Use paddy straw to generate electricity: DC

Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

Faridkot, October 15 

Faridkot Deputy Commissioner Kumar Saurabh Raj has urged the farmers to refrain from burning stubble. He asked them to take their paddy straw to the biomass power generation plant at Sedha Singh Wala village in Jaito subdivision.

The DC said farmers in the state could now use their agriculture biomass for power generation to bridge the yawning gap between the electricity demand and supply in the state.   

This 18 MW power generation plant has been set up at a cost of Rs 141 crore to use paddy straw as fuel to generate power. Last year, this biomass plant had purchased one lakh tonnes of straw and the target for the current season is 2 lakh tonnes.

It has 37,000 sq m reserve space for the storage of biomass in bales. The project owners have tied up with many bailing machine owners who sell paddy to the plant after converting these into bales. 

Besides, they get money from the biomass plant for supplying the straw bales. The bailing machine owners are also getting up to Rs 1,500 per acre from the farmers to empty their fields of straw so that they are not forced to set stubble on fire to clear their fields.

Environmentalists are of the view that burning of one tonne of straw releases 3-kg particulate matter, 60-kg carbon monoxide, 1,460-kg carbon oxide, 199-kg ash and 2-kg sulfur oxide in the environment. Besides, there is heavy emission of greenhouse gases in the stubble burning. They said Punjab was losing 38.5 lakh MTs of organic carbon, 59,000 MTs of nitrogen, 2,000 MTs of phosphorous and 34,000 MTs of potassium every year.

The DC said biomethanation technology to produce power from agro waste was highly beneficial. It provides value addition to the farmers and bricks can be made by utilising fly ash of the plant.  He added that so the farmers should resist from burning stubble and send it to the biomass plant.

However, many of the farmers have complained that the logistics cost, the price of moving paddy straw or stubble, is a key component of the overall cost of recovering energy from biomass. The farmers have to pay a price for lifting stubble from their field and in the post-harvest season they are in a hurry to clear their field of biomass to prepare it, the owners of the bailing-machines exhort them to pay high price, up to Rs 3,000 per acre.

The green project

• This 18 MW power generation plant (inset) has been set up at a cost of Rs 141 crore to use paddy straw as fuel to generate power. Last year, the plant had purchased 1 lakh tonne of straw 
• It has 37,000 sq m reserve space for the storage of biomass in bales. The project owners have tied up with many bailing machine owners who sell paddy to the plant after converting these into bales