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Govt. plans to set up bio-mass power units

Staff Correspondent

250 MW of electricity using this technology at a cost of Rs. 900 crores

CHANDIGARH: To meet the shortage of power in the State through non-conventional means, the Punjab Energy Development Agency (PEDA) has initiated various projects to generate 250 MW of electricity using bio-mass technology at a cost of Rs. 900 crores.

Disclosing this here on Wednesday, PEDA chairman Inder Singla said that under this technique electricity would be produced mechanically by burning multiple agriculture waste like chaff, molasses and straw at high temperatures. The cost of one such bio-mass power plant, capable of generating a minimum of 5 MW of electricity, has been worked out at Rs. 18 crores.

Capacity

Mr Singla said that private developers had already been allocated construction of different projects with an accumulated capacity of 66 MW, while the remaining ones were being finalised. All these projects, which had been identified by the Union Government, would be started at 35 sites in Sunam, Bathinda and Muktsar where agriculture wastage can be found in abundance. Two bio-mass power projects of 16 MW were successfully running in Jalkheri and Muktsar, he added.

Technique

Stressing the potential of agriculture waste in the State, Mr. Singla said that being the agricultural hub of the country, Punjab had a potential of producing 800-1000 MW of electricity through this technique. Realising this, PEDA has initiated process to utilise the potential in the coming years to balance the power crises in the State.

Features

Mr. Singla said that one of the important features of this bio-mass project was that the Union Government provided Rs. 70 lakh per MW as subsidy to every private entity involved in this business, which provided enough motivation to entrepreneurs.

Mr. Singla said the major benefit of this technique was that it not only curtailed medical problems and pollution that generally occur after burning of agro waste products, but farmers could also make an earning from their waste.

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