plant.

Shortage of water was one of the reasons for the non-functionality and low penetration of installed biogas plant in drought-prone and deserted areas like Rajasthan or Rann of Kutch. In dry areas, women spend several hours to fetch and transport the water needed for cooking and drinking purposes. Thus, a large amount of water needed for proper functioning of biogas plants is one of the reasons for the low uptake of biogas technologies in dry and drought-prone areas. Tem-

www.biogas-india.com perature is also a crucial factor influencing the rate of biogas production. During winters in cold areas, the production of biogas decreases considerably due to low temperatures that inhibiting methanogenesis. The hydraulic retention time also increases to around 120–150 days at temperatures below 15 °C. The biogas production during the winter season is not sufficient for cooking which forces the users to switch to other fuels. In addition to these challenges, the- absence of trained manpower to repair technical faults occurring during biogas operation acts as another barrier deterring the penetration of biogas technologies in rural areas.

Lack of awareness about the technology and its associated benefits as well as incentives provided by the government is another major factor for low usage of biogas as their primary fuel for cooking. Insufficient cattle head to supply substrate is primarily considered as the main issue for low adoption of biogas technology in rural areas. People are not aware regarding other feedstock alternatives that can be used in the digester. Several technical, informational and infrastructural barriers such as unavailability of cattle dung, lack of user awareness as highlighted in the problem tree result in improper functioning of biogas technology. Suboptimal performance of biogas technology discourages the use of biogas technology in rural areas which eventually leads to the low adoption of the biogas technology in the rural areas. Supplying biogas is inadequate to match the household’s daily or seasonal energy requirements for cooking, rural households need to switch to other available fuels. This indicates that the adequacy and reliability of biogas plants are crucial to the adoption and use of biogas technology among the rural households.

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Like rural even urban area pose similar challenges for spreading of the biogas technologies as in urban areas biogas produced from municipal and industrial wastes is primarily considered for generating electricity or for transportation fuel. The description of the different elements under each barrier category is provided below; Financial and economic barriers Financial barriers like high capital cost, unavailability of long term financing options, high interest rate and high-risk perception by financial institutions are identified as the most prominent barriers to biogas dissemination in urban areas. The high capital cost and low revenue accrual act as entry barriers for small private players/developers. Lack of access to long-term financing and high interest rate (12–14%) affects the economic viability of the biogas projects (low internal rate of return).

The government initiated a demonstration program to test the economic and technical viability of the bio-methanation technology.

Even after the program, there is no well established commercialized biogas technology functioning at the industrial scale for heterogeneous waste in urban India. Based on the interview with an officer working for a financial institution, it was indicated that they are reluctant to give the credit for biogas projects in absence of a well-established technology and high failure ratio.

Technology enhancement barriers The competitiveness of biogas technologies for electricity is limited due to the availability of low-priced electricity from coal and natural gas-fired power plants. The operation and maintenance costs of biogas based power plants are quite high compared to thermal

www.biogas-india.com power plants. The electricity from other renewable sources like solar, hydro and wind is also cheaper than anaerobic digestion based power generation technology due to government support like fixed feed-in tariffs and renewable power obligations. As biogas based power plants cannot compete with large-scale coal power plants. The electricity price paid by the consumers is lower than the cost of electricity from anaerobic digesters or co-digesters. Even though the feedstock is free in case of an anaerobic digester the cost of handling and transporting the waste over long distances is high negatively affecting the power plant economics. In absence of a government electricity mandate specific for biogas based power, it is difficult to sell electricity generated from biogas plants to the off-takers and maintain a continuous revenue stream. It would be difficult for the biogas technologies to be competitive in the electricity market without considering social and environmental externalities associated with different generation technologies into final electricity prices. The slurry from the digester can be used as organic fertilizer and can be regarded as another revenue source but here also, the organic fertilizer has to compete with heavily subsidized chemical fertilizers. The anaerobic digestion technology faces competition from other waste treatment technologies such as compositing, vermicomposting, and waste to pellets that can also be used for treating organic municipal and industrial waste. Preference for low cost treatment method like composting also acts as a constraint resulting in lower uptake of biogas digesters for waste management in urban areas.

