An Experimental Case Study on Generation of Bio-Energy as Clean Technology Initiative in a Food Industry

Abstract

India is a country with huge potential for Biomass Energy (BE) generation numerically estimated as 20GW. The country is making some serious efforts in terms of both scientific interventions and fiscal incentives to economically attract more projects of BE for its renewability properties. Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) Government of India is encouraging clean technologies (CT) to get adopted by revenue generating organizations through provisions of certificates for emission reduction, Carbon-Credits or giving preferential tariffs. These initiatives have been welcomed by industries as they often have large amount of bio-degradable waste to send to treatment facilities. Anaerobic Digestion (AD) process has got much attention in industrial waste treatment ventures in this framework. Bio-chemical breakdown process of waste releases biogas that can be utilized in electricity and steam generation and simultaneously landfill expenses can be avoided. Present study is based on an experiment of converting potato peels of a food industry to generate biogas. Standard AD process is utilized with a suitably selected pre-treatment mechanism to make the process of BE generation more efficient according to the scale of industrial dimensions. This venture is one of the many CT initiatives taken by the industry for achieving sustainability goals of the EHS (Environment-Health-Safety) division. The process is estimated to produce 16 lt methane gas per 1 kg of potato peel waste. This process of generation of BE is capable to off-set of 3000 Kcal amount of energy required for industrial operation. Further a SWOT analysis has been carried out to critically analyze the suitability of the experiment as per industrial scale.