Opinion
Electricity and Water
Revolution
in Rural Areas
There are two
major crises affecting rural areas of India - lack of electricity and
clean drinking water. Shortage of electricity directly hampers rural
economic growth while non-availability of clean drinking water does it
indirectly by creating tremendous health problems.
Both these problems can be
solved simultaneously by village-level power plants running on locally
produced renewable fuels like biogas, biodiesel, ethanol and pyrolysis
oil. These internal combustion power plants, like diesel gensets, of 500
kW capacity each can supply enough electricity for an average village with
a population of 2000-3000 people. In addition, the high temperature
exhaust gases from these plants can easily distill or boil water via a
suitably designed unit, which can be attached to the genset. Hence the 500
kW power plant can produce about 150,000 liters of clean drinking water
every day. Thus the power plant will produce both electricity and water
simultaneously. The raw water could be from any source like river, canal,
rainwater harvesting tanks or shallow wells. In producing both electricity
and clean water the power plant efficiency will jump from existing 35% to
around 65% thereby making the whole system extremely efficient. Most of
the energy of these gensets is lost in exhaust gases and in cooling the
engine. This energy can easily be utilized for distillation or water
boiling.
The plant can be owned by a micro-utility company whose shares will be
owned by all the villagers. It can therefore be managed professionally and
hence will not have the pitfalls of a cooperative society, which very
rapidly degenerates, into political chaos. Another interesting feature of
this microutility could be that it will lease the village level
transmission lines and infrastructure from the local State Electricity
Boards (SEBs) at “social cost”. This can be based on the cost of
electricity that most of the SEBs charge farmers presently. The village
thus could be isolated from the SEB network and appropriate meters
installed so that SEB electricity could be metered. During the maintenance
schedule of micro-utility it could draw upon the SEB’s electricity. With
the new electricity Act (2003) it is possible for micro-utilities to do
so. Thus the micro-utility will sell electricity and water to the
villages. For agriculture and other non-drinking purposes the villages can
take water from any other source.
The renewable fuel for running these gensets can be biogas, biodiesel,
ethanol or pyrolysis oil. Biogas, which is, produced either from cowdung
or any biomass has been used for almost 100 years in India as a cooking
fuel. However it can easily be used to run diesel gensets. It is envisaged
that the micro-utility will buy the biomass residues from the villages and
use them in a sophisticated digester to produce biogas efficiently. Some
development is still needed in engineering the digesters so that they can
run very efficiently and on varied biomass. Biogas production from these
digesters improves drastically if the temperature, pH and other variables
are maintained properly. This requires sophisticated controls, which a
micro-utility can easily install.
Biodiesel is another fuel, which can be used in the diesel gensets
directly. It is produced from non-edible oils like Karanja, Neem or
Jatropha. There is a national technology mission on biodiesel and
large-scale plantations of some of these crops are planned. However for it
to become a viable alternative to diesel it is necessary that the present
crop yields are increased manifold, so that farmers get excellent
remunerations from growing them. At present, in the absence of any
large-scale plantations this is still a paper exercise showing overblown
economic benefits. Hence there is a need to have a national program for
breeding and selecting high yielding varieties of non-edible
oilseed-bearing crops.
Ethanol traditionally has been produced from sugary crops like sugarcane.
In India it is mostly produced from molasses, which is a by-product of
sugar industry. However, with 5% ethanol mix in petrol promoted by
Government of India for automotive uses, the present ethanol production
needs to be increased manifold. There is therefore a need to use other
crops which require less inputs than sugarcane and are short duration
crops. Sweet sorghum is such a crop. It is a multipurpose crop, which
produces grain, sweet juice from its stem and the bagasse is excellent as
cattle feed. Besides it uses almost 50% less water than sugarcane and is a
4-month crop so farmers can grow two crops/year on the same land. Nimbkar
Agricultural Research Institute (NARI) has pioneered the development of
sweet sorghum in India since 1970s. NARI has produced a high yielding
sweet sorghum hybrid 'Madhura' which has the same package of practice as
regular sorghum. Thus "Madhura" planted on the same area where grain or
fodder sorghum is grown presently in the country can yield about 2000
million liters of ethanol and 10 million tons of grain every year.
Similarly spoiled grain which cannot be used for human or cattle
consumption can also be used for ethanol production via the starch
hydrolysis route. Recently US and European scientists have reported a
breakthrough in technology for using any agricultural residues for ethanol
production. This can help increase further the ethanol production from
biomass. Ethanol fuel of 85% and above concentration can be used in any
spark ignition engine and hence these gensets can run on ethanol produced
easily from existing distilleries. Thus there is no need to produce costly
100% anhydrous ethanol which is required for mixing in petrol. This can
therefore help reduce the cost of electricity from these utilities.
Pyrolysis oil is similar to diesel and can be used in the diesel gensets
directly. It is produced by rapid combustion of dry agricultural residues.
India produces more than 400 million tons of agricultural residues every
year. Thus there is a potential of producing from these residues pyrolysis
oil equivalent to 86 million tons of diesel every year. This is nearly 60%
of total oil demand of the country. This oil has been successfully tested
in 5 MW diesel gensets in Europe. Small-scale pyrolysis oil production
units in rural areas can be run quite effectively.
It is estimated that renewable liquid and gaseous fuel production and
usage in rural areas could be Rs. 20-30,000-crore/year industry ($4.5-6.5
billion) and can bring substantial wealth to these areas. Besides it will
bring energy and water self-sufficiency to villages. For these plants to
be introduced on large scale in villages it is necessary to set up a
National mission on electricity and water production for rural areas. This
mission may provide grants for developing such plants, help in setting up
the micro-utilities by providing them financial help and should encourage
the government, corporate sector and NGO partnership in this vital area.
Development of dual-purpose power plants may also help in disaster relief
management. During most of the disasters like earthquake and Tsunami type
flooding, electricity and clean drinking water are in short supply. These
power plants of 250-500 kW capacities can easily be truck mounted and can
be sent to the disaster areas. Their large scale usage in rural areas will
allow the availability of such plants for disaster relief on a short
notice.
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Both these problems can be
solved simultaneously by village-level power plants running on locally
produced renewable fuels like biogas, biodiesel, ethanol and pyrolysis
oil. These internal combustion power plants, like diesel gensets, of 500
kW capacity each can supply enough electricity for an average village with
a population of 2000-3000 people. In addition, the high temperature
exhaust gases from these plants can easily distill or boil water via a
suitably designed unit, which can be attached to the genset. Hence the 500
kW power plant can produce about 150,000 liters of clean drinking water
every day. Thus the power plant will produce both electricity and water
simultaneously. The raw water could be from any source like river, canal,
rainwater harvesting tanks or shallow wells. In producing both electricity
and clean water the power plant efficiency will jump from existing 35% to
around 65% thereby making the whole system extremely efficient. Most of
the energy of these gensets is lost in exhaust gases and in cooling the
engine. This energy can easily be utilized for distillation or water
boiling.