Feasibility Analysis of a Community Biogas Power Plant for Rural Energy Access

In India there are a number of remote areas where electricity is yet to reach or even if electrification is there, lack of supply or no supply is having huge socio-economic impact. In such villages children are deprived of basic illumination for studies and women have to spend hours together searching for fuelwood and are exposed to smoke hazard due to the use of firewood and dung cakes for cooking. The lack of access to clean and efficient fuels or energy sources is a primary indicator of energy poverty in a country. Fortunately, with world’s largest cattle inventory, India is having a very high potential for dung based bio-energy systems. Recently some of the state governments have imposed blanket ban on slaughter of cows and its progeny. Here, a community biogas power plant has been proposed as a solution to the problem of energy scarcity, as also that of financial viability of providing shelter to the retired cattle. It may also be a potential solution to the problem of rural unemployment. In this paper, for such a community biogas power plant an exhaustive analysis has been done with due consideration to the various costs involved and the possibilities of revenue generation to assess the financial viability of the project.