In a bid to reduce farm fires and improve air quality in the capital, a central government panel has asked 11 thermal power plants within a 300-km radius of Delhi to convert 5-10% of their total coal consumption to biomass fuel. – Instructed to fire.
In its latest directive on 17 September, the Air Quality Management Commission (CAQM) asked them to take “immediate steps to co-fire biomass-based pellets, torified pellets/briquettes (with focus on paddy straw)” with coal. asked for (up to -10%) in power plants through a continuous and uninterrupted supply chain”. The panel also ordered them to implement the directive “without any delay”.
Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav chaired a meeting with representatives of power plants in Delhi-NCR region and stressed on using crop residue as fuel.
According to urbanemissions.info, during the paddy harvesting season in Punjab, Haryana and UP, between 15 October and 15 November 2020, Delhi’s PM 2.5 contributed 30 percent and power plants and diesel generators contributed 7.4%. The power generation capacity of 11 coal-fired power plants is 12,710 MW.
The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) has told the commission that the fuel conversion step will not require any design changes in the boilers. “NTPC has confirmed that it is technically feasible and implementable to co-fire bio-mass pellet with coal up to 5-10% in thermal power plants without any modification in boilers,” read the instructions .
Haryana and Punjab produce 20 million tonnes and 1.2 million tonnes of paddy straw annually. Experts said that unless uninterrupted supply of crop residue from farms including power plants to the end users is ensured, there will be no impact of direction.
“In October-January, NCR plants use a little over 10 million tonnes of coal and account for 25% of coal-based production in North India. Replacing 10% of this coal with farm pellets could mean the use of 1.3 million tonnes of crop residue… The processing and supply chain to process 1.3 million tonnes of biomass is not in place,” said Karthik Ganesan, Fellow , Council on the Energy Environment and Water.
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