I was quite pleased to read that a study has been done and “results indicate that in India around 74 million tonne agricultural residues as a biomass feedstock can be used for energy applications on an annual basis. In terms of the plant capacity the potential of biomass gasification projects could reach 31 GW that can generate more than 67 TWh electricity annually.” (source)
That’s a significant amount of power – India’s total installed capacity for electricity generation as of Mar 2009 is about 145 GW, so 31 GW is about 20%. Of course, this is just the potential, how much of it could be realized is quite another story, but 31 GW is a good number to read, all the same!