Crop residue biomass for decentralized electrical power generation in rural areas (part 1): Investigation of spatial availability

Spatial assessments of crop residue biomass and its power potential at village level in Sonitpur district of Assam, India is presented in this paper. Recent IRS P6 LISS-III remote sensing data of the study area is analyzed in GIS environment to map crop areas and subsequently residue biomass availability at village level. Altogether 16 different types of crop residues are identified in the district with rice crop as dominant residue. About 0.17 million tonnes of crop residue biomass, having about 17 MW potential power, is spatially distributed in the rural areas of the district. Village level biomass power mapping is done assuming combustion route of decentralized power generation. Considering the acute shortage of grid connected power supply in the study area, the decentralized crop residue based power generation could be an attractive option. At individual level, thermal power plant up to 72 kW could be possible to cater the essential power need of the villager.Crop residue biomass IRS P6 LISS-III GIS

Household time requirements for producing cooking fuels in rural areas in developing nations

Fuelwood is the primary and traditional energy source for cooking mostlyin developing nations. Consumption of fuelwood depends upon climatic conditions, number of family members, geographical elevation and socio-economic conditions. Everyday collection of fuelwood is time consuming, which affects rural people, as they have to spend most of their qualitative time on it. This study focuses on three case studies from Nepal, India and Ghana. In this analysis, detailed production chains of different energy resource were prepared and then the time required for collecting, transporting and processing the wood was collected. Outcomes of the analysis show that, in both cases, just transforming wood into charcoal or briquette and burning in an open traditional cookstove is not saving wood or hours, but with intervention of improved cookstove, the demand for wood and time saves eventually