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Puritas, the Haycarb
subsidiary promoting renewable energy sources for commercial and
industrial purposes, has been awarded a contract to design and
build a 290kW 'Dendro' power plant for two tea factories owned
by Talawakelle Tea Estates Limited (TTEL).The Rs 30 million
turnkey project will supply the electricity requirements of
TTEL's Deniyaya and Kiruwanaganga tea factories, with wood
gassifiers utilising Gliricidia Sepium fuelwood grown on the
company's own estates and supplemented with green fuelwood
purchased from outgrowers, the company said.
Construction of the new power plant has recently commenced and
the two factories are expected to switch from the national grid
to this renewable and environment-friendly energy source by
August.
Dendro (Latin for wood) power is the most cost effective of the
energy sources available in Sri Lanka, where hydropower is not
available. If used as a replacement for thermal power, it will
enable recovery of investment in less than a year, Haycarb Group
Director Engineering and Puritas Director Parakrama Jayasinghe
said. In the case of TTEL, the payback time will be longer since
the plant is to replace grid electricity.
Puritas is on the verge of signing a technology transfer
agreement with India's The Energy & Resources Institute (TERI)
to tap into the latter's vast experience in gassifier
technology, Mr. Jayasinghe announced this week. The necessary
equipment is to be imported from India, with the balance work
being undertaken locally.
Elaborating on the benefits of Dendro power, he pointed out that
biomass using purpose-grown Short Rotation Coppicing (SRC)
species such as Gliricidia sepium provides a low-cost indigenous
supply of energy with environmental and developmental
benefits."Biomass conversion is seen as one option for reducing
CO2 build up, in addition to the benefits to plantations which
include reduced soil erosion, restoration of degraded land and
amelioration of local impacts to the environment from fossil
fired power generation," Mr. Jayasinghe explained. "Perhaps even
more important is the potential for poverty alleviation due to
the substantial additional incomes that would flow in the rural
economies."
He said a comparison of the average costs of oil and wood shows
that wood costs less than one fourth the cost of oil, for an
equivalent amount of energy.
Making a case for Dendro power as a key energy source at the
national level, Mr. Jayasinghe pointed out that currently, more
than a million households in Sri Lanka are in need of off-grid
power. Added to this, the Ceylon Electricity Board's projections
of an 8 per cent annual growth in electricity demand indicate
that the national grid would require an additional 150MW a year.
Traditional biomass currently accounts for nearly 52 per cent of
the primary energy supplied in Sri Lanka and nearly 76 per cent
of the country's population still depends on fuel wood and other
forms of biomass for household cooking. Dendro power is
therefore the logical solution to Sri Lanka's energy needs, he
said, disclosing that the national potential for Dendro power in
Sri Lanka is estimated to be in excess of 4000 MW annually
generating over 24,000 GWh. This is nearly four times the total
hydropower potential of the country and is adequate to meet
domestic electrical energy demand for many decades.
Mr. Jayasinghe also revealed that Sri Lanka could achieve a
projected saving of Rs 60 billion on fuel imports by 2010, by
replacing a targeted 50 per cent of future electrical power with
Dendro power.
A member of the Hayleys Group, Puritas is the country's leading
builder of sewage, water and waste water treatment plants and
has gained recognition in the private sector as a constructor of
dendro power plants. All technology used in its plants is
designed locally with the construction and fabrication
subcontracted under Puritas' supervision. Puritas also
undertakes maintenance contracts and rectification of
malfunctioning plants. |
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