52 JUNE12 energetica india

The world is moving towards calling wastage as resources. It is important that India
unfailingly sets up a system that doesnt just cut down the rampant increase in unhygienic
surroundings but also recovers at least a fraction of what we have already lost as waste.
Energetica India checks the on-ground details about energy recovery from waste in India.
SHRADHA ASWANI, ENERGETICA INDIA
Waste to Energy in India
W
ith a population that accounts
to nearly 17% of the worlds
overall count, the amount of
waste generated in India is perhaps quite
imaginable. Urban India generates 188,500
tonnes per day (TPD) of waste at an average
rate of 0.5 kg of waste per person per day.
It is seen that due to increased income and
a change in the lifestyle of people, the per
capita waste generation has considerably
increased in the past decade.
India has a lot of catching-up to do
in the space of Solid Waste Management
(SWM); with apparently not much hap-
pening on the ground. Most of Municipal
Solid Waste (MSW) in India ends up in open
dumps; where they are set on re; thereby
releasing toxic green house gases in the air
or remain just as they are; further causing
potential health threats to the inhabitants
nearby.
A proper system, which reroutes this
waste to capture the usable parts and dis-
pose off the unusable, is therefore the need
of the hour.
When we talk of waste management,
there are two options that can be consid-
ered. The rst is material recovery, which is
fundamentally recovering usable or recycla-
ble items from the waste such that they can
be used again in their similar forms.
Second is the conversion of Waste
to Energy; energy recovery is a process of
redemption of the energy that was used
in the production of these products (now
rendered as waste). Obviously, not all of
the energy used can be got back in usable
form, therefore material recovery comes
before energy recovery in the hierarchy of
waste management.
TABLE 1: WASTE GENERATION DATA IN COUNTRIES DEPENDING ON THEIR INCOME.
Countries Per Capita Urban MSW ( kilogram/day)
1995 (Records) 2025 (Calculated Assumptions)
Low - Income 0.45 - 0.90 0.60 - 1.00
Middle - Income 0.52 - 1.10 0.80 - 1.50
High - Income 1.10 - 5.07 1.10 - 4.50
TABLE 2: POPULATION GROWTH AND IMPACT ON OVERALL URBAN WASTE GENERATION AND FUTURE PREDICTIONS UNTIL 2041
Year Population (Millions) Per Capita Waste Generation
Total Waste generation Thousand
Tons/year
2001 197,3 0,439 31,63
2011 260,1 0,498 47,3
2021 342,8 0,569 71,15
2031 451,8 0,649 107,01
2036 518,6 0,693 131,24
2041 595,4 0,741 160,96
W2E
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W2E
53 energetica india JUNE12
Variation in MSW Composition in
India
MSW in India mostly comprises of materials
of three different types: organic, recyclable
and inert. The variation in the composition
of MSW over the years is shown below:
As we see the trend in the composition
of waste over the years (from the above
chart), the amount of organic waste has
considerably increased. Since the W2E pro-
cesses work only on organic waste, the use-
fulness of Waste to Energy course of action
in India has denitely increased.
W2E Techniques
There are various techniques which get organic
elements of waste transformed into useful en-
ergy. The most common of these are:
Anaerobic Composting:
In this method, the waste is exposed to an-
aerobic microbes, like bacteria, which break
down the organic matter in the absence of
oxygen. The energy is recovered in the form
of biogas and compost in the form of a liq-
uid residual.
TABLE 3: WASTE TO ENERGY TECHNIQUES PRACTICED IN MAJOR CITIES IN INDIA
City
MSW Generated
(TPD)
Present Waste Handling Techniques
RDF / WTE Biomethanation
(TPD) (TPD)
Mumbai 11.645 80 Yes
Kolkata 12.060 Nil Nil
New Delhi 11.558 825 Yes
Chennai 6.404 Nil Nil
Chandigarh 509 500 Yes
Pune 2.724 600 Yes
TPD= Tonnes/ Day
No Biomethanation quantity mentioned
TABLE 4: POWER GENERATING POTENTIAL FROM MSW IN INDIA
Period MSW Generated (TPD)
Power Generation Potential
(MW)
2002 97.174 1.638
2007 130.927 2.266
2012 189.986 3.276
2017 265.834 4.566
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Power Plants. Our expertise is in intergrating the best solution at the lowest cost ownership for our clients.
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10%
49%
40%
17%
40%
42%
19%
29%
52%
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
60%
Recyclables Inert Organic
1993
1995
2005
W2E
54 JUNE12 energetica india
Biogas consists of methane and carbon
dioxide and can be used as fuel or, by using a
generator it can be converted to electricity on-
site. The liquid slurry can be used as organic
fertilizer. Biogas is a very efcient fuel. This
process is also termed as Biomethanation.
Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF):
Refuse Derived Fuel refers to the segre-
gated high caloric fraction of processed
MSW. RDF can be dened as the nal prod-
uct from waste materials which have been
processed to full guideline, regulatory or
industry specications mainly to achieve a
high caloric value to be useful as second-
ary/substitute fuels in the solid fuel industry.
The most important property of RDF is that,
unlike coal, it can be derived and manufac-
tured and hence is renewable.
RDF is mainly used as a substitute to
coal (a fossil fuel) in high-energy industrial
processes like power production, cement
kilns, and steel manufacturing.
Waste- to- Energy Combustion (WTE):
WTE combustion is a mechanism which
involves thermal breakdown of MSW
through controlled combustion. The waste
is reduced into an ash which further is used
to generate electricity, steam or other such
forms of energy.
The only difference between RDF gen-
eration and WTE combustion is that the
purpose of the latter is volume reduction of
the waste rather than production of energy.
However, the energy generated at the end
just adds value to the process.
Since most of the waste in India is organ-
ic (around 52%) and around 10% of it is pa-
per, MSW is apparently renewable and hence
W2E is recognized as a renewable source of
energy by the Government of India.
Why has W2E been a failure in India?
The best way to handle mixed waste, as in
India, is the conversion of waste to energy.
However most of the attempts to install
these in the country have collapsed down.
A WTE project in 1980s, a large scale
biomethanation project, and two RDF pro-
jects in 2003 have failed. An earlier WTE
plant, which was built in Timarpur, New
Delhi is not in operation anymore. The exist-
ing projects also hardly work. In fact, failure
of WTE however raised enormous public
opposition and has hindered any efforts in
that direction.
What perhaps is the reason for such
recurring failures? Some of the possible
causes for these failures are:
IMPROPER SEGREGATION: India lacks a source
separated waste stream. The organic waste
is mixed with the other two types. Hence
the operations of the W2E techniques are
hindered and a lack of smoothness causes
the attempts to be short lived.
A large scale biomethanation plant
built in Lucknow to generate 6 MW of elec-
tricity, failed to run because of this.
LOGISTICAL ERRORS: It is seen that the W2E
plants built are technologically correct.
However they fail to sensibly connect theo-
ry with practice. The plants are designed for
handling more waste than can be acquired
and the local conditions are not considered
while importing the plant technology.
LACK OF FUNDS: There has been no allocation
of funds for plant maintenance; thereby cre-
ating obvious grounds for their wreckage.
W2E Initiatives
Though it is true that most W2E attempts
in India have collapsed, there have been
certain small scale projects that have been
successful as well.
Twenty thousand household biogas
units installed by Biotech, a bio gas technol-
ogy company from Thiruvananthapuram,
Kerala divert about 2.5% of organic waste
from landll. By doing so, they save up to
USD 4.5 million (INR 225 million) to Thiru-
vananthapuram, and Kochi ULBs every year
in transportation costs. These biogas units
also avoid around 7,000 tons of CO
2
equiv-
alent (TCO
2
) emissions every year.
In fact the government is also taking
initiative to make W2E a more common
practice in India. The Ministry of New and
Renewable Energy (MNRE) recently re-
leased details on its achievements in the
W2E space (see table 6).
Requirements of the Sector
There are no faults as such in the technique.
The mistakes rather are happening in the
execution of the technique. So right now
what India requires is an integrated system
of waste management comprising of sepa-
ration of waste and then the treatment of
each component accordingly. Each site and
the local conditions need to be analyzed
thoroughly and solutions have to be de-
signed accordingly. Only then it is possible
to make W2E work in India.
Sources:
- Report Sustainable Solid Waste Management in
India by Ranjith Kharvel Annepu (Columbia
University)
- Report MSW to energy in India: The scenario and
Expectations, by N B Mazumdar
- Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, India
TABLE 6: W2E ACHIEVEMENTS AND TARGETS FROM MNRE
W2E System Target for 2012-13 (MW)
Cumulative Achievement
-30/4/2012
Grid Power 20MW (Urban & Industrial)
W2E Urban - 89.68 MW
W2E Industrial -
Off-Grid Power 20MW (Urban & Industrial) 102.95 MW
W2E Urban
W2E Industrial
Family Biomass Plants 1.25 lakhs 45.09 lakhs
TABLE 5 : POTENTIAL FOR ENERGY GENERATION FROM MSW AND FOSSIL FUEL DISPLACEMENT
City MSW Generated (TPD) Caloric Value (MJ/kg)
Power Production
Potential (MW)
Coal substituted (TPY)
New Delhi 11.040 7,50 186,80 2.078.043
Kolkata 11.520 5,00 129,90 1.445.194
Mumbai 11.124 7,50 186,60 2.075.263
Nagpur 801 11,00 19,80 220.216
Hyderabad 4.923 8,20 91,00 1.012.526
Chennai 6.118 10,90 149,00 1.657.716
Mj/kg= Mega Joules per Kg
TPY= Tonnes Per Year