Large amount of agricultural waste is produced after harvesting of crops like wheat, paddy, soya-bean, maize, mustard, sugarcane, groundnut etc. The conventional way is to burn it in the fields or dump it across the wasteland. The burning of biomass residue in the fields has very adverse effect for the environment and leads to air pollution. A more efficient way is to use biomass residues of agricultural crops for production of electricity through biomass based power plants. In India, grid connected biomass power and co-generation installed capacity has increased from 1,102 MW in 2006 to 8,182 MW in 2017. This paper analyses the twenty years’ performance of a 7.5 MW biomass power plant situated at Rangpur village near Kota city of Rajasthan, India, based on capital cost, present cost of biomass per tonne, data obtained from 2006 to 2015 related to annual power generation, and annual consumption of biomass. Levelized Cost of Electricity is found to be varying from Rs. 4.43/kWh to Rs. 4.64/kWh for interest rates varying from 8% to 16%. Plant Load Factor is found to be varying from 29% to 82% during the period of 2006-07 to 2014-15 for nine years, with an average plant load factor of 73%.
Space optimization of concentrator photovoltaic systems based on levelized cost of electricity in solar power plant
