Rise Husk Power Plant

[Bharath Kumar Makkapati]

Dear All,

I have couple of qustions in my mind, hope i ll get answers here.

1. Whit is the scope and feasibility of Rice Husk Power Plant in
Andhra Pradesh?

2. Is there any thing in the market like solar thermal power unit
coupled with wate to energy or rice husk plant etc?

Thanks you very much.

Kind Regards,
Bharat Kumar Makkapati
Product Engineer
Solar Semiconductor
M: +91 9652111032
E-Mail: bharat.m...@solarsemiconductor.com
Web: www.solarsemiconductor.com

[Manu Sharma]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Bharath Kumar Makkapati <bharathkuma...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

1. Whit is the scope and feasibility of Rice Husk Power Plant in Andhra Pradesh?

While a detailed feasibility study will look at the scope in greater detail but just looking at state-wise rice production data shows enormous promise in Andhra. The state produces more rice than most others in India. Only UP and West Bengal produce more.

 

2. Is there any thing in the market like solar thermal power unit coupled with waste to energy or rice husk plant etc?

No. Solar thermal plants are traditionally coupled with natural gas based back up but rice husk based biomass power can be an alternative power source unless the scale of the plant is bigger than the availability of rice husk (though I don't think it'll be an issue in Andhra). 

It's a very good idea actually.

Thanks,

Manu

[Levine Lawrence]

Hi Bharat,

Surely there is immense opportunity! hope you know about the great work done by Huskpower done in bihar. since AP is the top rize producing state, there is an obvious market for husk.

 

however, sourcing and storing it in huge quantities is a big issue. rice mills across the state sell this byproduct which needs proper sorucing.

 

since the calorific value of husk is lower, more quantity is needed to generate power. since rural areas do not have problem with sourcing and storage space, it is an ideal fuel.

 

however, the connection of solar thermal and husk power has to be innovated by you! there is nothing in the market as much i know. hope other forum members can enlighten us

regards

Levine

[Bharath Kumar Makkapati]

Dear Mr Manu Sharma,

Thank you very much for your reply

Actually i found that in most of the villages farmers burn all the
left over after harvest their crops like sugarcane etc. On a contrary
i heard wood pellets are more efficient to burn, so i got a idea of
making those crop left over as pellets and couple with solar thermal
unit would be a good idea.

Well the idea is very preliminary stage, want to share with green groups.

Kind Regards,
Bharat Kumar Makkapati
Product Engineer
Solar Semiconductor
M: +91 9652111032
E-Mail: bharat.m...@solarsemiconductor.com
Web: www.solarsemiconductor.com

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[Madhusudhan Rapole]

Bharat,

A few gasifier manufacturers I spoke to last year were not very positive
about power generation using Rice Husk. The general opinion is that woody
biomass is good for power generation but not rice husk. So most of them do
not give power generation option with Rice Husk.

My information may be a little dated, so it would be best to contact a few
manufacturers. In AP, it would be best to talk to
http://www.aewgasifiers.com as they have good field experience.
Alternatively, Ankur Scientific is also a good bet. They seem to have
gasifiers based on rice husk to generate power.

Regards,

Madhusudhan Rao
Managing Director 

Oorja Energy Engineering Services 
8-2-467/4/A/A, 2nd Floor, Road No. 1 Banjara Hills, Hyderabad (AP) 500034
Ph: 040-69995103, Mobile:  09000332828
www.oorja.in 

Dear All,

Thanks you very much.

--

[Sanjay Arora]

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 5:03 PM, Manu Sharma <orang...@gmail.com> wrote:

On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Bharath Kumar Makkapati <bharathkuma...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

1. Whit is the scope and feasibility of Rice Husk Power Plant in Andhra Pradesh?

While a detailed feasibility study will look at the scope in greater detail but just looking at state-wise rice production data shows enormous promise in Andhra. The state produces more rice than most others in India. Only UP and West Bengal produce more.

 

A lot of Rice produced in Andhra Pradesh is of the Parboiled type, which uses Rice husk to heat up water for producing steam or hot water for the parboiling process. In such cases, the Mill consumes most of husk produced by it.

The production type in the given area has to be factored in, so that the above factor does not raise the raw material prices at some times.

[Shashank]

Solar Thermal based power generation & Husk based power generation are
using 2 different technologies to generate power.

Solar Thermal is using boiler based technology to generate steam and
drive turbines to generate power.

