Originally published November 4 2005
Ansaldo and GB Engineering combine on small biomass-fired power plants
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
A joint venture company, SWS & GB Saline Water Specialists, will offer power plants of three to six MW capacities that can be built along a seacoast.
The joint venture company, SWS & GB Saline Water Specialists Pvt Ltd, intends to sell power plants of 3-6 MW capacities that can be put up along a seacoast and fired by biomass.
"Coastal Tamil Nadu abounds in fast-growing trees like casuarinas and Juli Flora," notes MP Ramaswamy, Managing Director, Ansaldo Caldaie Boilers India, which represents Ansaldo in this country.
Apart from producing electricity, the plant will also generate enough heat to evaporate seawater in a vacuum vessel, which can be condensed into drinking water.
According to Ramaswamy, it is possible to produce water at three paise per litre using the company's plants.
To compare, the water supplied in tankers costs six to seven paise per litre.
Thermal power plants in coastal areas can then use the waste heat out of the boilers to convert water into steam, and thereby produce drinkable water.
Recently, at a conference on power equipment in Tiruchi, Dr Hari N Sharan, co-Chairman, Decentralised Energy Systems India Pvt Ltd and a former Director of BHEL, spoke of the huge scope in using biomass-fired small power plants to raise rural incomes.
Dr Sharan says it is possible to put up such plants at a cost of under Rs 50 lakh and produce power at around Rs 4 per unit.
Such units will be viable only when a gas engine is developed, which can produce electricity using the gas produced by a biomass-fired gasifier unit.
In the absence of such a gas engine, the combustible gas needs to be mixed with diesel and fired in a diesel engine, which makes it not-so-attractive economically, but also difficult to maintain.
Still, there is a consensus evolving on the idea that biomass-based small, decentralised power plants are the way to go.
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