Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003 |
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Industry & Economy
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Non-conventional Energy Bio-mass energy developers seek own identification Ch. Prashanth Reddy
Hyderabad , July 22 THE Bio-Mass Energy Developers Association of Andhra Pradesh (BEDA) wants the State Government to separate biomass-based energy from other non-conventional energy (NCE) sources such as wind power, cogeneration and mini hydel power with regard to fixing of tariff rates. BEDA office bearersstated that there were intangible benefits to the society from the biomass-based power plants and they should be taken into consideration while fixing the tariff rates. Talking to Business Line in the light of the reports that Transmission Corporation of Andhra Pradesh (APTransco) has represented to the State Government that it was incurring heavy losses by purchasing NCE at a rate of Rs 3.48 per unit while its average cost of power purchase from the conventional sources stood at Rs 1.77 per unit, the office bearers said that anything less than Rs 3.48 per unit would be unviable to them as their cost of production was Rs 3.35 per unit. Incidentally, the Andhra Pradesh Electricity Regulatory Commission (APERC) has banned third party sales by NCE developers making it compulsory for every developer to sell the power generated by them exclusively to the APTransco. Despite the cost of power generation by biomass plants being high when compared to conventional power producers, BEDA feels that biomass power plants should be viewed differently as they were "enhancing the overall economic growth in the rural areas". BEDA claims that each of the of 35 biomass-based power projects in the State generate direct employment to about 150 persons and indirect employment to 500 persons. Besides, on account of the power plants, the farmers would get an additional income of Rs 700 per acre from the farm residues that were otherwise thrown as waste. BEDA says that each biomass power project spends around Rs 70 lakh per month in the rural areas towards purchase of biomass fuels and farm residues and is thus contributing to the development of the rural economy.
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