Rising Sun

The aggregate market valuation of these 28 solar products manufacturers in last year was $118 billion. Investors have been snapping up stocks of solar companies from around the world.

Company/Country	Market Capitalization ($U.S. bil)
REC/Norway	$17.40
ORKLA/Norway	16.7
MEMC/US	12.4
WACKER/Germany	9.9
Q-CELLS/Germany	9.5
FIRST SOLAR/US	7.3
SUNPOWER/US	6
SUNTECH/China	5.8
SOLARWORLD/Germany	5.5
LDK/China	4.5
TOKUYAMA/Japan	4
DC CHEMICAL/South Korea	3
CONERGY/Germany	2.6
YINGLI/China	2
MOTECH/Taiwan	1.8
JA/China	1.5
TRINA/China	1.4
ECD/US	1.2
ERSOL/Germany	0.9
EVERGREEN/US	0.9
RENESOLA/China	0.7
E-TON/Taiwan	0.7
SOLON/Germany	0.7
SOLARFUN/China	0.5
SOLAR MILLENNIUM/Germany	0.5
ATS/Canada	0.4
CHINA SUNERGY/China	0.3
CSI/China	0.2
TOTAL	118.1

 

Sources: Bloomberg Financial Markets; FT Interactive, Reuters Fundamentals and Worldscope via FactSet Research Systems; U.S. Department of Energy.

 

Sources: Bloomberg Financial Markets; FT Interactive, Reuters Fundamentals and Worldscope via FactSet Research Systems; U.S. Department of Energy. Sources: Bloomberg Financial Markets; FT Interactive, Reuters Fundamentals and Worldscope via FactSet Research Systems; U.S. Department of Energy.

Solar power is still more expensive than fossil fuel generated electricity. But the gap is closing. The rule of thumb in the solar business: Every time the volume of solar cells doubles, its cost drops by 20%. Governments in Germany and Japan have consequently offered generous subsidies to local consumers and companies who invest in building solar power. Those subsidies have sparked booms.

According to the International Energy Agency, by the end of 2005 Germany led the world with the most installed photovoltaic systems (1.43 million kilowatts) followed by Japan (1.42 million kilowatts). The U.S. was a distant third (480,000 kilowatts)..)

The race is on to find a way to make solar grow up so that it can compete, dollar-per-watt, against any fuel on the planet.

The long-term forecast? Bright, with big patches of innovation ahead.

Michael Splinter was raised on the most powerful incantation in the tech industry, Moore’s Law, which roughly holds that computing power per dollar doubles every two years. During his 20 years at Intel. Splinter saw this law deliver exponentially better products and profits.

Now, as chief executive of Applied Materials, the biggest pick-and-shovel maker for the semiconductor and flat-panel display industries, Splinter, 56, wants to forge a sunny-side-up version of Moore’s Law. “Can we, with our customers, drive down the cost per watt of photovoltaics?” Splinter asks. “We’ve got to.”

Currently photovoltaics cost $2 to $3 per watt to build, down from $22 in 1980. Splinter thinks he can help drive the cost of solar to under $1 a watt. At that price, even after adding a dollar or two per watt of installation costs, solar power would rival grid-delivered fossil fuel power. (Bear in mind that watts here are measured at midday peaks. Even in California an installation rated at 1 kilowatt will produce only 1,600 kwh a year.)

Ambitious enough to be on Intel’s shortlist of future chief executives, Splinter leaped at the chance to run his own show at Applied in 2003. The growth in solar captured Splinter’s attention early on. Slowdowns at computer chip makers, who buy nearly all of Applied’s equipment, hit hard. The $9.2 billion (revenue) company has a price-to-earnings ratio below that of Kraft Foods The solar cell manufacturing industry for years made do with hand-me-down tools from the computer chip industry. But last year solar cell manufacturers bought more silicon wafers than chipmakers–and solar’s demand for wafers is growing three times as fast as demand from the rest of the electronics industry. Applied will likely hit $400 million in contracts for solar manufacturing gear by year-end; Splinter wants $1 billion by 2009.

Applied intends to trim the industry’s costs in four ways: boost solar factory throughput, improve the productivity of every tool, cut materials costs by using photovoltaic materials more sparingly and raise solar cell efficiencies. Splinter has already spent close to $1 billion to hire hundreds of people for his solar group, buy two small thin-film equipment makers and invest in a silicon wafer firm in California.

Charles Gay, who is leading Applied’s solar business, obsesses about speed. Computer chips are made in batches; solar cells are produced continuously. Coating tools once used to put films on sheets of glass are being tweaked so they can also rapidly coat thousands of individual wafers. Thin-film solar makers want to work with the 64-square-foot sheets of glass used by Applied’s LCD customers, but solar glass is four times as thick as display glass. So Applied is strengthening the arms of the robots it sells to hold glass sheets. “We’d like to move one ton of silicon wafers through a line in an hour,” Gay says. At that speed one factory could produce a gigawatt of solar modules per year, ten times as much as the U.S. is now installing. “This is like the 1970s in the computer chip business,” says Splinter, flashing a 200-watt smile.

 

Solar power is the ultimate alchemy

Over the next 25 years solar is expected to be the fastest-growing alternative source of electric energy. But it is complex, expensive magic and has burned many entrepreneurs and investors in the past. With clean power in great demand, and fresh capital coming in from governments and capital markets, the solar economy is again humming with new materials, ideas, designs and business plans. Solar now meets only a 0.1% sliver of our electricity needs, but opportunities for growth and invention are bright.

