Austria-headed biogas technology providers Biogest Energie- und Wassertechnik GmbH (Biogest) has announced that it has received its first order to build an agricultural biogas plant in the Haryana region, northern India. The "Hisar" project is the company's first biogas plant in India and is being developed in cooperation with compatriot agricultural renewable energy project developer Olive REsolutions GmbH, Astron Solpower Pvt Ltd. and the Haryana Agriculture University.
The Biogest PowerCompact biogas plant is intended as a reference plant to promote the expansion in India and the entire Asian market. After projects in the United Kingdom (UK), France, the Czech Republic, Serbia, Romania, Croatia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, Poland, and Austria, this first Biogest biogas plant in India represents a new milestone in the company’s history.
The plant will use agricultural waste as feedstock supplied by the intra-university agricultural land and dairy farms.
Heat and power from agricultural waste
The generated electricity and heat of the biogas plant will be used for the local demand of the university campus. The agricultural waste will be transformed during the production process into high-quality organic fertilizer, which avoids the use of chemical fertilizers.
The biogas plant is carried out in the tried and tested Biogest PowerCompact technology, which, according to the company, has advantages regarding the energy efficiency and operational safety as well as the space-saving modular design.
In a meeting held to announce the collaboration, the Ambassador of India to Austria Renu Pall pointed out that the market potential for biogas plants in India is tremendous. If costs could be made competitive through the “MakeInIndia” programme, India could also bridge other potential markets in South and Southeast Asia. The leading challenge is to network the right partners.
Christian Riel CFO for Biogest emphasized the positive environmental impact of the Waste2Energy plants. Especially for sustainable agriculture, the replacement of chemical fertilizer with biological fertilizer from the biogas plant is an important fact.
For Dr Bhawna Kulshreshtha from OliveREsolutions, this cooperation is an important step to fulfill the Swachh Bharat Mission (Clean India Mission). The Haryana Agricultural University is one of the leading institutes in the agricultural sector and has set a milestone with key initiatives towards utilizing manure and green waste for energy generation and organic fertilizer production.
