CANE FIELD RESIDUES AS SUPPORT FUEL FOR COGEN BOILER AT PANDURANG CO-OP SUGAR FACTORY - A SUCCESS STORY

摘要

Shree Pandurang SSKL (Maharashtra), a 3500 TCD crushing capacity sugar mill, had installed a bagasse based 9.4 MW cogen power plant in the year 2006. During the crushing season, which is of about 6 - 7 months, the entire bagasse production is consumed for the operation of the sugar & cogen plant. In the off-season., the power plant operates on bagasse procured from neighbouring mills, the landed cost of which has recently shot up to Rs. 2500 per tonne making the offseason operation unviable.About 100 tonnes of clean cane is harvested per hectare while leaving behind about 7 tonnes of residue (trash) which is burnt after the harvest. The cane tops are, however, collected separately and used as cattle feed.To ensure off-season fuel linkage on a long term basis, facilities were set up in the year 2008, with the financial assistance of the Ministry of New & Renewable Energy, Govt. of India under UNDP-GEF Project on biomass power. The facilities comprise of equipment for baling of cane trash in the fields, for shredding of the baled trash at the factory bagasse yard and for its conveying to the bagasse carrier. The shredded trash is used as a support fuel and blended with bagasse during the crushing season resulting in corresponding saving of bagasse. The bagasse thus saved is again blended with prepared trash (upto 10% of the fuel value of bagasse) and used as fuel for off-season operation of the cogen plant.14 nos. balers have been imported from New Holland (USA). 2 nos. shredders and 2 nos. belt conveyors for feeding the shredded trash to the bagasse carrier have been designed and manufactured locally. The system which commenced commercial operation on 4th Jan 2009 has worked satisfactorily for 3 months in the season and 1 month in the off-season.The gross calorific value of trash is about 3800 Kcal/kg as compared to about 2270 Kcal/kg for mill wet bagasse. In terms of fuel value, 1.0 Kg of cane trash is equivalent to 1.7 Kg of mill wet bagasse.At the current landed cost of about Rs. 1000 per tonne of baled trash, its use as support fuel is remunerative not only for the factory but also for the farmers who are paid net amount of Rs. 100 per tonne of cane trash collected from their farms.