Aafrin Kidwai 
The Ministry of Power of India has announced its plans to set up a national mission to address the issue of air pollution due to farm stubble-burning and reduce the carbon footprint of thermal power generation. In a press statement, the Ministry said that this would further support the energy transition in the country and our targets to move towards cleaner energy sources.
As per a press release issued by the ministry, The “National Mission on use of biomass in thermal power plants” will have the following objectives;
(a) To increase the level of co-firing from present 5% to higher levels to have a larger share of carbon neutral power generation from the thermal power plants.
(b) To take up R&D activity in boiler design to handle the higher amount of silica, alkalis in the biomass pellets.
(c) To facilitate overcoming the constraints in supply chain of bio mass pellets and agro- residue and its transport upto to the power plants.
(d) To consider regulatory issues in biomass co-firing.
The minimum duration of the project is five years.
Picture Credit: Wikipedia; NLC India Ltd., NTPL Tuticorin NLCIL, CC BY-SA 4.0
