Biomass based decentralized energy solutions

TERI in association with REEEP South Asia and Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) organised a half day DSDS 2013 special event on Biomass based Decentralised Energy Solutions on 29 Janury 2013, Mangnolia Hall, India Habitat Centre. The issues and challenges that were addressed were

• Experience on developing and promoting biomass gasifiers for thermal and electricity applications
• The current and innovative biomass resources assessment methodology

A welcome remark and setting of the context was done by Mr Amit Kumar, Regional Programme Advisor, REEEP SA, highlighting the importance of biomass based solutions for rural energy access. Dr Shirish Sinha , Senior Thematic Advisor, SDC/Embassy of Switzerland, during a special address, spoke about SDC and TERI collaboration and how 650 MSME has been employed and had shown improved efficiency and profitability. Mr I A Khan, Advisor (Energy), Ministry of Planning Commission, delivered the inaugural address from a national prospective. He talked about the energy need of our country and various plans and vision laid by the government.

This was followed by a technical session on sharing case studies and experiences. The session was chaired by Dr Veena Joshi, Senior Advisor, SDC/Embassy of Switzerland. Presentations were made by Mr Sunil Dhingra, Senior Fellow, TERI, Mr Sudhir Chandra, Chanderpur Works Pvt. Ltd. and Ms Nisha Menon, Dalkia Energy Services. Mr Dhingra presented barriers to and incentives for promoting biomass gasifier based systems. Mr Chandra discussed about his experience on working in MSME sector. Ms Menon discussed about their project supported by REEEP.

Panel discussion with the focus on 'Accelerated deployment of biomass energy based decentralized solutions for rural electrification and small-scale industries' was conducted which was chaired by Dr Shirish Sinha, SDC. Various panelists were Mr Salil Kumar, AGM (DDG), REC, Mr Vishwajeet Sinha, Team Leader, GIZ, Mr Sanjay Khazanchi, Smart Power for Environmentally-sound Economic Development (SPEED) and Mr Ajay Kapur, Country Head, Energy Efficiency Vertical (EEV), SIDBI. This was followed by an open discussion forum.

The event saw a successful and active participation of about 60 people from corporates, government academic institutes, bilateral and multilateral organisations, research institutes, NPOs, and consultants.