An attractive alternative "Electricity from Rice Husk"

MS Khaidem *

Rice Husk

Non availability of electricity / load shedding is a talk of the town and a tale of the villagers in Manipur. We have read and heard through local print and electronic media all about these issues pertaining to power supply in the State. Still, if we are a State Government employee it is mandatory to pay monthly taxes for the power connections we have irrespective of the power units consumed or not.

Anyway, presently on one side, the only option left is to depend on Korea made Inverters or Generators depending on the affordability and satisfy ourselves, on the other, in addition to the professional tax paid by each employee, the power tax paid is a contribution to the state for being a Government servant. But the big question is how long the system will continue? It has become a universal truth that availability of electricity what we call power supply is the only catalytic agent to facilitate participation in the global development trend.

Yes, there is a saying "necessity is the mother of invention and availability is the father".

Now, here is an attractive alternative to address the power issues at least to some extent particularly in rural areas who suffers most! Although, the application of biomass as a sustainable electricity source seems promising, it is still seldom perceived as an option for providing electricity for the rural poor. In order to generate electricity, biomass can be combusted, gasified, biologically digested or fermented, or converted to liquid fuels for propelling generators. Rice husk is one available in plenty coupled with technologies and equipment. There is huge potentials for generating power from rice husk where rice mills are installed and husks are produced in plenty.

In fact rice mill owners have been facing problems for disposal of these husks as these byproducts contains very low nutrient and takes longer time to decompose due to high silica content ranging from 90-97% thereby not favouring to use as manure. Although, 5% of the quantities of husks have been utilized for bedding by the poultry farmers and 15-20% as cooking materials for fuel, however the remaining 75-80% goes to wastes by way of burning in the open atmosphere causing immense environmental pollution. Besides many other feasible applications viz. raw materials for fabricating building materials as Panel Boards, Rice Husk Ash (RHA) as cementing materials and as biofuel for gasification; all these potentials remains untapped. The reason could be because we have never felt the necessity.

In Manipur, the area under rice is 1.95 lakhs hectare that yields around 5.85 lakhs tons of Paddy assuming at an average yield of 3 tons per ha. When milled these paddy produces about 1,17,000 tons of Husks at the conversion ratio of 5:1 by weight of Rice: Husk. Now, assuming 50% utilization of the total husks produced as biofuel for gasification i.e 58,500 tons will possess captive power to generate 37,440 MW.

The principle behind this generation of power from rice husk is nothing but a process of biomass gasification which means incomplete combustion of biomass resulting to production of highly combustible gases consisting of Carbon monoxide (CO), Hydrogen (H2) and traces of Methane (CH4). This mixture is called Producer Gas. Producer Gas can be used to run internal combustion engines (both compression and spark ignition). In short, this Producer Gas is used to run modified diesel engines to generate electricity."Roughly 1.5 kg of rice husk generates1 KWh (kilowatt-hour) of electricity via an alternator and delivered in three phases at 220 volts" said Chip Ransler, Chief Strategy Officer of Husk Power System told IANS.

Husk Power Systems (HPS) Company is the brain child of an Indian born engineer Gyanesh Pandey together with his friends Ratnesh Yadhav, Manoj Sinha and Charles Ransler, that came into existence in Bihar since 2008 with support from the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business, USA. After five months of R&D, they developed a system that could produce 32 kilowatts of power by burning 50 kilograms of rice husk per hour. As of March 2011, the Company have installed more than 60 biomass mini-plants across Bihar, providing power to more than 32,000 rural households. Through this unique green technology, villages get uninterrupted power for up to 6-12 hours per day primarily at night at the affordable rates by setting up mini plants at different locations within the radius of 2 km.

Environmental and Social impacts.

1. Husk Power Systems are cost effective and can provide reliable, and affordable electricity to rural population.

2. Husk Power generates electricity from rice husks, avoiding the use of fossil fuels. The use of rice husks for fuel does not create competition with food crops since the rice husks would otherwise be agricultural waste.

3. Power transmission may be done through insulated wires upto maximum distance of 2 km to avoid voltage loss. Locally available bamboo posts can be utilised very effectively to support the transmission wires.

4. No pre-experienced technicians would be required but can be locally trained to operate the plant once units are set up thereby creating opportunities for employment.

5. The power delivery system could be completely decentralised i.e run and maintained by the locals where the plants are installed.

6. Project Implementing Agency (PIA) can be a partner in the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) program so that the Power Plant can sell carbon credits for the emissions reduced by the plants. (i.e abandoning fossil fuel run generators by gasifying the husks thereby preventing the release of a considerable amount of methane gas,one of the world's most potent greenhouse gasses.)

7. During the process of gasification of rice husk the byproduct obtained is the Carbonized Rice Husk (CRH).To produce CRH, normally raw husk is burned without air so that it will not turn into ash.CRH is sterile and is free from disease organisms.CRH is also very useful in rice farming. It could be plaughed in during land preparation. This will make the land not only more porous for better plant growth, it will also enable the soil to retain the moisture much longer. Rice grown in fields enriched with CRH also produce more profuse tillers that will bear more grains.

8. Each Mini power plant of 32KW can serve 400-450 households using 4-5 nos. of 15W CFL and 8-10 small business establishments.

Such prototype projects have been launched not only in Bihar but also in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarkhand by the NGOs, Group of Entrepreneurs, Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and Cooperative Societies with support from Financial Institutions. For setting up such type of innovative and green energy projects, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India also extends support.

Successful implementation of any type of project depends on the following basic factors;

* continuous availability of raw materials at the cheaper rates;
* availability of infrastructures with proven technologies for the end product;
* required human resources;
* market of the products / end users / consumers.
* capital.

Now, the choice is ours - Whether we should exploit these abundantly available bioresources for generating income and employment or Not; which otherwise will go to waste !!

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