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Feasibility assessment of biomass for sustainable power generation to mitigate climate change in a rural cluster: a case study in India

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Abstract

Biomass is a clean and green renewable energy source that can address the energy needs of rural India. This paper is a case study of three villages—Ranoli, Pranpura, and Kishanpur—in Bawal tehsil of Haryana, India, assessing the biomass resource and power generation potential, greenhouse gas emissions (GHGs), and climate impact. The results show that study area can produce 2.13 kt of biomass annually, equivalent to 258.6 kW of power, with biomass resource density ranging between 0.167 and 0.205 kt/km2. The estimated emissions from biomass power generation are 453.91 t of \({\mathrm{CO}}_{2}\), 1.79 t of \({\mathrm{CH}}_{4}\), and 0.174 t of \({\mathrm{N}}_{2}\mathrm{O}\). The global temperature change potential (GTP) climate metric is used to estimate the impacts of biomass power emissions on global surface temperature, showing that the first year’s emissions would increase the global temperature by 0.27, 1, and 0.54 nK for biomass, coal, and natural gas-based power, respectively. The study highlights the potential of biomass in climate change mitigation and identifies challenges, such as spatio-temporal distribution, low power density, and competing uses, that need to be addressed for its large-scale adoption. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of biomass energy potential and its role in sustainable development.

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  1. Department of Electronics Engineering, J.C. Bose University of Science & Technology, YMCA, Faridabad, 121006, Haryana, India

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Mayank Nehra: conceptualization, methodology, investigation, formal analysis, visualisation, writing—original draft; Sheilza Jain: conceptualization, resources, data curation, writing—review and editing and supervision.

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Nehra, M., Jain, S. Feasibility assessment of biomass for sustainable power generation to mitigate climate change in a rural cluster: a case study in India. Biomass Conv. Bioref. (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13399-023-04351-1

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