New Delhi, Oct 3 (PTI) Union Power Minister R K Singh on Monday stressed on the need for expediting procurement and use of biomass pellets in thermal power plants.

A high level Inter-Ministerial meeting under the co-chairmanship of Singh and Bhupender Yadav, Union Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change was held on Monday to review the progress of biomass co-firing in thermal power plants along with Parali management in NCR and adjoining states.

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"R.K. Singh emphasised (in the meeting) that orders for procurement & use of biomass pellets in TPPs ( thermal power plants) must be expedited and at least 5 per cent Co-firing is to be ensured," a power ministry statement said.

Singh highlighted that power utilities should make all out efforts to complete the procurement process for existing tenders as soon as possible.

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He further underlined that till the time supply from the long term tenders is not started, power utilities should start procurement for the short term via alternate methods like commission agents as the harvesting season has already started.

The meeting was held in the backdrop of the onset of the harvesting season for Kharif crops in the country.

Secretaries of Ministries of Power and MOEF&CC (environment ministry), senior officials from MoA&FW, Chief Secretaries of governments of Punjab, Haryana & UP, Chairman-Commission of Air Quality of NCR along with officials of these ministries as well as heads of all power utilities in the NCR region attended the meeting.

The meeting also drew participation from important government bodies like CAQM, CEA, CPCB etc.

Singh also stressed that measures should be taken for expeditious setting up of manufacturing facilities for torrification of biomass pellets in different locations to overcome the challenges of supply of biomass's pellets.

As on date, 83,066 MT of biomass has been co-fired in 39 thermal power plants across the country totalling to a capacity of 55,390 MW. In the NCR region, the biomass co-fired is 22,696 MT out of which 95 per cent has been done by NTPC.

Further, 99 per cent of the PO (procurement) in place has been contributed by NTPC Ltd. It was suggested that other GENCOs should follow the footstep of NTPC for trhe successful implementation of Biomass co-firing in the country.

On the biomass pellet procurement side, a large no. of tenders have been floated by several power plants.

Around 106 MMT of biomass tenders are at various stages of the tendering process. Out of these, an order has already been placed for 43.47 Lac MT of biomass tenders by 35 power plants while the tendering process is ongoing for 1064 Lac MT.

It was informed that 25 offline and online training cum awareness programmes for various stakeholders in the sector including farmers, pellet manufacturers and power plant officials were held.

While in the FY 2021-22, 10 such programs were held in a period of six months, 15 events have already been held in a period of six months in this Financial Year.

During the review, it was observed that the target of 5 per cent co-firing of biomass along with coal in TPPs in the country was still far off.

However, most power plants have issued long term tenders and the situation is expected to improve when the supply will start in those tenders.

The direction was given to all thermal power plants in the NCR region to install biomass pellet manufacturing plants (torrefied / non-torrefied) in their premises, including the private power companies. GENCOs may also explore putting up plants through Consortium, it stated.

It was further highlighted that non-compliance in this regard would be viewed very strictly.

CAQM was also communicated to start considering penal provisions on Thermal Power Plants which are not taking enough steps to curb emissions and not co-firing sufficient quantity of biomass.The CPCB informed that financial incentives are to going to be provided for setting up pellet manufacturing plants in the NCR region.

Ministry of Agriculture apprised that the central government has distributed Rs 600 crore worth of machinery to the Custom Hiring Centres of state governments under its scheme which can be used for stubble collection, it stated.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)