Husk Power is using biomass gasification technology, with Rice Husk as
its main feedstock. In gasification, you "cook" the feedstock at high
temperature in absence of oxygen, this produces inflammable gases
called Producer gas. This producer gas is fed into a gas engine
(similar to say a diesel generator) and that generates the final
power.

So you can see the 2 ways to generate power are quite different.

Solar thermal can easily be coupled with Natural Gas, Coal or even
Furnace oil. As in these fuels, the fuel is burnt directly to produce
heat which is used to produce steam - Think Thermax Boilers & Coal
based Power plants.

Coming back to the rice husk as a feedstock, if one were to burn the
rice husk directly (rice husk has high calorific value), then it could
be coupled with a Solar Thermal. As in both the cases, one is trying
to generate heat to produce steam. So ultimately, it does not matter
where the heat comes from - Sun, Coal, Natural Gas or Rice Husk.

So, if you do decide to go ahead and combine Solar Thermal + Rice
Husk, then you don't need the biomass gasification technology, which
Husk Power is using in Bihar.

It is a good idea and definitely out of the box thinking!

Kind regards,

Shashank
CleanStar Energy

On Jun 30, 4:33 pm, Manu Sharma <orangeh...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Thu, Jun 30, 2011 at 3:09 PM, Bharath Kumar Makkapati <
>

> bharathkumar.makkap...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 1. Whit is the scope and feasibility of Rice Husk Power Plant in Andhra
> > Pradesh?
>
> While a detailed feasibility study will look at the scope in greater detail
> but just looking at state-wise rice production

> data<http://dacnet.nic.in/rice/HS-B-Table-12.htm> shows

[Manu Sharma]

Levine Lawrence wrote:

hope you know about the great work done by Huskpower done in bihar. 

Levine, Huskpower is working on a very different model. It's small scale de-centralised electrification model for villages. Their plants tend to be quite small  -- in 30 KW range. Adequate for the scale they are working on, but here with solar thermal, we are taking about tens of MW if not larger. While each of Huskpower's plants consume around 50 KG of rice husks per hour, a MW scale plant will consume several tons per hour.

The technology is also different. Huskpower plants are based on biomass gassifier technology but what is being recommended here is combustion based technology. Such plants will bear no resemblance to those by Huskpower.

Madhusudhan Rapole wrote:

A few gasifier manufacturers I spoke to last year were not very positive about power generation using Rice Husk [...] Ankur Scientific is also a good bet. They seem to have gasifiers based on rice husk to generate power.

Madhu, again, we're not recommending gasification method here. If I understand correctly, it doesn't scale up that well. The biggest gasifier Ankur Scientific has for rice husk is only 400 KW. You could pair a few of them to take to MW scale but when we're in tens of MW, gasification not recommended. 

Sanjay Arora wrote:

A lot of Rice produced in Andhra Pradesh is of the Parboiled type, which uses Rice husk to heat up water for producing steam or hot water for the parboiling process. In such cases, the Mill consumes most of husk produced by it.

That's a good point, Sanjay. As I said, a detailed survey would be needed to look at resource availability. 

Shashank Verma wrote: 

So, if you do decide to go ahead and combine Solar Thermal + Rice Husk, then you don't need the biomass gasification technology, which Husk Power is using in Bihar.

Exactly my point. Wadham Energy based out of US has a 26.5 MW rice husk-to-energy plant in Williams, California based on combustion technology. It consumes 600-700 tons of rice husks per day. Possibly there could be several other MW scale rice-husk combustion based plants elsewhere in the world.

Shashank Verma wrote: 

It is a good idea and definitely out of the box thinking!

Completely agree.

Thanks,

Manu

[Bharath Kumar Makkapati]

Dear All,

This is truly an overwhelming response from this group, I am more than
happy to be part of this group having many many passionate green
entrepreneurs. I personally thanking each and every member here.

In my research most of the rice husk is consumed by the Brick
Industry, hotels and domestic usage etc. they are really paying
peanuts to the millers.

Nearly 55% of the Paddy crop in AP is from in East Godavary , West
Godavary, Krishna and Guntur Districts, Establising plant in between
these Districts would be a good bet. Not only rice husk many other
feedstock materials like Wheat and rice straw, Cane trash, rice husk,
leaves and vegetable wastes crop residues are extensively available
here which are having nearly similar calorific value.

