Being the face of India’s youngest “Maharatna” it was very challenging for GAIL (Gas Authority India Limited) to utilize the Landfill gas, using a renewable way, generated from the municipal waste. The main initiative by the government presents the commitment towards renewable energy and green power generation making a step towards reducing the carbon footprint.
GAIL, explored all options of using Landfill gas including natural gas (CNG) by compressing landfill gas, also producing power using an engine Genset. But it decided to go with Microturbine technology as reciprocating engines cannot operate satisfactorily below 50%. Microturbines have the capability to remotely operate continuously without requiring any specified attention with ease of operation and maintenance capabilities. It can operate with 35% or less methane content Since, the Microturbines works on patented air bearing technology, which does not require intensive components like oil filter, oil pump, coupling, radiator, or starter motor.
M/S Brio Energy Private Limited, exclusive distributors of Capstone Microturbine in India, supplied, installed, successfully commissioned Microturbine in December 2015, which is running successfully and generating power 16kW. All this power is used to operate pumps, blowers as a part of unit testing. Excess power will be uploaded to the grid, for this purpose the grid is already synchronized with local grid frequency for this purpose.
Thousands of tons of solid waste dumped as land-fills which is becoming a Herculean problem and a daily headache for the Indian municipality. Indian cities must start looking for more landfill gas projects using Microturbines as it can be a renewable, clean, and green power energy project with lots of features in a single package.