Enthusiasts like to point out that an hour of sunlight packs enough energy to power the entire world for a day. Or this: If you could cover an area about the size of Massachusetts in the Southwest U.S. entirely with solar cells, you could generate enough electricity to quench America’s need for electric power.

But building solar cells, the devices that convert photons from the sun into streams of electrons and electricity, is complex, expensive magic to pull off–and has burned many entrepreneurs and investors in the past.

Today, solar energy contributes about a tenth of a percent (0.1%) of the U.S.’s electricity needs. Both Germany and Japan, where government have provided more subsidies, use a larger percentage of solar power.

Among alternative energies, solar energy is a child starlet: alluringly clean, endlessly promising-yet petulantly expensive and hard to manage. For investors, solar energy stocks have been an astonishing story this year: The aggregate market value of a group of 28 solar companies now tops $118 billion.

On average, the value of those companies has risen almost by half since January. Driving those market valuations is the expectation of more growth ahead: Analysts both in industry and in the government anticipate that solar will be the fastest-growing alternative source of electric power over the next 25 years.

How will it happen?

This year’s E-gang, our ninth annual look at technology innovation, offers a snapshot of some of the inventions and entrepreneurs that are part of this solar boom. The work starts with tool makers–those companies that are building and refining the equipment needed to make solar cells.

Then there are inventors, who keep trying to squeeze more power from every ray of sunlight. Manufacturers of different versions of solar power vie to have their approach designated as the most promising. There are plenty of contestants: the traditional approach of building crystalline solar cells, pairs relatively higher efficiency with higher costs.

There are thin-films of solar materials, some made from exotic combinations of materials, others still relying on silicon. Then there is one of the oldest ways of getting power out from the sun: solar “thermal” installations, which absorb the sun’s energy, transforming it into heat so it can boil water and run a turbine.

Finally there are those who innovate through their business models and strategic approach–the installers turned financiers, who help customers juggle the costs and risks of investing in solar. None have had more experience in this than Germany’s solar installers, who are cashing in on their government’s generous subsidies for solar power. The stock market has also been a boon to many Chinese companies, which have jumped into the business of building everything from solar wafers to finished panels.

Solar Options in India

In India, the prospect of solar energy is sunny but without being too hot. Today, the country generates almost 1,748 MW power through solar energy. That’s a pittance when compared to India’s total demand of almost 1.3 lakh MW every year. However, companies with investments in the technology believe that the potential for solar energy is much larger than the above share.

“In the next five years, I see solar technology supplying a major part of the world’s energy requirement,” says Ratul Puri, Executive Director, Moser Baer. Mr Puri wouldn’t believe otherwise. In the last couple of years, he has invested almost Rs 161 crore in the manufacturing of photovoltaic solar cells and panels.

The company also has plans of investing another Rs 330 crore for setting up a silicon photovoltaic cell manufacturing plant for which it has tied up with Applied Materials. Solar Semiconductor, another photovoltaic manufacturing entity has lined up an investment of $40 million to set up two production units in Andhra Pradesh.

Globally, the demand for solar technology was almost $2 billion in 2003, which has increased to $15 billion in 2006 and is expected to reach $100 billion by 2015.

However in India, the growth story has been limited to either villages with no distribution networks or the government’s initiative of using clean energy for public lighting systems. Over the last three years, almost 3,000 villages have tapped into solar technology to fulfill their basic needs of lighting, heating, cooking and entertainment.

Almost 55,000 street lighting systems in the country are also being powered on solar energy. But, commercial users are not excited. That’s because price matters. And it’s probably the only deterring factor that puts solar energy late in the contention list of renewable sources that India can tap into in the wake of over-the-top crude oil prices. Today, the cost of producing a single unit of solar energy from photovoltaic cells ranges from Rs 15 to Rs 30 as compared to Rs 2 to Rs 6 per unit for thermal energy.

In fact, the capital cost would be to the tune of almost Rs 25 crore to set up a photovoltaic plant that generates 1 MW electricity. This very high and precisely the reason that makes it unattractive for commercial uses for now. “Solar technology has still not reached a stage where it can be used for economic solutions,” says P Ramesh, managing director, Energy Division, Feedback Ventures. “While the establishment cost is high, the cells also need to be replaced every 7 to 8 years. In a commercial situation, that makes the technology hugely inappropriate,” he adds.

This is exactly where innovation can play a big role. “Photovoltaic doesn’t seem to be making the cut and my hopes are on another solar technology, Concentrate Solar Power (CSP). Energy is generated using mirrors to focus sunlight, producing heat. There is no need for silicon and this is almost 50% cheaper,” says G M Pillai, director general, World Institute of Sustainable Energy (WISE).

Already being used in the US, the technology is still in the pilot project stage in India. Mr Puri, though, believes that it’s just a matter of time when solar technology becomes competitive. “While the costs of other sources have been increasing, historically, the cost of solar technology has been declining at a rate of almost 3-4% per annum. In fact, over the next five years, I believe the costs will come down by 10%,” he says. Another positive is that solar technology is a very clean energy, and since there is so much of sun that India gets it is quite possible that Indians will adopt solar in a big way.

