Assessment of agricultural residues and electricity generatio potential of rice husk in Andhra, India | |
| Author | Viswanath, Atmakuri Hari Hara Venkata |
| Call Number | AIT Thesis no.ET-17-18 |
| Subject(s) | Rice--Residues--India--Andhra Power generation--India--Andhra |
| Note | A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Engineering in Energy |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Abstract | With the Indian economy growing at a hectic pace of 5.7 %, and expected to grow at this rate for the future, it is imperative that the country’s energy development also keep pace with this growth. With serious concern globally and in India on the use of fossil fuels, it is important for India to start using renewable energy sources, for transport, industry and power. It is equally important for India to explore sources that can also bring power in a distributed manner and on small scales so that over 19,000 villages that have no access to power can benefit from electricity. This is where biomass power, and especially biomass gasification based power, will come in useful. The main objective of this thesis is to assess the potential of agro-residues and identify technologies for converting the agro-residues to energy in Andhra Pradesh state and carry out Techno-financial and environmental analysis for the selected agro residue and technology. After analyzing the economic and environmental analysis and thereby analyze the impacts of agro-residue based energy in the Renewable energy scenario. The major agro-residues of Andhra Pradesh are rice husk, maize stalks and maize cobs, which accounts for almost 2/3rd of biomass available in the state. Other biomass agro-residues which are available include groundnut shells, cotton stalks, coconut frond, maize stalks-cobs, Jowar stalks-cobs. The energy potential of these agricultural residues is estimated to be around 84.3PJ/year. Gasification using Rice Huskworks efficiently for capacities in the range of 100 kW to 3 MW scales and its ability to utilize a wide range of biomass feedstock (agriculture waste) is ideally suited for the power needs, especially those in rural areas without access to power. From the results calculated from RETScreen software, it can be seen that the NPV for the projects for all the considered capacities and the fuel rates is positive, all the cases considered with different fuel costs gives a payback of less than 2.5 years and the Benefit –Cost (B-C) ratios for all the fuel rates gives a minimum value of 7. So, the power generation with gasification using Rice husk as the fuel shown that financially and environmentally feasible. |
| Year | 2017 |
| Type | Thesis |
| School | School of Environment, Resources, and Development (SERD) |
| Department | Department of Energy and Climate Change (Former title: Department of Energy, Environment, and Climate Change (DEECC)) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Energy Technology (ET) |
| Chairperson(s) | Salam, Abdul P.; |
| Examination Committee(s) | Kumar, Sivanappan;Dhakal, Shobhakhar; |
| Scholarship Donor(s) | Asian Institute of Technology Fellowship; |
| Degree | Thesis (M.Eng.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2017 |