Year: 2013 | Month: June | volume 6 | Issue 2
Present Status of Renewable Energy Sources in Punjab
Abstract: <div>The present energy generating systems in developing countries depend largely on local resources: wood, straw, dung for burning, hydraulic power for water wheels and electric power generation and whatever fossil fuel supplies are locally available. A country’s energy requirements often are not fully met by these local resources and foreign-currency resources must be expended to import the needed fossil fuel. In most developing countries, the economic base and the majority of the population are still rural and machinery that requires energy (especially fossil fuel) is not heavily utilized. However, the lack of cheap and adequate energy often hampers rural development plans and retards improvement in the quality of rural life. As on March, 2007, the cumulative grid-interactive power-generating capacity from renewable energy sources was about 9372 MW (6315 MW – wind energy, 1905 MW – small hydro power, 1152 MW – bio power), contributing about 7% of the total installed power-generating capacity in the country. In addition to power generation, renewable energy is being used for a variety of other applications in the country such as cooking, heating domestic water, drying crops, heating in industrial process, and so on. Status of Renewable Energy Sources in Punjab as on March 31, 2012 was studied in details in the fields of biogas technology (1, 30,000 family size and 45 power generation plants), biomass power plants (42 projects of 375 MW capacity), 23 projects of solar energy (10 MW power generations and other applications of solar energy) and hydro power (56 projects of 72 MW capacity).</div>
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