 

Polysilicon Based Solar Module production

The Polysilicon Based Solar Module production process involves four steps in chain event:

• Use the raw material sand (SiO2) to produce a very pure form of silicon called polysilicon.
• Use polysilicon to produce wafers and ingots.
• Use wafers and ingots to produce solar cells.
• Use solar cells to produce solar modules.

Manufacturers are yet to immerse in vertically integrating the whole process. There are a few getting their feet wet – Trina Solar (TSL), Yingli Green (YGE), Suntech Power (STP) and Canadian Solar (CSIQ).

• Trina produces solar modules from polysilicon and has plans in the offing for very large scale polysilicon manufacturing.
• Yingli also has business plans along similar lines. They are yet to announce any plans to produce polysilicon.
• Suntech is focused on the wafer to module business currently.
• Candian Solar started out focused solely on producing solar modules from cells but since then has expanded to wafer to solar cell production line and has announced plans for a polysilicon to wafer and ingot line.

The table below compares these 4 manufacturers:

Manufacturer	SunTech Power	Trina Solar	Yingli Green	Canadian Solar
Level of Vertical Integration	Wafer to Module 100%	100% Integrated Ingot &  wafer, Cell and module business	100% Integrated Ingot &  wafer, Cell and module business	Cell Capacity at 25% of Module. No Ingot and Wafer Production Capacity
Module Capacity Y 2007	540MW	150MW	200 MW	400 MW
Module Capacity 2008 (Projected)	1 GW	350 MW	400 MW	400 MW

Suntech has the edge in most aspects with the closest rival Yingli lagging well below 50% in terms of integrated capacity. On the raw material procurement side, Suntech has procured most of its needs through long-term supply contracts. Yingli may be close too although the exact figures remain unannounced. Trina is at 70% for 2008 and may encounter high spot pricing to procure the rest of the raw material. Canadian Solar claims to have procured 90% of the raw material. Raw materials needs are different for each company. For Canadian Solar it is a mixture of polysilicon, wafer/ingots, and solar cells, for Yingli and Trina it is just polysilicon and for Suntech it is wafers.

Since the solar modules produced by these manufacturers are technically similar, the difference in profitability is largely determined by the raw material acquisition costs and efficiency in the production supply chain. Vertical integration along with raw material acquisition through long-term supply contracts is the solution the bigger manufacturers are opting for. The downside to long-term supply contracts is the risk of raw material prices falling as supply approaches or exceeds demand.

There is a couple of business risks associated with the whole group:

• Competition from pure-play solar manufacturers.
• Competition from solar manufacturers that use a material other than polysilicon as the base raw material.

Pure-play solar manufacturers have to their advantage the ability to concentrate on one step thereby realizing better efficiency and ultimately better profit margins. Such solar companies include MEMC Electronic Materials and LDK Solar in the polysilicon and wafer production business and JA Solar Holdings and China Sunergy in the cell to module business. Eventually, some of these manufacturers may become part of vertically integrated businesses.

Competition using raw materials that are alternatives to polysilicon comes from manufacturers such as First Solar, which uses cadmium telluride (CdTe) and Ascent Solar, which uses copper-indium-gallium-diselenide [CIGS]. There are also a number of other technologies that are in early stages of development. First Solar has profit margins well beyond the polysilicon based producers because of lower raw material and production costs. The projections are for the company to grow at an even faster rate keeping cost advantages intact. However this is a moot point. The real challenge for the polysilicon manufacturers is to reduce costs in the production chain swiftly to compete with all such technologies successfully. The biggest advantage that polysilicon manufacturers have is the abundant availability of raw material at the very basic level – silica (found as sand or quartz)

Canadian Solar and Trina Solar have the biggest upside, given the low forward P/E. An announcement regarding procurement of the remaining raw material requirements at reasonable prices for 2008 should allow Trina Solar to reduce the gap in valuation. Canadian Solar is projected to have very low net profit margins. Skepticism surrounding the net profit margins the company will realize going forward is a major reason for the valuation gap.

ENERGY GENERATION BY HOT ROCK ENERGY (HDR) TECHNOLOGY

Hot Rock Energy is a vast, environmentally friendly, economically attractive energy source.

The concept is very simple.

Water is injected into a borehole and circulated through a “heat exchanger” of hot cracked rock several kilometres below the surface. The water is heated through contact with the rock and is then returned to the surface through another borehole where it is used to generate electricity. The water is then re-injected into the first borehole to be reheated and used again.

 

Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Energy

HDR geothermal energy relies on existing technologies and engineering processes, and is the only known source of renewable energy with a capacity to carry large base loads. The concept behind HDR geothermal energy is relatively simple. Heat is generated by special high heat producing granites located 3km or more below the Earth’s surface. The heat inside these granites is trapped by overlying rocks which act as an insulating blanket. The heat is extracted from these granites by circulating water through them in an engineered, artificial reservoir or underground heat exchanger.

 

HDR geothermal energy relies on existing technologies and engineering processes such as drilling and hydraulic fracturing, techniques established by the oil and gas industry. Standard geothermal power stations convert the extracted heat into electricity. HDR geothermal energy is environmentally clean and does not produce greenhouse gases.

It has been classified as renewable by National and International authorities.

 

The Hot Rock Energy system works with two closed circulation loops

 

The subsurface loop

This loop circulates water down an injection borehole where it passes through the

underground “heat exchanger” and is heated. The superheated water is then recovered by one or more production boreholes which return it under pressure to the surface. By keeping the water under pressure and preventing it turning to steam, any materials dissolved from the underground rock mass (such as silica or carbonates) are kept in solution and can be returned to the ground.

