Biomass Pellets in India

India has hundreds of millions of biomass waste, especially from agricultural wastes or about 230 million tons per year. Hundreds of millions of tons of biomass waste is of course an environmental problem, especially because most of the waste is simply burned in fields where the smoke pollutes the environment, but on the other hand it will be a solution, namely for decarbonization programs and climate change. Technically, the biomass waste from agricultural waste will be processed into fuel pellets (biomass pellets) which are used for fuel in power plants by cofiring. In the early stages, the Indian government targeted 5% for the cofiring ratio in their coal power plants, where the 5% figure when translated into biomass pellet production would reach around 50 million tons of biomass pellets per year. This is a very large amount, especially with a short time target, which is only one year since it was ordered on October 8, 2021 and will take effect in October 2022 or this year, so hard efforts are needed to achieve this target. Meanwhile, in 2021, the world's demand for wood pellets for power plants will only be around 23 million tons.

The establishment of factories for the production of biomass pellets must be carried out immediately to achieve the production target. These factories must also be supported by logistical readiness to supply raw materials so that the factory can be completed, so that the production of biomass pellets can be carried out as soon as possible. With an average power generation capacity of 275 MW in India, with a cofiring ratio of 5%, the annual need for biomass pellets is estimated at 50 thousand tons or 170 tons per day. With the number of power plants reaching around 900 units with an average consumption of 50 thousand tons of biomass pellets per year or a total of almost 50 million tons per year, the distribution of biomass pellets is also a challenge. A factory with a capacity of around 5 thousand tons/month is likely to be suitable, and even if each factory supplies one power plant, the need for a biomass pellet factories will also be the same as the number of power plants, which is 900 units. A huge amount.

Biomass pellets or agri-waste pellets, namely pellets from agricultural wastes do have a number of differences with wood pellets. Wood itself is also a part of biomass so it can also be called biomass pellet. Biomass has a wider range, including wood pellets and agri-waste pellets. Agri-waste pellets have higher ash content, and some have higher chlorine, potassium and silica content in the ash. The content of these substances is not friendly to the heat exchanger pipes in the boiler which will cause fouling and corrosiveness, so that in addition to decreasing boiler efficiency, the service life of the boiler is shortened. In addition, the harvest of agricultural products usually coincides at certain times, while the pellet factory must continue to produce every day. This is why it is necessary to store and allocate raw materials in the form of agricultural waste for the routine production of these pellets. And because these agricultural wastes cannot be left alone in the agricultural area, they need additional investment in the form of storage warehouses and to be able to store more agricultural waste they need to be temporarily compacted by baling. These things usually don't happen in wood pellet production, so the agri-waste pellet production approach is different.

And because the ash chemistry of agricultural wastes causes many problems in the operation of power plants, their use is also limited. With a cofiring ratio of 5%, the problem can still be tolerated, but when the ratio is enlarged, the impact will be more pronounced. The exception is the CFB (circulating fluidized bed) type plant which can use 100% of the agricultural waste pellets, but in India the power plants using CFB technology are very small, around 1% (9-10 units). Indonesia and Malaysia also produce biomass fuel that is almost similar to pellets and even in the international market is the pellet competitor, namely palm kernel shells or PKS. The volume of PKS also reaches millions of tons, so it can be exported to India to help meet India's needs for biomass pellets, which so far have been mainly for export to Korea and Japan. PKS is also produced by a number of countries in West Africa. But it seems that the Indian government for now will prioritize the use of their agricultural waste first, so it has not provided financial support for the import of the biomass fuel.

Currently, India must make every effort to accelerate the construction of biomass pellet factories to achieve this target. However, 1 year to achieve this target is very difficult. With these conditions in the future, it is possible that power plants in India will import biomass fuels such as wood pellets and PKS to meet their needs. With the currently planned cofiring ratio of 5%, the need for biomass pellets reaches around 50 million tons, if only 2% of the biomass fuel needs are imported, both PKS and/or wood pellets, it will reach 1 million tons, the amount is still very big.