Dire state of biomass co-firing in NCR plants flagged in CSE report

Anubha Aggarwal, the author of a 2023 study on the status of biomass co-firing in coal thermal power plants in Delhi-NCR, explains biomass co-firing to be a process in which there is a partial replacement of coal with biomass fuel for power generation even as coal still being the dominant fuel.

“Biomass co-firing in thermal power plants in Delhi-NCR is important given the nature of air pollution Delhi faces every year…From what we have been recently told by the respective plant officials, so far only Jhajjar TPP and Indira Gandhi Super Thermal Power Project are co-firing 2-3% biomass. There is a CAQM mandate on biomass co-firing which if violated the offenders might face action,” said Parth Kumar, the author of the CSE report.

Under section 14 of the Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) Act, 2021, nonadherence to the CAQM direction on biomass co-firing will be considered an offence ‘punishable with imprisonment’ for a term that may extend up to five years or with a fine of up to 1 crore or both. “There is laxity on the side of plants in NCR but I am sure TPPs will soon be under pressure. We are hopeful that with the upcoming Renewable Generation Obligation (RGO) and the existing CAQM and Ministry of Power mandate, the TPPs in the NCR will be under pressure for co-firing,” added Kumar. He added, that the non-compliance by the TPPs would also impact the efforts towards reducing overall greenhouse gas emissions.

The report mentions that the decarbonisation strategy is important to meet India’s Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) targets by 2030 and to attain net-zero emissions by 2070.

The CAQM had observed in its September 2021 directive that stubble burning is a matter of grave concern for air quality in NCR and ex-situ utilization of paddy straw is an important strategy to solve the problem, especially in the Coal based Thermal Power Plants, being one of the potential users. For this, the Commission had directed to immediately initiate co-firing biomass-based pellets, torrefied pellets or briquettes (with a focus on paddy straw).
The CCTS, proposed under the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Act, passed in Parliament in December 2022 proposed the formation of an Indian Carbon Market (ICM).

Among the challenges, raised by the study for the ICM, it has been observed that the exclusion of the thermal power sector from the CCTS is problematic.

The Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme was an initiative rolled out in 2012 under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency. Among the significant findings of the CSE report is that even though TPPs were the biggest sector covered under PAT, they reduced CO2 emissions by 25.21 million tonnes over six years, constituting merely 2.3% reduction from a single year’s overall CO2 emissions of the Power sector (in 2016). “If one looks at the emission reduction achieved in a single year, the figure would probably be less than one per cent,” mentioned the report.

The report said, “Currently, the thermal power sector entities have to comply with the PAT scheme and are also mandated to co-fire biomass of up to five to seven per cent in the subsequent year. The power sector in the PAT scheme has been the only sector that has not been able to achieve its targets (in PAT I) and no penalties have been applied on them for non-compliance.”

“Due to the inclusion in CCTS, the thermal power plants would have an incentivised target to meet, with a penalty for non-compliance which would push for better implementation of the RGO and biomass co-firing policy. Without any regulation and penalty in place, the power plants might flout the individual policy deadlines as they have in the past for other policies (SOx emission norms),” mentioned the report.