By Noor Mohd, IANS
New Delhi : Perhaps for the first time in India, a power plant in Chhattisgarh has been generating electricity using jatropha oil. That should be great news in a country where uninterrupted power supply remains a dream.
The plant, set up by New Delhi-based NGO Winrock International India in the tiny Ranidhera village in Kabir Dham district, is providing 24-hour power supply, that too at an affordable price of Rs.25 per bulb to poor villagers.
The 17.5 KW capacity power plant, which runs on raw oil produced from jatropha seeds, has been supplying electricity to the villagers since it became operational in April last year.
Jatropha is an oilseed plant. Its seeds are not edible, but produce oil that can substitute diesel.
“The plant is successfully meeting the electricity requirement of Ranidhera, a 106-household village, most of them tribal,” Somnath Bhattacharjee, vice president of the NGO, told IANS.
“The plant has never faced any operational breakdown and has been providing uninterrupted electricity supply to consumers,” Bhattacharjee said.
“We are charging a flat rate of Rs.25 per light point a month, which villagers find quite reasonable,” he said. “As a result, the entire village is taking power supply from the plant for meeting the requirement of lighting instead of using kerosene.”
“This is the country’s first successful village electrification project based on straight jatropha oil,” he added.
The NGO is also working to promote awareness about bio-diesel. Non-edible oil from jatropha seeds is used as raw material (feedstock) to produce bio-diesel.
According to industry experts, on an average, 1.2 tonne of bio-diesel can be produced from four tonne of jatropha seeds. To put it differently, one hectare of jatropha yields two tonnes of bio-diesel.
The chemical process through which jatropha oil is converted into bio-diesel is called transesterification. Bio-diesel can be used as an automotive fuel, either neat or through blending with mineral diesel.
Though a late starter, Chhattisgarh has made big strides in the production of bio-diesel from jatropha oil. The annual consumption of bio-diesel in the state is estimated at 10 million tonne.
The state chalked out a comprehensive programme in 2005 to produce bio-diesel from jatropha seeds on a commercial scale. According to available statistics, Chhattisgarh has already planted jatropha on 154,000 hectares of fallow land.
And it targets to plant jatropha on one million hectare by 2012.
Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the apex industry body representing 38 leading vehicle and vehicular engine manufacturers, has welcomed the government’s proposal to introduce blending of bio-diesel with mineral diesel for use as a transport fuel on the ground.
According to SIAM it would help to reduce India’s dependence on crude imports.