 

At the surface, the superheated water is passed through a metal heat exchanger where most of the heat is removed. The now cooled water is then returned to the injection borehole where it is sent down again to recover more heat.

 

The power station loop

 

At the surface a second closed loop fluid system is used to transfer the heat into the power station and generate the electricity in a turbine. The fluid used in the power station loop can be water, but more usually a lower boiling point fluid is used. Organic fluids such as refrigerants and iso-pentane are often used.

 

The HDR Energy Extration Process

All modern HDR development work is based on the relatively simple concept described in a US Patent issued to Los Alamos when HDR technology was more theory than reality. A well is first drilled into hot, crystalline rock. Water is then injected at pressures high enough to open the natural joints in the rock, thereby creating an engineered geothermal reservoir.

 

The reservoir consists of a relatively small amount of water dispersed in a very large volume of hot rock. The relative dimensions and orientation of the reservoir are determined by the local geologic and stress conditions, while its ultimate volume is a function of the duration of the hydraulic fracturing operation and the fracturing pressures applied.

 

Seismic techniques are used to follow the growth of the reservoir, to assess its location, and to determine its approximate dimensions. Using the seismic data as a guide, one or more production wells are subsequently drilled into the engineered

reservoir at some distance from the first well. In a properly engineered HDR reservoir, there are a number of fluid-flow pathways between the injection and production wellbores.

 

Operation of an HDR heat mine is extremely simple. A high-pressure injection pump

provides the sole motive force to circulate water through the engineered reservoir and deliver it to a power plant on the surface. The hydraulic pressure applied via the injection pump also serves to keep the joints within the reservoir propped open. The operating parameters applied to the injection pump thus greatly affect both the flow rate through the reservoir and its instantaneous fluid capacity. By using a  Combination of injection and production control measures, an almost limitless variety

of operating scenarios may be employed to mine the heat.

 

The Major Components of a HDR System

1. One, or more, hot dry rock reservoirs are created artificially by hydraulically fracturing a deep well drilled into hot, impermeable, crystalline basement rock. The hydraulic fracturing, achieved by pumping water into the well at high pressure, forces open tiny pre-existing fractures in the rock, creating a system or “cloud” of fractures that extends for tens of meters around the well. The body of rock containing the fracture system is the reservoir of heat. The fracture system provides for the heat transport medium, water, to contact a large area of the rock surface in order to absorb the heat and bring it to the surface. More than one reservoir could supply hot water to a single power plant.

 

2. Deep wells are meant for production and injection of water. The wells are drilled with conventional rotary drilling technology similar to that used for drilling deep oil and gas wells. The total number of wells and the ratio of production wells to injection wells may vary. Experimental HDR systems to date have typically involved one injection well and one production well. The earliest commercial HDR systems will likely include a “triplet,” two production wells for each injection well. A triplet of deep wells will support about 5 MW of power plant capacity, assuming adequate flow rates and fluid temperature. It is possible that other well configurations, such as a

quadruplet (3 production wells per injection well) or a quintuplet (4 production wells per injection well) could be used.

 

However, the cost effectiveness of using a quadruplet or quintuplet has not been established. Also, the ellipsoidal, rather than spherical, shape of the fracture pattern at Fenton Hill suggests that one production well on each side of the injection well, on the long axis of the reservoir, is the logical configuration. For these reasons, this analysis is limited to a ratio of two production wells per injection well, with earlier commercial systems limited to three wells total, and later systems using multiple triplets of wells. The original well, from which the fracture system is created, is

used for injection. Two additional nearby wells are drilled directionally to intersect the fracture system and are used as production wells. Operation of the system involves pumping water into the fracture system through the injection well, forcing it through the fracture system where it becomes heated, and recovering it through the production wells.

 

3. A system of microseismic instruments in shallow holes around the well that is being fractured is used. During the fracturing operation, this system gathers seismic data, which is used to determine the extent and the orientation of the hydraulically created fracture system. This information is then used to guide the drilling of the production wells so that they intersect the fracture system at depth. Although the HDR system, once it is completed, can operate without it, the microseismic system is included here because itis an integral part of creating the HDR reservoir and because it may be left in place to gather additional information which could be useful later in

the life of the HDR system.

4. A shallow water well to provide water (or other source of fresh water).

5. Surface piping, or gathering system, to transport water between the wells and power plant.

6. A binary power system is used to convert the heat in the water to electricity. This system is comprised of the following major components:

a. One or more turbines connected to one or more electric generators.

b. A heat exchange vessel to transfer heat from the hot water to a secondary working fluid with a low boiling temperature.

c. A heat rejection system to transfer waste heat to the atmosphere and condense the vapor exiting the turbine. A wet, or dry, cooling system can be used. The capital cost of a wet cooling system is only marginally less expensive than for a dry cooling system.

However, this cost advantage is largely offset by the higher operating cost of the wet

cooling system. For this reason, and since HDR sites in the U.S. are likely to be in arid areas with limited water supplies, this technology characterization is limited to a dry cooling system.

d. Injection pump(s) circulate the water through the HDR reservoir.

e. Pumps repressure the working fluid after it condenses and a vessel storing the working fluid.

f. Electrical controls and power conditioning equipment.

