From waste to energy, HAU ready

Deepender Deswal

Chaudhary Charan Singh Haryana Agriculture University (HAU) is setting up the biggest mechanised biogas plant on the campus. 

The university is likely to produce 100 kilowatt (kW) electricity besides preparing five tonnes of organic fertiliser daily from this plant.

The work on the project, which is based on agriculture waste including rice straw, wheat straw, food waste cattle manure etc, has started and will start generating power by the end of this year. The plant will have a capacity of around 10 tonnes per day and will generate biogas, ultimately resulting in generation of 100kW of electricity on a daily basis for off-grid supply on the campus.

Vice-Chancellor Prof KP Singh said the biogas project is basically focused on waste-to-energy (WTE) concept that would help in solving both environmental problems with an added advantage of reducing carbon emissions. 

“This project aims at saving natural resources, improving soil health and will be helpful in having clean environment with increase in production and productivity of crops. Methane gas produced from agri-waste may be used as a fuel for domestic and commercial purposes, while carbon dioxide separated from biogas, if any, could be used in protected cultivation structures for assessing its effect on crop production,” he said, adding that this was an attempt to sort out the problem of agri-residue generation and its management.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) is also forcing the state governments to take stringent actions in this direction as the burning of agri-residue in Haryana and Punjab has been choking the national capital — Delhi and its surrounding areas almost every year during the harvesting seasons — rabi and kharif. 

“Burning of agri-residue not only disturbs the soil structure and its microflora but also results in green house gas emissions. Agri residue can be used for preparing numerous value-added products such as biogas, biochar, compost, biofuels, briquettes, pellets, animal feed/silage,” the VC said.

A university official maintained that the biogas plant would be a conglomerated unit of different components such as biogas purification system, biogas bottling unit, biochar unit, CO2 entrapment unit and customised organic fertiliser unit. The excess purified biogas would be bottled and supplied to the guest houses and hostels for cooking purposes. The CO2 left after the purification of biogas would be entrapped and supplied to the Hi-Tech greenhouses located adjacent to the biogas plant. The digested outlet slurry would be separated using a liquid-solid separator. The solid portion would be customised as bio fertiliser, while the liquid will be used in the drip irrigation system.