Norm enforcement barriers Incentives like guaranteed feed-in tariffs and regulatory power purchase obligations (RPPOs) are necessary for diffusion of the technology in the relatively immature market. This is evident in the case of the solar and wind technologies in India where strong political will and investment-friendly policies provided by the government which has driven the growth of renewables in the last decade. Government incentives like feed-in tariffs, longterm financing, capital grants, viability gap funding & tipping fee for waste collection and handling are currently not in place. In absence of these government policies, biogas projects are not economically viable at large scale that discourages private investment in this sector.

There are uncertainties related to feedstock supply and quality due to inefficient supply

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Fluctuation in feedstock supply and quality can hamper the production efficiency of the plant that affects the plant profitability in the long run. Municipal corporations are responsible for the waste management in the urban areas. Due to limited financial and technical capabilities, it is challenging for the municipal corporations to manage the growing solid waste amounts in an integrated manner without the involvement of private players. There is a lack of coordination between national and subnational governments.

A generic tariff for the electricity generated from biogas and waste to energy projects has been announced in 2016. However, state electricity regulatory commissions (SERCs) still have not fixed a generic tariff for electricity from anaerobic digestion based power plants. In absence of the fixed generic tariff, it is difficult to assess the project viability at the pre-investment assessment stage due to unpredictability related to the power purchase agreement prices determined by the SERCs. Risks associated with revenue streams, technology, and feed supply are primarily borne by the private players. This deters private players´ participation in the sector. Biogas can be upgraded, bottled and utilized as a transportation fuel. Compressed and bottled bio-methane can easily be used in CNG vehicles without modification. But there are no legal standards or guidelines issued by the government neither for using biogas as a transportation fuel nor for injection in the natural gas grid. In absence of proper legal standards, project developers need regulatory approval for grants and permissions from different government departments like Petroleum Explosives Safety Organisation (PESO) and Ministry of Environment and Forest. These regulatory requirements hinder the growth of upgraded biogas sector in India.

Installation and output barriers The segregation of organic and non-organic waste is not done in urban households resulting in the low-quality organic feedstock.

Due to improper segregation, dust and inert material also exist to varying degrees in the feedstock. In this case, sorting of wastes needs to be done before digestion at the plant which further increases the overall generation cost and complexity. Moreover, poor collection and unorganized transportation of wastes especially in medium–small size cities increase the supply chain disruption risk. Failure to supply the committed quanti-

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ty of waste to plant by municipal authorities was identified as one of the reasons for the closure of waste to-energy plants (Planning Commission, 2014). Proper technologies/ strategies for waste segregation, collection and transportation are not placed in the cities which is one of the main reasons for the slow growth of the waste-to-energy sector in India. Process standardization is challenging due to large variations in waste characteristics across different regions hindering the large-scale diffusion of biogas technology.

As mentioned before, urban municipal bodies have constrained financial resources and limited technical capabilities.

Conclusions and policy recommendation A bottom-up approach should be adopted to increase the dissemination of biogas in rural areas. The socio-economic characteristics like household size & income, agro-climatic conditions should also be considered while developing policies for biogas dissemination in rural areas. Greater inclusiveness, therefore, requires broadening the selection criteria and at the same time ensuring that households not having enough cattle for running the individual plant can receive a subsidy for installing community biogas plants or easy loans for purchasing cattle. Provision of microfinance options for cattle purchase could be an option as this can enhance income as well as access of dung by rural households.

The biogas system installation cost barrier can also be reduced by providing low-cost credits like interest-free loans or subsidized loans or cheap technology like low-cost polythene biogas plants that are used in Nepal & Uganda. Greater penetration of information and communication technologies in rural In-

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dia, now provides an opportunity to streamline the process of approval and transfer of subsidies to the beneficiaries via digital technologies and integration with other government programs to reduce the transaction costs of operating the NBMMP. A steady supply of substrate is essential for smooth functioning of biogas plants.