 

Development of an Engineered Artificial Reservoir

Granites have an internal fabric of cooling joints and fractures, a result of cooling down from a melt (like molten glass) to a solid that we see today. Developing an underground heat exchanger involves increasing the hydraulic pressure at the bottom of a deep drill hole (approx. 4- 5km) until the existing fractures and joints are slightly opened.

Agro Waste Potential

The agricultural waste is a low-density biomass, scattered all over the country. Also, it is available in a wide variety of forms having a wide variety of physical and chemical properties. As a result, in spite of its tremendous potential as a renewable source of energy, it has remained more or less neglected by the energy planners as well as technocrats. Also, almost all attempts at finding economically feasible ways of using biomass as a source of energy on a wide scale have proved unsuccessful and unsustainable. We however, believe that it is techno economically feasible to use biomass as a source of energy.

 

An excellent example of the right approach to use of biomass energy is a chain of technologies developed and successfully commercialized by Appropriate Rural Technology Institute.

 

Every year, farmers in Maharashtra state alone are simply burning off millions of tons of sugarcane trash (dried leaves of sugarcane left in the field after harvesting of the cane). In 2005, the government undertook a project that attempted to explore means of converting this biomass into a value added fuel, namely char briquettes. Under the project an oven-and-retort type charring kiln was developed. It converted sugarcane trash into powdery char. The charring kiln can be easily dismantled and transferred from one location to other, thereby eliminating the need to transport large quantities of loose biomass. Operated as a continuous batch process, it consumes about 250 kg of trash to generate about 50 kg of char powder every day. Three unskilled labourers can operate two kilns simultaneously to produce 100 kg char powder per day. The powder can then be briquetted by using a briquetting machine. The production cost of the briquettes is about Rs. 8 per kg.

 

Kerosene, which is the preferred cooking fuel for of the urban poor, is getting costlier and costlier as the government is gradually withdrawing the subsidy on it. We felt that the char briquettes made from agricultural waste could be a suitable low cost alternative fuel for the urban poor. However, switching from one form of fuel to other also requires a switch over from one type of cooking stove to other. It was, therefore, necessary to develop a cooking stove that was designed to suit the combustion characteristics of the char briquettes. Therefore Sarai cooker was developed. The cooker combines the principle of a hotbox, with the principle of a fuel-efficient stove. The result is so energy efficient that it requires just about 100 gm of char briquettes to cook vegetables, rice and dal for a family of five, and another 50 gm or so for roasting rotis on the charcoal burning stove which is part of the cooker assembly. Even if the briquettes are available in the urban market at the rate of Rs.10 per kg, the Sarai system requires fuel worth just about Re.1 per meal. No other fuel-stove system has such a low operating cost.

 

The concept has taken off very well among urban as well as rural households in rice eating localities in Maharashtra. The reason for it is its practical feasibility which is as follow:

1. Conventional thinking had always focused on producing tons of briquettes in a centrally located factory. This involves collection and transportation of widely scattered and low density raw material, and the transportation cost itself renders the entire project impractical. Our approach of decentralized production of char, and transportation of the char to a centrally located briquetting facility makes more economic sense.

 

2. The Sarai cooker is assembled using components already available in the utensils market. Thus, the production of the cooker does not involve any dedicated machinery or infrastructure. As a result, the cooker can be produced at a relatively low cost of about Rs.350-500 (depending mainly on the cost of stainless steel) making it affordable for the target users and profitable for the producer and retailers.

 

3. Because of the efficient design of the stove, the quantity of fuel required per meal is very less, keeping the cost of fuel per meal cooked at the lowest possible level for the consumer. This allows the per kg cost of the briquettes to be high enough to provide sufficient net income to the char producers, the briquetters, as well as the retailers. This example clearly demonstrates that it is possible to find ways of using biomass energy in techno economically feasible ways. Considering the huge amount of agrowaste produced annually in India, it can be easily seen that the chain of technologies described here can have a tremendous positive impact on the rural economy of the country.

WEALTH FROM AGRO WASTE

Agricultural out put from India has seen phenomenal growth. Factors, which contributed to the development, were research in seeds, access to water and power, effective pesticides, communication and improvement in storage facility. With the growth in production of agricultural output agro-waste production is also increased. However, local thermal energy which are needs of rural sector were mainly managed through cow dung, wood, kerosene and lately LPG. Agro mass had few takers. In fact, storage of agro-mass posed problems such as security risk due to fire hazard, growth of pests, blockage of covered space etc. Simplest solution, which is even practiced today, is spread the waste and burn it. On the other hand, in urban sector industrial growth is pushing the energy needs to hilt. Queues at petrol pump and chimneys spewing, fossil fuel burnt CO2 are the concerns. Indian government had recognized and efforts to use biomass were started in 1980’s. Some of the difficulties, which were noted in use of biomass, were:

 

       Low bulk density and tendency to scatter around.

       Moisture content.

       Transportation costs.

       Drying and briquetting

 

Fiscal and economical incentives were announced and that led to installation of various briquetting plants. Early birds however, did not have the beginner’s advantage. On the contrary arm twisting techniques of urban buyers, poor credit facility, enforced most of the entrepreneurs to shut the shop. Today however, due to movement called clean development mechanism, renewed vigour is felt in this area.

