CASE STUDY OF ELECTRICITY PLANNING IN KARNATAKA

Let us start with two general points before we discuss energy. The first point is that our priority should be development and that energy should come into the picture later as a powerful instrument of development. Such a perspective begs the question: what is development? For almost fifteen years, I have proceeded with a very simple picture of development that has stood the test of time -development is a socio-economic process directed towards three objectives. The first of these objectives is the satisfaction of the basic needs, starting with the needs of the neediest in order to avoid starting off with satisfying the needs of the affluent. The second objective is to strengthen self-reliance so that people take control over their own destinies. Otherwise, a dictator can satisfy the basic needs of the people without allowing them to have any say over their future, and call the process development. And the third objective is that the development process must be sustainable if it is to withstand the passage of time and survive over the long run, and if it is to be sustainable, then the development process has to be in harmony with the environment. The second general point is that we are in the midst of what Thomas Kuhn, the Harvard philosopher, called a "paradigm revolution". I am sure that all of you know this word "paradigm". I began to understand it only when I realized that it was analogous to the "raga" of Indian classical music. A raga is a framework or pattern. Anybody who sings and plays an instrument in that raga has to adhere to its framework and pattern, but within the constraints of that framework and pattern, the musician can extemporize to any extent that she or he wants. Thomas Kuhn pointed out that, at any period in history, there is a particular paradigm that prevails -this is the ruling paradigm and everybody thinks within the constraints of that paradigm. The paradigm works for a period, but gradually a stage is reached when its tenability decreases. Its effectiveness diminishes and it begins to break down. Then, a paradigm revolution takes place and a new paradigm comes into being. It is like changing over from one raga to another raga. The relevance of all this is to our present discussion is that there is at present a prevailing paradigm on energy that dominates virtually all energy thinking in the country. This paradigm dominates the views of the Government, the approach of the official planners, and the thinking of most people on the subject of energy.

The design of rural energy centres

Need-oriented, self-reliant and environmentally-sound development demands that the design of rural energy centres proceeds step-wises from energy consumption patterns to energy needs to technological options to selection of energy sources and devices to integration of these sources and devices into a system. The procedure is illustrated with Pura village as a concrete example. There is first a description of Pura's energy consumption pattern, and its energy needs and energy resources. In the absence of a rigorous methodology for solving the fundamental problem of designing rural energy centres,viz., given the energy resources and requirements, what is the optimum way of harnessing i energy sources with the aid of j devices to achieve k energy-requiring tasks?, a heuristic approach based on second law efficiencies is used. The result is a design for a rural energy centre for Pura. The first phase of such a centre involves a community-scale biogas plant to meet the energy needs of cooking, domestic electric illumination, and pumping domestic water, in addition to providing organic fertiliser and producing rice husk ash cement. The Pura exercise is used to formulate several principles of rural energy system integration,viz., mixing, cascading and combining of sources, spatial task integration and time-sharing. Finally, the general problem of designing rural energy centres is mathematically formulated. The formulation highlights important data gaps which must be filled before rigorous rural energy system designing can be achieved

Studies in biogas technology. Part I. Performance of a conventional biogas plant

This paper gives an account of a conventional 5.66 m3/day (200 cubic ft/day) biogas plant which has been instrumented, operated and monitored for 2 ½ years. The observations regarding input to the plant, sludge and biogas outputs, and conditions inside the digester, have been described. Three salient features stand out. First, the observed average daily gas yield is much less than the rated capacity of the plant. Secondly, the plants show ease of operation and a very slow response to reductions and cessations of dung supply. Thirdly, the unexpectedly marked uniformity of density and temperature inside the digester indicates the almost complete absence of the stratification which is widely believed to take place; hence, biogas plants may be treated as isothermal, 'uniform' density, most probably imperfectly mixed, fed-batch reactors operating at the mean ambient temperature and the density of water

Studies in biogas technology. Part I. Performance of a conventional biogas plant

Abstract. This paper gives an account of a conventional 5"66 m3/day (200 cubic ft/day) biogas plant which has been instrumented, operated and monitored for 2 89 years. The observations regarding input to the plant, sludge and biogas outputs, and conditions inside the digester, have been described. Three salient features stand out. First, the observed average daily gas yield is much less than the rated capacity of the plant. Secondly, the plants show ease of operation and a very slow response to reductions and cessations of dung supply. Thirdly, the unexpectedly marked uniformity of density and temperature inside the digester indicates the almost complete absence of the stratification which is widely believed to take place; hence, biogas plants may be treated as isothermal, ' uniform' density, most probably imperfectly mixed, fed-batch reactors operating at the mean ambient temperature and the density of water

Rural energy consumption patterns - a field study

This paper is a condensed version of the final report of a detailed field study of rural energy consumption patterns in six villages located west of Bangalore in the dry belt of Karnataka State in India. The study was carried out in two phases; first, a pilot study of four villages and second, the detailed study of six villages, the populations of which varied from around 350 to about 950. The pilot survey ended in late 1976, and most of the data was collected for the main project in 1977. Processing of the collected data was completed in 1980. The aim was to carry out a census survey, rather than a sample study. Hence, considerable effort was expended in production of both a suitable questionnaire, ensuring that all respondents were contacted, and devising methods which would accurately reflect the actual energy use in various energy-utilising activities. In the end, 560 households out of 578 (97%) were surveyed. The following ranking was found for the various energy sources in order of average percentage contribution to the annual total energy requirement: firewood, 81·6%; human energy, 7·7%; animal energy, 2·7%; kerosene, 2·1%; electricity, 0·6% and all other sources (rice husks, agro-wastes, coal and diesel fuel), 5·3%. In other words commercial fuels made only a small contribution to the overall energy use. It should be noted that dung cakes are not burned in this region. The average energy use pattern, sector by sector, again on a percentage basis, was as follows: domestic, 88·3%; industry, 4·7%; agriculture, 4·3%; lighting, 2·2% and transport, 0·5%. The total annual per capita energy consumption was 12·6 ± 1·2 GJ, giving an average annual household consumption of around 78·6 GJ

Rural energy consumption patterns - A field study

This paper is a condensed version of the final report of a detailed field study of rural energy consumption patterns in six villages located west of Bangalore in the dry belt of Karnataka State in India. The study was carried out in two phases; first, a pilot study of four villages and second, the detailed study of six villages, the populations of which varied from around 350 to about 950. The pilot survey ended in late 1976, and most of the data was collected for the main project in 1977. Processing of the collected data was completed in 1980. The aim was to carry out a census survey, rather than a sample study. Hence, considerable effort was expended in production of both a suitable questionnaire, ensuring that all respondents were contacted, and devising methods which would accurately reflect the actual energy use in various energy-utilising activities. In the end, 560 households out of 578 (97%) were surveyed. The following ranking was found for the various energy sources in order of average percentage contribution to the annual total energy requirement: firewood, 81A·6%; human energy, 7A·7%; animal energy, 2A·7%; kerosene, 2A·1%; electricity, 0A·6% and all other sources (rice husks, agro-wastes, coal and diesel fuel), 5A·3%. In other words commercial fuels made only a small contribution to the overall energy use. It should be noted that dung cakes are not burned in this region. The average energy use pattern, sector by sector, again on a percentage basis, was as follows: domestic, 88A·3%; industry, 4A·7%; agriculture, 4A·3%; lighting, 2A·2% and transport, 0A·5%. The total annual per capita energy consumption was 12A·6 A± 1A·2 GJ, giving an average annual household consumption of around 78A·6 GJ