9 November.2022.
Introduction:
The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy announced recently that the National Bio Energy Programme will be implemented until 2025-26.
What is National Bio Energy Programme?
- The National Bioenergy Programme aims to promote bioenergy usage and create an investor-friendly ecosystem based on the circular economy. Bioenergy is derived from once-living organic materials called biomass that are used for producing transportation fuels, heat, electricity and other such products.
- The National Bioenergy Programme will be implemented in 2 phases.
- The first phase of the programme was approved by the Indian Government with a total budget of Rs.858 crore.
- The programme will have three sub-schemes. They are:
- Waste to Energy Programme
- Biomass Programme
- Biogas Programme
- Waste to Energy Programme (Programme on Energy from Urban, Industrial and Agricultural Wastes /Residues) aims to use wastes produced by industrial, domestic and agricultural sectors to generate energy. To achieve this goal, the sub-scheme will help set up large biogas, bio-CNG and power plants. This does not include municipal solid waste to power projects.
- Biomass Programme (Scheme to Support Manufacturing of Briquettes & Pellets and Promotion of Biomass (non-bagasse) based cogeneration in Industries) will help set up pellets and briquettes that are used for generating power and also non-bagasse-based power generation projects.
- Biogas Programme will support family members to set up small and medium size biogas plants in rural regions.
Bioenergy in India
India is capable of generating over 750 million metric tonnes of biomass each year, creating a huge potential for the generation of bioenergy. The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has been promoting bioenergy in India since the 1980s to make use of the surplus biomass, cattle dung, industrial and urban biowaste that are generated within the country. One of the major initiatives of the ministry in this regard is the central financial assistance for setting up bioenergy projects. This initiative reduced project cost or interest on loans to increase project viability significantly.