 

Briquetting process

The briquetting process is pretty simple. The machinery involved is a simple reciprocating machine that compresses the bio-mass to one fifth volume. The mechanical pressure exerted on the biomass is equivalent to 1350 kg/cm2. Due to this high-pressure mechanical operation, there is heat generation, which evaporates the entrapped moisture and gives a polished finishing. The compacted biomass is extruded through a die, which also decided the diameter of briquette. Some raw materials are wet and do not form good solid compact briquette. There is a separate dryer provided in the system for making the material suitable for briquetting. Lubricating oil cooling system and electrical system are additionally required for briquetting plant. Power requirement for briquetting plant is proportional to tonnage. A broad requirement of 60 Units per ton of briquette can be considered as benchmark.

 

Raw Material

Though biomass is a very popularly talked about term, the real meaning of it is not clearly understood. Particularly, in the context of briquette manufacturing, all bio degradable agro wastes can be easily briquetted. The briquettable bio mass need not be always raw material in the same form. High moisture content bio mass needs be solar dried or dried by fuel firing before briquetting. Some of the raw materials are not easily briquetted. It is necessary to add agro or synthetic binders. Briquettes made out of such binders are not of desired quality, as the binders do not mix thoroughly and uniformly.

 

Business effectiveness

Manufacturing of briquette can be classified as high volume low cost business. Approximate breakup 45% raw material, 15% raw material transportation, 15% Power, 10% Investment (full production), 9% Other expenses and 6% Profit. Thus, it is essential to procure raw material in time. The rural sector demands immediate cash payments. Therefore, liquidity by prompt recovery of dues is necessary. Business is quite sensitive to cost of transport fuel. Convenient Transporters who are having two-way business offer low rates. Planning of loading unloading manpower, knowledge of status of inventory at user end can affect profitability substantially.

BIOMETHANATION PLANT

A reviewed interest in renewable energy and related conversion technologies is emerging again. Although the eventual depletion of fossil fuels lurks in the background as a long-term incentive for the development of sustainable energy forms, more urgent incentives to re-emphasize renewable energy are related to global environmental quality. The first concern to emerge was release of toxic compounds and oxides of nitrogen and sulphur resulting from combustion of fossil fuels. These air pollutants contribute globally to health and environment problems, the most common of which is referred to as acid rain. The greatest threat is that of global warming related to an increased concentration of carbon dioxide and other upper atmospheric pollutants resulting from anthropogenic activities.

 

Use of renewable biomass (including energy crops and organic wastes) as an energy resource is not only greener with respect to most pollutants, but it’s use represents a closed balanced carbon cycle with respect to atmospheric carbon dioxide. It could also mitigate atmospheric carbon dioxide levels through replacement of fossil fuels. A third concern is the recognized need for effective methods of treatments and disposal of large quantities of municipal, industrial and agricultural organic wastes. These wastes may not only represent a threat to environmental quality, but also represents a significant renewable energy resource.

 

Why methane?

Biomass may be converted to a variety of energy forms including heat, steam, electricity, hydrogen, ethanol, methanol and methane. Selection of product for conversion is dependent upon a number of factors including need for direct heat or steam, conversion efficiencies, conversion and use of hardware and environmental impact of conversion process, waste stream and product use. Compared to other fossil fuels methane produces few atmospheric pollutants and generates less carbon dioxide per unit energy because methane is comparatively a clean fuel. The trend is towards its increased use for appliances, vehicles, industrial applications and power generation. Ethanol is becoming a popular biomass – derived fuel.

 

Conversion processes

Methane can be produced from biomass by either thermal gasification or biological classification. Economic application of thermal processes is limited to feeds with either low water content or those having the potential to be mechanically dewatered inexpensively. Feedstocks containing 15% of total solids require all of the feed energy for water removal. Thermal processes for methane production also are only economic at large scales and generate a mixture of gaseous products that must be upgraded to methane. The product gas is composed primarily of methane and carbon dioxide with traces of hydrogen sulphide and water vapour. The major limitation of biological gasification is that conversion is usually incomplete, often leaving as much as 50% of the organic matter unconverted.

 

Principles of anaerobic digestion

It is the application of biological methanogenesis, which is anaerobic process responsible for degradation of much of the carbonaceous matter in natural environment, where organic accumulation results in depletion of oxygen for aerobic metabolism. This process, which is carried out by a consortium of different organisms is found in numerous environments, including sediments, flooded soils and land fills.

 

In generalized scheme for anaerobic digestion feedstock is harvested, shredded and placed into a reactor which has an active inoculum of microorganisms required for methane fermentation. A conventional reactor is mixed, fed once or more per day, heated to a temperature of 350C and operated at a hydraulic retention time of 20 – 30 days and loading rate of 1.7 kg VS m3d-1. Under these conditions about 60% reduction in organic matter is achieved corresponding to a methane yield of 0.24 m3 per kg VS added. The biogas composition is typically 60% methane and 40% carbon dioxide with traces of hydrogen sulphide and water vapour. The conventional design is being replaced by more innovative designs influenced primarily by feed suspended solids content.

The objective of these designs is to increase solids and microorganism retention, decrease reactor size and reduce process energy requirements. Improved designs have increased possible loading rates 20 fold, reduced residence times and improved process stability.

  

Renewable methane from biomass

Resource potential estimates for terrestrial biomass is estimated to be 22 EJ while for feed stocks like grass, wood, seaweed it is 7 EJ.The potential for marine biomass is huge at greater than 100 EJ per year.