By the time i put my query i dint think about Megawatt scale, since my
idea is mostly influenced by the Bihar Husk power systems business
model(According to them we need nearly 14 cores for 100 plants each
with 34kilowatt capacity), which is only deals with kilowatt scale. It
seems i have to do lot of in depth research about gasification and
direct burning of feedstock.

I am very glad i finally came up with and idea which is not yet in use
:) but i am average middle class young Indian so have to do a lot of
work to make my dream a reality to serve my mother land in GREEN
Sector.
Thank You very much.

Kind Regards,
Bharat Kumar Makkapati
Product Engineer
Solar Semiconductor
M: +91 9652111032
E-Mail: bharat.m...@solarsemiconductor.com
Web: www.solarsemiconductor.com

[Manu Sharma]

Hi Bharat,

I'm glad you're finding the forum useful. A couple of responses to some of your points.

You wrote:

Not only rice husk many other feedstock materials like Wheat and rice straw, Cane trash, rice husk, leaves and vegetable wastes crop residues are extensively available here which are having nearly similar calorific value.

Design of the gasifier or combustion based biomass systems are dependent upon the fuel type and usually only a single  type of biomass fuel is used in a particular system,

 You wrote

By the time i put my query i dint think about Megawatt scale, since my idea is mostly influenced by the Bihar Husk power systems business model

While that may be true, however, power generation through solar thermal route is only feasible at MW scale. 

Thanks,

Manu

[Sanjay Arora]

On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Bharath Kumar Makkapati <bharathkuma...@gmail.com> wrote:

In my research most of the rice husk is consumed by the Brick
Industry, hotels and domestic usage etc. they are really paying
peanuts to the millers.

I would be interested to know the price per quintal (100 Kg) for Rice Husk in those areas. What exactly do you call peanuts?

On another note, Rice Husk is not going to be available for long to Independent Biomass Power Producers. Rice Milling Industry is consolidating and Rice Millers are putting up their own biomass generation plants. This trend is only going to increase, during the projection periods used in Independent Biomass Producers financials submitted to their banks and basis of their viability. They will have to run around to find other suitable feedstocks.

In Punjab, most Rice Husk Power Generation in Rice Mills is through Gasification route though.

[Shashank]

All,

This thread is turning into a very good discussion. I just have a
couple of points to make that might help us understand whether there
is some way to make Solar + Rice Husk work in a decentralize way.

Manu Wrote:

> Levine, Huskpower is working on a very different model. It's small scale
> de-centralised electrification model for villages. Their plants tend to be
> quite small -- in 30 KW range. Adequate for the scale they are working on,
> but here with solar thermal, we are taking about tens of MW if not
> larger. While each of Huskpower's plants consume around 50 KG of rice husks
> per hour, a MW scale plant will consume several tons per hour.

If Solar Thermal is used for power generation using steam turbines,
then yes, it is economically viable at a scale which is in MWs. This,
of course, will require tons of rice husk per day. The Achille's Heel
in biomass business is logistics. Since biomass has low density, it
takes up a lot of volume (i.e you will need a 10ton truck to transport
say 2 tons of rice husk). Therefore transporting biomass over large
distances in the biomass business can kill the whole thing.

However, combustion based technology can be used in a decentralized
with rice husk also but only for thermal applications. If you look at
it, the brick kilns, restaurants & others they are already doing it.
They are burning rice husk to generate heat for their application.

Solar Thermal can also be used for thermal application in a
decentralized way - solar cookers, solar water heaters etc. The trick
is to find a customer, see what they are using currently and "design"
a solution for them. You can get research money from MNRE or DST (Dept
of Sc & Tech) to fund an innovative project. Also, the customer with
whom you are working for will be more than willing to fund you for
trials that reduce his fuel bill.

So if you have some boiler based industries using coal, natural gas or
furnace oil in rural AP close to the rice belt, you have found
yourself an excellent setup:
1) You have got a customer using fossil fuel who is not happy with
$120/barrel fuel price (the diesel & petrol prices in India are
controlled, the Furnace oil prices are not, so his fuel prices must
have shot through the roof in the last 6 months)

2) You are in the rice belt.. so plenty of rice husk. Logistics cost
will be low. Plus if you start small, you won't require tons of rice
husk, so won't change the local rice husk dynamics.

