IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/energy/v34y2009i8p1003-1013.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainable bioenergy for India: Technical, economic and policy analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Ravindranath, N.H.
  • Balachandra, P.

Abstract

India's energy challenges are multi-pronged. They are manifested through growing demand for modern energy carriers, a fossil fuel dominated energy system facing a severe resource crunch, the need for creating access to quality energy for the large section of deprived population, vulnerable energy security, local and global pollution regimes and the need for sustaining economic development. Renewable energy is considered as one of the most promising alternatives. Recognizing this potential, India has been implementing one of the largest renewable energy programmes in the world. Among the renewable energy technologies, bioenergy has a large diverse portfolio including efficient biomass stoves, biogas, biomass combustion and gasification and process heat and liquid fuels. India has also formulated and implemented a number of innovative policies and programmes to promote bioenergy technologies. However, according to some preliminary studies, the success rate is marginal compared to the potential available. This limited success is a clear indicator of the need for a serious reassessment of the bioenergy programme. Further, a realization of the need for adopting a sustainable energy path to address the above challenges will be the guiding force in this reassessment. In this paper an attempt is made to consider the potential of bioenergy to meet the rural energy needs: (1) biomass combustion and gasification for electricity; (2) biomethanation for cooking energy (gas) and electricity; and (3) efficient wood-burning devices for cooking. The paper focuses on analysing the effectiveness of bioenergy in creating this rural energy access and its sustainability in the long run through assessing: the demand for bioenergy and potential that could be created; technologies, status of commercialization and technology transfer and dissemination in India; economic and environmental performance and impacts; bioenergy policies, regulatory measures and barrier analysis. The whole assessment aims at presenting bioenergy as an integral part of a sustainable energy strategy for India. The results show that bioenergy technology (BET) alternatives compare favourably with the conventional ones. The cost comparisons show that the unit costs of BET alternatives are in the range of 15–187% of the conventional alternatives. The climate change benefits in terms of carbon emission reductions are to the tune of 110T C per year provided the available potential of BETs are utilized.

Suggested Citation

  • Ravindranath, N.H. & Balachandra, P., 2009. "Sustainable bioenergy for India: Technical, economic and policy analysis," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 34(8), pages 1003-1013.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:34:y:2009:i:8:p:1003-1013
    DOI: 10.1016/j.energy.2008.12.012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544209000048
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.energy.2008.12.012?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Ravindranath, N. H. & Hall, D. O., 1995. "Biomass, Energy, and Environment: A Developing Country Perspective from India," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198564362, Decembrie.
    2. Reddy, B. Sudhakara & Balachandra, P., 2006. "Dynamics of technology shifts in the household sector--implications for clean development mechanism," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(16), pages 2586-2599, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Banerjee, Rangan, 2006. "Comparison of options for distributed generation in India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(1), pages 101-111, January.
    2. Tripathi, Arun K & Iyer, P.V.R & Chandra Kandpal, Tara, 1999. "Financial analysis of biomass gasifier based water pumping in India," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 24(6), pages 511-517.
    3. B. Sudhakara Reddy & Gaudenz B. Assenza, 2008. "The Great climate debate : A Developing country perspective," Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai Working Papers 2008-008, Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, Mumbai, India.
    4. Liu, Gang & Lucas, Mario & Shen, Lei, 2008. "Rural household energy consumption and its impacts on eco-environment in Tibet: Taking Taktse county as an example," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 12(7), pages 1890-1908, September.
    5. Jingura, Raphael Muzondiwa & Musademba, Downmore & Kamusoko, Reckson, 2013. "A review of the state of biomass energy technologies in Zimbabwe," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 652-659.
    6. Miah, Md. Danesh & Kabir, Rashel Rana Mohammad Sirajul & Koike, Masao & Akther, Shalina & Yong Shin, Man, 2010. "Rural household energy consumption pattern in the disregarded villages of Bangladesh," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 997-1003, February.
    7. Wilberforce, Tabbi & El Hassan, Zaki & Durrant, A. & Thompson, J. & Soudan, Bassel & Olabi, A.G., 2019. "Overview of ocean power technology," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 175(C), pages 165-181.
    8. Chauhan, Anurag & Saini, R.P., 2015. "Renewable energy based off-grid rural electrification in Uttarakhand state of India: Technology options, modelling method, barriers and recommendations," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 662-681.
    9. Shamama Afreen & Nitasha Sharma & Rajiv Chaturvedi & Ranjith Gopalakrishnan & N. Ravindranath, 2011. "Forest policies and programs affecting vulnerability and adaptation to climate change," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 16(2), pages 177-197, February.
    10. Rahul Hiremath & Bimlesh Kumar & P. Balachandra & N. Ravindranath, 2010. "Sustainable bioenergy production strategies for rural India," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 15(6), pages 571-590, August.
    11. Kaundinya, Deepak Paramashivan & Balachandra, P. & Ravindranath, N.H., 2009. "Grid-connected versus stand-alone energy systems for decentralized power--A review of literature," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 13(8), pages 2041-2050, October.
    12. Bhutto, Abdul Waheed & Bazmi, Aqeel Ahmed & Zahedi, Gholamreza, 2011. "Greener energy: Issues and challenges for Pakistan--Biomass energy prospective," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(6), pages 3207-3219, August.
    13. Bhattacharya, S.C., 2015. "Wood energy in India: Status and prospects," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 85(C), pages 310-316.
    14. Qier An & Haizhong An & Lang Wang & Xuan Huang, 2014. "Efficiency of household energy utilization in rural China," International Journal of Low-Carbon Technologies, Oxford University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 135-143.
    15. Ren, Hongbo & Zhou, Weisheng & Gao, Weijun & Wu, Qiong, 2011. "Promotion of energy conservation in developing countries through the combination of ESCO and CDM: A case study of introducing distributed energy resources into Chinese urban areas," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(12), pages 8125-8136.
    16. Gojiya, Anil & Deb, Dipankar & Iyer, Kannan K.R., 2019. "Feasibility study of power generation from agricultural residue in comparison with soil incorporation of residue," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 416-425.
    17. Cardoen, Dennis & Joshi, Piyush & Diels, Ludo & Sarma, Priyangshu M. & Pant, Deepak, 2015. "Agriculture biomass in India: Part 2. Post-harvest losses, cost and environmental impacts," Resources, Conservation & Recycling, Elsevier, vol. 101(C), pages 143-153.
    18. Kaundinya, Deepak Paramashivan & Balachandra, P. & Ravindranath, N.H. & Ashok, Veilumuthu, 2013. "A GIS (geographical information system)-based spatial data mining approach for optimal location and capacity planning of distributed biomass power generation facilities: A case study of Tumkur distric," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 77-88.
    19. Balachandra, P., 2011. "Dynamics of rural energy access in India: An assessment," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 36(9), pages 5556-5567.
    20. Rehman, Ibrahim Hafeezur & Malhotra, Preeti & Pal, Ram Chandra & Singh, Phool Badan, 2005. "Availability of kerosene to rural households: a case study from India," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 33(17), pages 2165-2174, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:energy:v:34:y:2009:i:8:p:1003-1013. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.journals.elsevier.com/energy .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.