Biogas plants should feed gas into natural gas pipelines for city gas projects : MNES SECY
	15:35 IST

Shri V. Subramanian, Secretary, Ministry of Non Conventional Energy Sources (MNES) has asked organizations, entities and entrepreneurs, who are engaged in production of biogas to utilize the opportunity of feeding this gas into the natural gas pipelines for the city gas projects being planned in different cities of the country. This will help the renewable energy sector in increasing its share in the total energy mix. The biogas can be purified and compressed to meet the requirements of the city gas projects and thus throw a good opportunity for development and growth of biogas plants in the country. Shri Subramanian was speaking here today while inaugurating the National Workshop on Policy Framework for Biogas Programme for next 10 years organized at IIT, Delhi. The workshop has been sponsored by MNES He pointed out that the cities like Surat, Nagpur etc. can be focused for effecting synergy between biogas plants and the city gas distribution network coming up in those areas. Success of this initiative could lead to alternative use of the biogas, which at present is being used either as a cooking fuel or being contemplated to be supplied in the cylinders. Shri Subramanian also asked the participants to deliberate upon the various challenges, which face the programme to popularize biogas plants in the country. Different bottlenecks like lack of interest or lack of raw material or law efficiency, etc. will need appropriate strategies. He also underlined that the renewable energy sector is not only supplying electricity produced from renewable and non-conventional sources but also in helping in saving ecology by replacing firewood and fossil fuels. He said, 19 billion units of electricity generated from renewable energy sources was supplied during last year. The total installed capacity of power from renewable energy sources has crossed 8,500 MW. Shri Subramanian also called upon the industry and other organizations to join the Ministry in spreading the message about uses of renewable energy systems and devices. This will make the drive more effective as it happened in the case of Cellular Phones and TV Sets etc. wherein manufacturers carried out aggressive awareness campaigns which has made various brands household names. The Workshop is being attended by the Heads of Rural Development Departments and State Nodal Agencies of various States/UTs implementing national biogas programme are attending the workshop. Besides, the Heads of Regional Biogas Training Centres, Senior Scientists of ICAR Laboratories among others are also participating. RCJ/UB