With a view to addressing the issue of air pollution due to farm stubble burning and to reduce carbon footprints of thermal power generation, Ministry of Power (MoP) has decided to set up a National Mission on use of biomass in coal based thermal power plants. This would further support the energy transition in the country and India’s targets to move towards cleaner energy sources.
The “National Mission on use of biomass in thermal power plants” will have the following objectives: i) to increase the level of co-firing from present 5% to higher levels to have a larger share of carbon neutral power generation from the thermal power plants; ii) to take up R&D activity in boiler design to handle the higher amount of silica, alkalis in the biomass pellets; iii) to facilitate overcoming the constraints in supply chain of bio mass pellets and agro- residue and its transport up to the power plants; iv) to consider regulatory issues in biomass co-firing.
It is being envisaged that the Mission would have a Steering Committee headed by the Secretary (Power) comprising all stakeholders including representatives from Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Ministry of New & Renewable Energy etc. The Executive Committee would be headed by the Member (Thermal), CEA. NTPC will play a larger role in providing logistics and infrastructure support in the proposed mission, whose duration will be minimum five years.
