It has been years since biogas has been introduced in India, however, in the absence of lack of innovation, the older biogas plant was not very consumer-friendly. To address this issue, Dhananjay Abhang, Shantanu Khanwelkar and Rohit Hedda founded Cleanergy Tech Solutions Pvt Ltd for more customer-friendly solutions in the form of a biogas plant. This biogas plant made up of kitchen waste and cow dung is helping to make life easier for farmers.
Dhananjay, one of the partners in a conversation with The EarthView explains, “We wanted to develop a solution which is according to the customer needs. Earlier in the market decentralized solution was not available and also space occupancy was more. We solved both the problems and our plant is 40 per cent more compact and also pre-fabricated.”
Biogas was introduced in India around the eighties- its generation helps cut reliance on the use of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal. It helps curb the greenhouse effect: the plants lower methane emissions by capturing this harmful gas and use it as fuel. The biogas technology helps farmers reduce their burden to buy LPG and harmful chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The usual old technology of bio-gas plant did not have customer-friendly operations. Secondly, the gobar gas plant used by farmers had no manual hence making it difficult for farmers to operate.
In 2017, Dhananjay with his other partners started a pilot project for anew in-house biogas plant called Swachhgas modular Biogas. The most versatile feature of Swachhgas Bio plant is that there is an automated system installed in the plant which sends feedback and data daily through the cloud monitoring system. Hence, the monitoring can be done directly from the firm and daily analysis can be carried out. “This also solves the problem of hiring a skilled operating person. Any layman can easily handle the plant as the whole process of sending the feedback is self- monitored”, says Dhananjay.
This biogas plant mainly works on food waste coming out of restaurants and other places. Dhananjay says, “There is another option which is composting – for waste management but there is no economic return in it. While in biogas, it helps economically and also saves fuels and other resources.”
“There is an economic barrier that farmers face in buying a bio-gas plant, so we have come up with a policy wherein- the farmers just have to pay 20% amount initially and later the farmer gets an interest free loan”, explains Dhananjay.
Farmers can buy the plant as a community and install it for a group of families. The dairy farmers are benefited at most as they have huge cow cattle. He further says, “The old technology of bio-gas plant in rural areas which was called the gobar gas- there was no manual provided so farmers did not know very well how to operate the plant. We offer free visits for a certain duration and also the process being very simple the farmers do not face such issues.”
“Farmers get one bonus benefit- the slurry which is generated from the plant is an excellent fertilizer. Also, they can sell this fertilizer to gain monetary profits. We don’t see bio-gas as only fuel, it is rather a way for farmers for living in a self-sustaining manner. Apart from using biogas as a fuel for cooking- we are looking forward to coming up with milk chillers for dairy farmers- as they have to chill the milk to keep it from spoiling”, added Dhananjay.
Written By: Kosha Naik
Great!