 

As biomethanogenesis decomposes organic matter with production of useful energy products, anaerobic digestion of organic matter is receiving increased attention. Solid and agricultural wastes release undesired methane into the atmosphere due to anaerobic digestion in landfills, lagoons or stockpiles. Treatment and recovery of this gas in reactors would reduce this source of atmospheric methane. An attractive option for treatment of the organic fraction of these wastes is to separately treat organic fraction by composting and applying the stabilized residues in land as a soil amendment. The residues would reduce water needs and prevent erosion.

 

As population increases and technology development begin to result in significant resource depletion and environmental deterioration, we must take a universal view on the ground rules for sustaining our species in a manner that is compatible with preservation of biosphere. This will require production of feed, food and energy by technologies that are indefinitely sustainable and which have minimal environmental impacts. This will involve a major shift to renewable resources of energy, sustainable agricultural practices for production of food, feed and energy and recycle of all non- renewable resources. Derivation of methane from energy crops and organic wastes has an important role towards achieving this objective.

BIOMASS AS ENERGY SOURCE -II

Another form of standardised fuel which is already being used in the rural areas is that of biogenous methane. The biological process of methane production results in a mixture of methane and carbon dioxide, which is called biogas. Burnt in a properly designed burner, biogas produces a blue flame, which is absolutely clean. This technology is at least 150 years old.

 

Traditionally, cattle dung is used as feedstock for producing biogas, and therefore it is also called gobar gas in India. During the last 50 years, the Government of India has made great efforts to popularise the gobar gas technology, but the present figures indicate that there are only about 2.5 million working domestic biogas plants in India, covering hardly 1.8% of the rural households. The failure of the gobar gas technology in India was due to the fact that it is not a very user-friendly technology. It requires dung from at least 6 to 8 heads of cattle. In order that the dung be easily available, the cattle must be penned and not allowed to roam.

 

The present technology also requires the dung to be mixed with equal volume of water to form a slurry. Villagers do not have tap water in their houses. Therefore, the water has to be fetched by the women from a source that is often far away from the house. The water is generally carried in pots balanced on their heads. Fetching water for the household is itself quite a strenuous task. Fetching daily additional 40 to 50 litres of water for the biogas plant only adds to the women’s burden, which they generally resent. The drudgery doesn’t just stop at fetching dung and water. Disposal of daily about 80 litres of spent slurry is also often a problem.

 

The new proposed system produced a more user-friendly biogas system based on starchy or sugary feedstock. Just 2 kg of sugar yield as much biogas as 40 kg of dung, and while dung requires a retention period of about 40 days, sugar yields the gas within just a single day. Starch also works equally well as feedstock. Our novel biogas system operates on waste starchy or sugary material such as leftover food, oilcake of non-edible oilseeds, fruits, tubers, rhizomes or grain that cannot be marketed due to poor quality, or non-edible material like rhizomes of banana, fruits of wild ficus etc.

 

A biogas plant based on this technology is quite small, having a capacity of just 1000 litres, and its cost is also much less, only about Rs.6000. About 200 of such gas plants are already installed, in various parts of Maharashtra, and this number is going to increase to 2000 in the next year.

 

Biogas can also be used as fuel in internal combustion engines. The CNG technology that is currently available in India can be used in both ways as bigas and an automotive fuel. Wood gas is the third alternative representing standardized fuel made from biomass. This technology does not lend itself well to being used in domestic cookstoves, but larger stoves, used in bakeries, langars or restaurants can be based on it.

However, wood gas is currently being used as fuel in internal combustion engines for generating electricity. Many such units are being operated all over the country. Biogas based electricity generation should be seriously considered by our planners and administrators as a means of supplying electricity to villages.

 

The electricity demand of a village is not very high. Supply of such small amount of electricity from a central generating facility is generally very costly because of the capital expense of the conduction system. There are also losses and theft of electricity when it is transmitted over such long distances. The village level generators should be operated by the villagers themselves. They can then generate electricity as and when they want and also use it for whatever purpose they want.

 

This discussion would not be completed without mentioning biodiesel and alcohol. Biodiesel is made from vegetable oil. In the Western countries, edible oil like soybean oil or rapeseed oil are used as a source of biodiesel. Our country, currently imports almost 50% of its total demand of edible oil. Under such circumstances, using edible oils for biodiesel is out of question.

 

Among our indigenous plant species, castor and rice are the only sources of oil that are produced by farmers. Castor oil, having special chemical composition, is not only being used by industries but it is also exported, while rice bran oil is used almost entirely by the organised soap industry. The remaining non-edible oils, being produced from seeds of various uncultivated tree species, play only a minor role in our economy. Being uncultivated, their supply is unreliable and therefore one cannot base a major industry like biodiesel on them. Currently India requires annually about 50 million tonnes of diesel. Substituing just 5% of this by biodiesel would require 2.5 million tonnes of vegetable oil. Considering average yield of 500 kg oil per hectare, one would require an area of 5 million hectares under oilseed production. I quote these figures only to bring into focus the magnitude of this endeavour. There is talk of introducing Jatropha curcas as a new oil bearing plant. It is claimed that  Jatropha requires very little water.

 

It is clear  that all plant species, irrespective of whether they are drought tolerant or not, require monthly about 200 mm water, if they are to give a good yield. Tolerance to drought means only that the plant can survive under conditions of drought and that it does not die under drought. It does not mean that it would give high yield under such conditions. It has been shown that even Jatropha needs about 800 to 900 mm of water to become economically viable. If a farmer has at his disposal this much water, he would rather grow a cash crop like cotton, groundnut, soybean or onion, than a low yielding plant like Jatropha.

