Haryana to set up biogas plants at a cost of Rs.183.43 lakh

CHANDIGARH: Haryana is going to set up large size biogas plants alongwith bottling of biogas in cylinders for use in cooking and transport areas besides generating fertilizer.



While disclosing this here on Friday, Mahender Partap Singh, Power and Renewable Energy Minister said that Option Energy India Private Limited would set up 1000 cu.m. biogas fertilizer plant at Shri Haryana Goshala, Hansi, Hisar at a cost of Rs.183.43 lakh. The plant would have high rate bio-methanation digester fitted with special patented technology called induced Blanket Reactor (IBR) developed by the Utah State University, USA.

He said that this would be the first plant of its kind to be installed in the country.  It would have digester retention time of just five days in comparison to 30 days for conventional biogas digesters. It would generate 1000 cubic metre biogas and 3.96 tons of bio fertilizer per day. The biogas generated would further be purified into 96 per cent methane out of which 200 cubic metres would be used for power generation and remaining would be bottled in bio-CNG cylinders and would be sold at the rate of Rs.25 per kg. by the entrepreneurs. The bio fertilizer would be sold at the rate of 2.5 per kg, he added.

The Minister said that the provision of bottling of extracted carbon dioxide from biogas would also be made, which would be used for industrial purposes. The raw material i.e. cow dung for the project would be collected from the nearby Goshala for which they would get not only price for the dung, but would also share 10 per cent revenue from Bio-CNG.

Sumita Misra, Director, Renewable Energy Department and Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency (HAREDA) pointed out that to explore the potential of generating and tapping purified methane gas and organic manure on large scale, the department had recommended various projects to Ministry of New Renewable Energy, Government of India for providing central financial assistance at the rate of 50 per cent of the total project cost under the scheme of 'Demonstration of Technology-Packaging on medium size biogas fertilizer plants for generation, purification/enrichment, bottling of biogas'.

She said that Haryana was the agriculture rich state and inhabitants more than 75 lakh cattle. Majority of these cattle were available in big goshalas, dairies and in households of farmers. The fallings of these cattle i.e. dung generates methane gas and it escapes into the environment, which causes global warming. Methane is 21 times as harmful as carbon dioxide.

If the animal fallings was treated in biogas plants, the methane gas could be trapped and used for generating electricity, as fuel for running generators and automobiles, as cooking gas and the slurry generated was rich source of organic manure which can be used as fertilizer, she added.

Sumita Misra said that one such project for setting up of 1000 cu.m. biogas fertilizer plant in district Sonipat at a cost of Rs.145 lakh had already been approved by the Ministry for which total central financial assistance of Rs.72.5 lakh shall be provided by the Ministry.