Biomass Gasification a Solution for India’s Rural Poor?

By Narsi Santhanam • Jul 12th, 2009 • Category: Uncategorized

Here’s an interesting analysis at Biopact that evaluates whether biomass gasification technologies could indeed be the solution for greater access to energy for the poor rural Indians.

While I found the overall article excellent with useful links to case studies and other resources, I found myself staring at some numbers and comparisons provided in the article for biomass gasification costs:

“It has been estimated that biomass gasification generates 1 MW of power at around 20 to 30 million rupiah (…my comments: I think they mean rupees…rupiah is the Indonesian currency , not Indian) (€353,000/US$481,000 to €530,000/US$721,000). Solar energy costs between 15 and 20 times more, at about 350 to 400 million rupiah (€6.2/US$8.4 to €7/US$9.6 million) per MW .”

To me, the costs (capex) for solar looks on the higher side, I think it’d be more like $6 million per MW and the costs for biomass gasification looks on the lower side. For large-scale biomass gasification (which work on much higher temperatures than the pyrolysis systems that the smaller-scale systems use), the capital cost is about $2 million per MW. I doubt, if the capex could be as low as $0.5 million per MW for the small scale systems. More likely to be around $1 million per MW. Will check this out at the earliest

Oh, and while we are at it, here’s an Indian company that appears to provide a solution described above. And here’s another product from IISc

About the Author

Narasimhan (Narsi) has extensive experience in understanding renewable energy markets and strategic levers for success in these markets. His special focus has been his work on the Indian renewable energy industry. His work in the previous 15 years have spanned market and industry research, product management and international sales, and strategic consulting. see more http://www.eai.in/ref/team/ns.html

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