3) You need to design a solution to transfer heat from the solar
collectors & burning of rice husk to their boilers without producing
steam.
Note, you can modify the boiler to be able to use rice husk or biomass
briquettes, however then the boiler can't go back to Furnace oil. So
the customer will not let you touch his boiler unless he really
believes in it.

So any small add-on heat exchanger that just transfers some extra free
"heat" to the boiler, will definitely decrease his fuel bill. So even
a 10% decrease for him, is actually quite significant for him.

Regards,
Shashank
CleanStar Energy

On Jul 1, 6:30 pm, Sanjay Arora <alt.ene...@videh.co.in> wrote:
> On Fri, Jul 1, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Bharath Kumar Makkapati <
>

[Manu Sharma]

Shashank,

All good points about using rice husk for thermal applications in conjunction with solar. There's no reason why this can't be done.

For power applications that requires transportation, rice husk can be compressed. I read the following about rice husk transportation recently in an article on insulation properties of rice husks (another very exciting application but that's another topic). 

Perhaps the most significant cost associated with the utilization of the rice hull is its 
transport. At a bulk density of about 9 lbs. per ft, loose hulls can be transported at 
roughly the same cost as baled straw. However, to reduce the cost of transport, rice hulls 
can be compressed to as much as 25 lbs. per ft without destroying their elasticity.

 

They readily bounce back to their original density once the force of compression is removed. 
But to transport rice hulls economically, it would not be necessary to compress rice hulls 
to a density of 25 lbs/ft. At a density of only 14.50 lbs/ft, a standard 53-foot trailer 
attains optimal transport efficiency at its maximum legal weight of 24 tons. If, at this 
transport density, we pay an average trucking fee of $1.45 per mile, it would cost 
approximately $15, $30, $45, $60, $75 and $90 to transport one ton of rice hulls 250, 
500, 750, 1000, 1250 and 1500 miles respectively.

The costs and the context here is US specific. But clearly, if a state has good availability, you may not require transportation of rice husks such long distances at all. 

Thanks,

Manu

[Abhaya Swarup]

Dear All,

For power generation from rice husk ...do we need to make pellets or briquettes from rice husk before feeding it into the biomass gasifier or we can feed the rice husk directly ? Any answers..
Regards,

 

Abhaya Swarup

---

From: Shashank <verma.s...@gmail.com>
To: Green-India: India's Energy Future and Sustainable Living <green...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Sat, 2 July, 2011 1:16:36 AM
Subject: [Green-India] Re: Rise Husk Power Plant

[Manu Sharma]

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 12:58 PM, Abhaya Swarup <abhaya...@yahoo.com> wrote:

For power generation from rice husk ...do we need to make pellets or briquettes from rice husk before feeding it into the biomass gasifier or we can feed the rice husk directly ?

No, you don't require pelletisation of rice husks for gasification. Nor for combustion. However, to start the combustion process sometimes a high calorific value fuel such as natural gas is needed. The primary fuel remains rice husks.

Thanks,

Manu

[satishraj medapatla]

Dear Bharath Kumar,

Since Andhra Pradesh is considered as rice bowl of India, small
thermal power plants from rice husk are quite faesible, and there is a
wide scope for that.
The most impotant aspect is location; it needs to have access to water
body, and it should be well connected to the roads, for transportation
of rice husks.
A hybrid system consisting of Solar thermal and Rice husk can be
designed and it would enhance the performance of the thermal power
plant.
Solar thermal power plants become non-functional in the night time and
cloudy days; at such times power can be generated by using rice husk
as fuel.

Thanking You

Satishraj Medapatla

On Jun 30, 2:39 pm, Bharath Kumar Makkapati

<bharathkumar.makkap...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> I have couple of qustions in my mind, hope i ll get answers here.
>
> 1. Whit is the scope and feasibility of Rice Husk Power Plant in
> Andhra Pradesh?
>
> 2. Is there any thing in the market like solar thermal power unit
> coupled with wate to energy or rice husk plant etc?
>
> Thanks you very much.
>
> Kind Regards,
> Bharat Kumar Makkapati
> Product Engineer
> Solar Semiconductor
> M: +91 9652111032

> E-Mail: bharat.makkap...@solarsemiconductor.com
> Web:www.solarsemiconductor.com

[Sanjay Arora]

Thinking out of the box, pelletization can be a low-tech cottage industry, run by the farmers at village level/or smaller mills themselves. Gains would be employment generation, revenue generation from a waste product (applies specifically to various straws from crops, which are presently burnt or decayed by throwing away) and compact form for transportation to the power generation plant.

