Heat Treatment and Its Effect on Mechanical Properties: Exploring the Potential of Biomass for Sustainable Power Generation

Abstract

Biomass resources are potentially the world’s largest and most sustainable energy sources for power generation in the 21st century. The current availability of biomass in India is estimated at about 500 million metric tonnes per year. Studies sponsored by the Ministry has estimated surplus biomass availability at about 120 – 150 million metric tonnes per annum covering agricultural and forestry residues corresponding to a potential of about 17,000 MW. This apart, about 5000 MW additional power could be generated through bagasse based cogeneration in the country’s 550 Sugar mills, if these sugar mills were to adopt technically and economically optimal levels of cogeneration for extracting power from the bagasse produced by them.