By IANS,
New Delhi : The government Friday announced setting up of two biomass-based electricity projects of 10 MW and 14.5 MW capacity in two districts of Punjab.
A 10 MW biomass power plant will come up at Binjon village in Hoshiarpur district and a 14.5 MW plant at Channu village in Muktsar district of Punjab.
Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said apart from providing a much needed relief from power shortage, these power projects based on biomass would also generate employment in rural areas.
“The two plants are expected to generate about 1,200 employment opportunities,” said a statement from the ministry.
The minister also said biomass projects are largely set up in the rural areas, and help in the stabilisation of the electricity grid in such areas. The electricity generation potential estimated out of such sources for Punjab is about 1,000 MW.
The plants announced Friday will utilise agricultural residues such as cotton stalks, mustard stalks, paddy straw and wood chips besides cattle dung.
“The project will provide direct and indirect employment to about 500 people mainly from local areas and would lead to abatement of approximately 60,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually,” said the statement.
Till date more than 114 biomass power projects with an aggregated capacity of 830 MW have been commissioned and another 55 biomass power projects of about 500 MW capacity are under implementation throughout the country.
Punjab, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are the leading states in adopting usage of bio-mass based power plants, the statement said.