Pine needles to produce electricity in Uttarakhand

Uttarakhand is setting a new trend in clean bio-energy by generating electricity from pine needles. These items have been responsible for forest fires and a scheme has now been devised to make use of these needles because these will be processed to generate electricity and light up homes and lives across the state.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 22 October 2016.

Two 10 megawatt (MW) pine needles gasifier plants have been set up at Tripura Devi and Simalta villages in Pithoragarh district to process these needles. These gasifier plants have been connected with the grid of state electricity company of UPCL and, it is expected that by end of October, these will start sending electric power to UPCL grids.
One pilot 9 kilowatt hour (KWH) pine needle power station had been developed in the NGO's campus at Berinag in Pithoragarh way back in 2009. It employs local women to collect pine needles in large quantities and, for every Kg of pine needles collected, they receive Rs 2. These are then processed. Approximately 1.5-Kg of needles are needed to generate one KWH of electricity. These 1.5 kg of pine needles produce 150 gm of charcoal as a byproduct and this is used for household cooking.
The company has already entered into an agreement with the state government to sell electricity produced from pine needle gasifier at the cost of Rs 4.76 per unit. This could go up to Rs 7.20 per unit since it is clean bio-energy. Incidentally, this is the first time in the world that biological waste like pine needles are being converted into electricity. The technology is totally new and patent of the technology has been applied for and it is pending.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org


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