Waste to Energy – Challenges and Opportunities in India

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Authors

  • Deputy General Manager, Project Engineering - Mechanical (Steam Generator & Aux.), NTPC Ltd, EOC Complex, Sector 24, Noida 201301 ,IN

Keywords:

waste to energy, MSW, waste disposal, municipal solid waste, clean India, WtE

Abstract

One of the components of Swachh Bharat Mission undertaken by the Ministry of Urban Development is scientific management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) generated in the country. The concept of waste to energy (WtE) is still in the nascent stage in India, as such many initiatives were not successful and faced severe opposition from public in locating WtE plant in their neighbourhood due to pollution concerns. In addition poor financial performance of these plants, lead to unsuccessful ventures.

Presently, the responsibility for disposal of waste in the country lies with Urban Local Bodies (ULB), which continue to struggle, due to lack of adequate financial resource, technical capability, appropriate business model and conducive environment.

As per estimates, more than 1.5 lakh metric tonnes per day (TPD) of waste is being generated thereby a potential of about 200 number of such WtE plants to be set up throughout the country. In order to reap this renewable energy resource and achieve – clean India mission, it is imperative to demonstrate a state-of-the-art technology meeting all the stringent environmental norms and prevent further damage to the environment that requires minimum land and emits minimum pollutants so as to gain confidence in the area of waste management and support government’s effort in improving the people’s health and welfare.

Most of the successful technologies in the waste to energy sector were designed in developed countries and that was suitable to handle segregated waste. Presently in India, source segregation is not being practiced, which makes complexity in identifying a suitable technology. Hence, segregation of waste at source plays a vital role in deciding the success of a project. Even if the technology is imported, a lot of systems need to be customized.

At the same time, it is imperative to develop a technology in India which is suitable for Indian kind of waste and promote technology in an integrated way for scientific disposal of waste. This initiative is essential at this juncture as such earlier efforts were not successful and also found WtE technology is highly capital intensive. It is also expected that promoting a technology development in India will not only promote Make in India concept and also ensure sustainability in scientific disposal of waste.

Further, it is found that there is enough potential for disposal of waste in a distributed manner without involving transportation into larger distance, suitable for towns and non-metro cities which generates waste in smaller volume of less than 100 to 300 TPD, to avoid pollution due to multi fold handling.

With the recent amendment in Electricity Act of 2003 by MoP, ensuring power produced from WtE is mandatorily procured by power Discoms, will pave a long way in promoting WtE plants in the country and for making India Clean.

At the outset, a WtE plant shall be aimed at scientific disposal of waste in an environmentally friendly way and any electric power thus generated from these plants needs to be considered as a by-product only.

 

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Published

2022-10-03

How to Cite

Muthuraman, M. (2022). Waste to Energy – Challenges and Opportunities in India. Indian Journal of Power and River Valley Development, 72(9&10), 161–166. Retrieved from https://informaticsjournals.com/index.php/ijprvd/article/view/31338

 

References

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