A small but fast-growing company based in Bihar, the poorest state in India, has perfected and commercialized a system to turn rice husks into electricity, providing remote villages with a clean, reliable power supply.
Photo: Acumen Fund
The company, Husk Power Systems, has created a process that takes a common waste product, rice husks, heats it until it breaks down into gas, and then uses the gas to power an engine to generate electricity. The first gasification plant was set up in 2007, and now Husk Power has 65 plants supplying electricity to around 180,000 people who previously depended on kerosene as a light source.
Each plant can power 400-500 households for 7-8 hours per day at a cost of just 80 rupees – roughly US$1.75- per household per month.
In rural Bihar, pretty much everything that can be used will be used, but rice husks are a big exception. When rice is milled, the outside kernel, or husk, is discarded, and because the husk contains a lot of silica, it doesn’t burn well and can’t be used for cooking. It has been estimated that the state of Bihar produces 1.8 billion kilograms of rice husk per year. Most of it ends up rotting in landfills and emitting methane, a greenhouse gas.
Husk Power Systems is aiming to expand its reach, and plans to have over 2,000 plants in operation by the end of 2014. According to India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, the country has 100,000 villages that are not connected to the national grid. Twenty thousand of those villages are so remote, the ministry says, that they cannot be reached by extending the grid. ■
Further reading: Husk Power Systems was a winner of the Ashden Award for Sustainable Energy in 2011. Check here for more information, photos and a video about Husk Power.
And here’s more on Husk Power in a blog published in the New York Times.
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I think this article is interesting as it illustrates a real possibility in places that produce high volumes of rice. It’s also a nice read because it shows the power, literally, of entrepreneurs in developing countries.
From a people side, it makes you wonder how many entrepreneurs in developing countries already have the know-how to produce alternative and renewable energy processes to provide their own villages with electricity, such as this featured company.
Another thing the article raises is a concern about rice production, and therefore about availability of bio resources to gasify and therefore to create energy with. I could see this method working well where mass quantities of rice are grown — namely in India and other Southeast Asian countries — but the video produced by the company’s founder seems to hint at their desired to expand to a global market, and this just doesn’t seem feasible where rice husks aren’t readily available in such large quantities… or at least not as efficient.
Can this method be extended to other organic byproducts, or is it limited to rice husks? And, are there many more entrepreneurs out there in developing countries who have other ideas for energy resources and production?
This is a great article. I like it because it shows that even those living beyond the reach of the grid can enjoy access to energy and that it is good business too! Who can argue with that? I wonder why governments are not doing more to use biomass as an energy source. ‘Business as usual’ is going to ruin our planet. Does no one care about our children’s future?