Therefore, subsidy for cattle insurance also helps to reduce the risk of supply disruptions.

There are also other substrates like food and flower waste, agricultural residues, poultry and pig manure which are used in a small fraction as digester feedstock along with cattle dung. Evidently, the appropriate mix of substrates such as kitchen or agriculture waste along with the primary substrate even helps to enhance the biogas yield. Co-digestion and dry anaerobic digestion could also be potential options in areas of cattle dung and water scarcity. Therefore, technology type and scale should be adapted based on the local conditions for the smooth functioning of biogas plants. Techniques such as predigestion using microbial additives and mechanical pre-treatment for biogas production enhancement exist in the literature, but the awareness and use of these production enhancement techniques are as yet absent.

Another barrier to accessing organic biomass feed-stock in villages is the absence of local markets for these feedstock. The government should create an enabling environment for greater involvement of private players in the biogas sector in rural areas. This would help in developing the local markets for feedstock and technologies. The competition between the private players would also help to bring down the biogas technology prices. Closing the information and implementation gap

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through demonstration programs and participation of rural organizations can deliver sizable benefits of affordable and clean energy access to rural households.

Furthermore, the sustained benefits of biogas deployment require targeted policies and financial support to strengthen training programs for rural technicians and setting up post instalment maintenance and repair centers. Besides financial and technical support, the programs to create awareness about the short-term and long-term health effects of indoor air pollution generated by traditional biomass fuels are vital to have households include the external costs in their energy choices and make an early shift towards clean energy use. Knowledge sharing among different states related to innovative dissemination strategies and success stories would also help to increase the biogas technology diffusion in India.

To grow the biogas market in the urban areas public-private partnerships should be encouraged to increase private investment in the waste to energy sector in India.To manage high up front cost Financial incentives like accelerated depreciation and tax holidays would also help to attract big private players in this sector. Policy lessons should be learnt from developed countries like Germany & Sweden to promote the dissemination of biogas technologies in urban areas.

For instance, the government ban on disposal of municipal solid wastes to landfills has changed the waste management scenario in Germany and augmented the demand of biogas plants for managing organic wastes. Government should enforce strict waste management rules to stop the disposal of organic wastes to landfills to avoid water and air pollution. Participation of biogas project developers in waste collection, segregation, and transportation within the cities would help in achieving better control over the substrate quality. Awareness campaigns through television and newspapers regarding the need

for waste segregation should be conducted in the short-term to bring the change in people’s behaviour.

In the long-term, proper regulations regarding organic and inorganic wastes segregation should be enforced on the generators to help to reduce the variations in feedstock quality which could eventually lead to standardization of technologies for a certain quality and composition of the waste. Moreover, integration of waste pickers working in the informal waste management sector to streamline the whole supply chain would help improve their working conditions as well as socio-political integration. Financial measures such as tipping fee or collection fee would generate the funds to co-finance and maintain the biogas projects.Market risks faced by the biogas electricity generators can be reduced by providing either price based (preferential tariffs) or quantity based (minimum purchase quota) support from the government in the initial development phase. As the quality of the feedstock is currently not consistent resulting in the suboptimal biogas production.

To reduce the producers’ losses in the initial stages of operations, the biogas based plants could be exempt from scheduling and unscheduled interchange charges till feedstock quality are not assured.

Biomethane is a promising renewable energy option and a good substitution of natural gas for grid and vehicular applications. Use of upgraded biogas is advantageous in reducing GHG emissions and ensuring a more sustainable environment. Some novel technologies such as cryogenic separation, in situ upgrading and hybrid technologies are recent advancements in biogas enrichment. However, these are still in their nascent stage and more efforts are needed to bridge the knowledge gap between pilot tests and large-scale operations. Hybrid upgrading technologies are a prospective option for solving the challenges of current upgradation technologies.

Prosun Banerjee Chief Executive Officer Bio Vision Recycling Solutions Pvt. Ltd.

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