If gasification is used, it would work as well on pellets...with no loss of energy. In Europe, many Coal fired plants now need to run partially on wood pellets....wood shavings/splits are not used directly but are compacted into pellets for better transportation.

Today pelletization is not growing as well as it should in India because of lack of acceptability. Few plants coming up as biomass pellet buyers should go a long way to gain from wasted biomass.

Would like to see negatives of this approach. Anyone?

[Srinivasa Dikshit]

Dear all friensa ,
as Shashank said the tread is becoming more interested.
As Bharat told rice husk is not sold at peanuts.
Its old at 4000 Rs / ton minimum average in AP .this is a major
revenue source for millers.
But this is going to change as some body told in this thread the rice
husk is not going to available for sale in future.
Refer to the project done in Bengal by WBREDA. electricity generation
by rice mills by gassification route.

Major problem in rice husk is specific density and energy ratio. To
solve this pelletizing is the only solution. I fore see rice mills
going to become pelletizers in future.
To use biomass as an alternate source with solar----
it is possible only with ORC turbines -CSP and gassifiers in 100 Kw
range max.
This combination is most suited for below 100 Kw capacity .Its my
observation from various readings.

So Bharat thanks for starting a good discussion.
Biomass as a whole suitable as gassifiers used in direct thermal use
or in duel fuel engine as done in HUSK power case.
I fore see distributed decentralized generation will encourage small
power plants sub mega watt capacity in rural areas.



On Jul 2, 1:30 pm, Manu Sharma <orangeh...@gmail.com> wrote:

[Manu Sharma]

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Srinivasa Dikshit <hsdi...@gmail.com> wrote:

To use biomass as an alternate source with solar----it is possible only with ORC turbines -CSP and gassifiers in 100 Kw range max. This combination is most suited for below 100 Kw capacity .Its my observation from various readings.

While it's certainly possible -- Sopogy micro CSP solution previously discussed on this list is an example that uses Organic Rankine Cycle turbines -- whether it would be feasible or not is another question since you have two independent power generation systems here. This may increase the cost prohibitively.

The beauty of the combustion route for solar thermal and biomass is that there is a single generator for both fuel sources, so you'd save cost. On the other hand though it has limitation if scale -- it cannot be scaled down.

Another thing to think about here is how would tariff be determined if these were to be grid-tied projects. Biomass power is priced much lower in India compared to solar in independent projects. 

Thanks,

Manu

[Sanjay Arora]

On Sat, Jul 2, 2011 at 4:55 PM, Srinivasa Dikshit <hsdi...@gmail.com> wrote:

As Bharat told rice husk is not sold at peanuts.
Its old at 4000 Rs / ton minimum average  in AP .this is a major
revenue source for millers.

 

I agree, its not a waste product any more....rather its a byproduct. Some millers are extracting silicon & chemical called filfural from Rice Husk. Trend was started by Oswal Agro Furane Ltd. at Dhuri in Punjab. This company was later taken over by someone else.

Some coarse varieties of Rice are available in wholesale around 12000/- Ton, so a price for 4000/- Ton for husk is not cheap at all!
 

To use biomass as an alternate source with solar----
it is possible only with ORC turbines -CSP and gassifiers in 100 Kw
range max.

 

I don't know about ORC, but Rice Husk gasifier based generation units of 600 Kw and multiples are quite known in Punjab. Laksmi Energy is one Rice Mill doing it at this size, to my knowledge.

[Bharath Kumar Makkapati]

Dear members,

As i said earlier i enquired in Mahabubnagar, well it my friends rice
mill they said the price is almost same in Andhrapradesh and it is
around 1500 to 1600INR per Ton (This is the price quoted in Husk power
systems based in Bihar). That's why i called it peanuts, may be i
might have done some more research before quoting as peanuts.

I would entirely second your point 'Rice Husk is not going to be
available for long to Independent Biomass Power Producers', technology
advancement will give all the millers to start their own biomass unit
sooner or later. But as of now I saw the opportunity.

Thank You very much

Kind Regards,
Bharat Kumar Makkapati
Product Engineer
Solar Semiconductor
M: +91 9652111032
E-Mail: bharat.m...@solarsemiconductor.com
Web: www.solarsemiconductor.com