 

The situation of alcohol is similar to that of biodiesel. Currently, alcohol is made from

molasses, a free by product of the sugar industry. As the cost of sugarcane, its harvest, transport, and processing are borne by sugar, the present cost of alcohol is low. But if crops like sugarcane, sugar beet or sweet sorghum are grown exclusively for alcohol production, the above mentioned costs would have to be borne by alcohol, which then would not be so cheap. Also the area required to be planted to produce alcohol would be of the same magnitude as that required by biodiesel.

 

Production of biomass in any form requires the use of land, and it would require the

involvement of rural people to do it. Chemical fertilizers, an important input required in agriculture, need a large quantities of fossil fuel in their production.

 

This concept is based on the assumption that soil micro-organisms degrade the soil minerals to provide the green plants with all the mineral nutrients that they need. If the soil micro-organisms are adequately fed with organic matter, there is theoretically no need to apply chemical fertilizers to the soil. Traditional agricultural scientists recommend the application of organic matter in the form of compost. However, the nutritional value of composted organic matter is so low, that one has to apply 20 to 50 tonnes of compost per hectare. In practical terms, it means that one has to use the biomass produced in about 10 hectares for providing organic matter to one hectare.

 

Research has shown that if organic matter having high nutritive value, like sugar, starch, protein etc. is used as manure, application of just 10 to 25 kg per hectare of it is enough to produce high crop yield without using any other form of chemical or organic nutrients. This new discovery would reduce the cost of agriculture substantially and would also reduce the cost of producing biomass.

BIOMASS AS ENERGY SOURCE -I

Biomass is plentifully available in the rural regions. It is already being used by the rural people as a major source of energy, mainly in cooking food, which constitutes almost 50% of the total energy consumption. Assuming that there are about 140 million households in rural India, and assuming that each family uses annually about 3 tonnes of biomass as fuel, one comes to the figure of about 400 million tonnes of biomass utilised annually only for domestic cooking.

 

Engineers and energy scientists generally think only of the calorific value of fuels and of fuel use efficiency. But there is also a third dimension to fuel use, and that is the pollution arising due to burning of biomass. As cooking is done within the confines of a house, the pollution caused by cooking fires is generally not taken very seriously.

 

But according to statistics published by the World Health Organisation, annually about 500,000 women and children die prematurely in India due to air pollution caused by cooking fires in rural households. Considering the fact that almost 70% of our population is rural, giving the rural women a cleanly burning biofuel is a major task, which is unfortunately not tackled by any of our major research centres.

 

There are many options for providing a clean and economical burning biofuel. The biomass that is currently available to villagers is free of cost.

 

One way of tackling this problem is to redesign the cooking devices in such a way that they burn the biomass more cleanly, so that the pollution caused by them is reduced. This is achieved by providing the fuel with sufficient air, so that it burns completely, reducing automatically the carbon monoxide and the particular matter in the fuel gases. Another strategy is to design a stove in such a way that waste of heat is avoided and a major part of the heat generated by the burning biomass is transferred to the pot. This results in higher fuel use efficiency, requiring the user to burn less fuel. Pollution is naturally reduced if the amount of fuel is reduced. Both the strategies are combined in modern improved cook stoves.

 

However, in practical terms, both the strategies often fail, because the fuel that is used in the laboratory while designing the stove differs from the fuel that the rural housewife actually uses. In a laboratory experiment, one normally uses good quality firewood, that has been properly dried and cut into pieces of adequate size. In contrast to this, the fuel used by the rural housewife consists of stalks of plants like cotton, maize, safflower, arhar, or of bushes growing in the vicinity, maize cobs, dung cakes, rhizomes of sugarcane, etc.

 

The traditional cookstove is designed to burn such material and therefore, the housewife often finds that the improved cookstove emits more smoke and soot than her traditional stove, comparatively. Standardisation of fuel is, therefore, another strategy that is considered in the context of using biomass as cooking fuel. The easiest way of standardising woody biomass is to cut it into  uniform, small pieces called chips. Highly efficient and non-polluting stoves can be designed to burn these chips, but unfortunately not much effort has been made in this direction in India.

 

The second and traditional method of converting a non-standard fuel into standard one is to char it into charcoal. It is the volatile matter in biomass that gives rise to the particulate matter in the flue gases. In the process of charring, the volatiles are removed from the biomass to leave only the carbon and non-combustible matter behind. Therefore, when charcoal burns, it burns cleanly, without producing any smoke or soot. However, the traditional method of producing charcoal is itself highly polluting, because the volatiles are released into the atmosphere in this process. Sophisticated technologies are now available for charring, in which the volatiles are burned in the process of charring itself, to produce the heat required in the process.

 

Agricultural waste is an ideal source of charcoal. When one harvests any crop, one generally harvests only grain, fruits, pods, tubers or rhizomes. This constitutes only about 30 to 40% of the total biomass. This means that about 60 to 70% of the total agricultural biomass, or almost 600 million tonnes, is the waste biomass produced annually in India. A small part of it is used as fodder for cattle, but the rest is just wasted.

 

The standardised Sarai cooker, a stove-and-cooker system, can cook the meal for five persons, using just 100 g of our char briquettes. About 15,000 households in Maharashtra are already using the Sarai cooker.