Biomass Gasification offers alternative energy system for industries
Senator, Mr. Pervez Rasheed, Minster for Information has said that Biomass Gasification offered the most convincing alternative energy system for industries and was capable of meeting a significant proportion of Pakistan’s industrial energy needs.
He was Speaking at the Inception Workshop of the UNIDO/GEF Project “Promoting Sustainable Energy Production and Use from Biomass in Pakistan” which was held on 27th September 2013 at, Serena Hotel, Islamabad. He hoped that this project would result in new era of economic growth and development for the country and improved energy security by reducing dependence on non-renewable resources.
The Event was a launch pad for UNIDO's Biomass Energy Project, titled as “Promoting Sustainable Energy Production & Use from Biomass in Pakistan" The 1.82 million dollar project with additional 5.30 million USD as co-finance will be implemented in Kamoke, Jhelum, and Thatta for demonstration projects of 4.3 MW from biomass gasification technology and is funded by Global Environmental Facility.
The Project is implemented in partnership with Centre for Energy Systems –NUST, PPAF, SMEDA, private sector and Provincial Energy Departments. Aim of the project is to promote market based adoption of modern biomass Gasification technologies in Pakistan.
The power situation in Pakistan is characterized by an increasing/widening gap between demand and supply. This situation adversely affects the economy. Many Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (SMEs) have difficulties in accessing modern energy services due to the frequent electricity supply interruption in the country, and have to resort to the use of expensive diesel generators sets. The energy shortage results in lowering of their production, profit capacities and opportunities to grow.
Therefore, in order to fill the gaps, UNIDO’s Biomass Project seeks to address the barriers in an integrated and holistic approach combining demonstration projects that have high replication potential with interventions that seek to establish a market environment conducive to investments in biomass gasification technology-based projects in SMEs and rural areas. The Biomass project is designed to promote the development of modern biomass energy technologies for electricity generation for rural areas and for process heat applications in SME clusters in remote areas.
The project will mainly focus on the use of organic waste as feedstock, especially agricultural waste and some wood waste. The overarching objective of the project is to promote market based adoption of modern biomass energy conversion technologies for process heat and electricity.