Step 1: Energy need and demand assessment
This is the first step in estimating the energy needs of your area. It involves the following sub-steps.
The first sub-step involved identifying the various uses of energy in the village, that is, a village’s consumption pattern. For this, details like the number of households, devices used, hours of use of these devices, and the time of day/year when energy is consumed the most, etc., must be found out.

Broadly speaking, energy is required for thermal purposes (to generate heat), that is cooking, room heating, etc., or for electric purposes, that is , for lighting and to power various appliances such as TVs and tape decks.

Figure 1 Steps involved in preparing village energy plan

The typical uses or applications of energy in a rural area are as follows.
To light houses
To run TVs, tape decks, etc. (entertainment)
To run fans in houses especially in the summer months
To run mixers, domestic flour mills, etc.
To run chaff cutters
To light streets, schools, panchayat ghar, public health centres, etc. (community load)
To run irrigation pump sets
To run flour mills and rice hullers, etc.
To run lights and fans in commercial establishments like shops and godowns
To pump drinking water

2. The next sub-step in assessing a village’s energy needs involves finding out details of its consumption pattern, and the time of day/year when energy is used for particular purposes. To understand how this is done, let us now consider Tables 1–4 below. Tables 1–4 indicate that

electrical devices are used at different times of the day and for varied durations; and
some devices are used only during a part of the year; fans are mostly used in summer.

Thus, we see that during energy need assessment, it is important to note not only how much energy is used, but also when (the time of day) it is used.

Domestic energy need assessment in village Shyampur (Table)
Community energy need assessment (Table)
Commercial energy need assessment (Table)
Energy need assessment for agriculture and industry (Table)

Outputs of energy need assessment
At the end of the energy need assessment, you should have information on how much energy is needed for each application in your area. So, what is energy need assessment?
It refers to finding out
What is energy used for?
The consumption pattern and the time of day/year when the energy is used

Step 2: Demand estimation
Usually, thermal energy demand is met by use of fuels such as biomass, kerosene, cow dung, etc.
Therefore, the demand for thermal purposes may be expressed in terms of kilograms of fuel needed.
Electrical energy needs can be expressed in terms of kW (kilowatt) (connected load) and kWh ( kilowatt-hour) (demand or units consumed). To find out the electrical energy needs of your village, you should know the following.

What is energy used for? Is it used to run lights, fans, TVs, irrigation pump sets, etc.?
How many (the number) such devices are used in the village?
What is the rated power (in W [watts], hp [horse power], or kW) of the device being used in each application? For example, a light bulb may be of 60 W, a tube light of 40 W or a CFL (compact fluorescent lamp) may be of 11 W.
How many such devices are likely to be used by each category of users?
How many hours in a day will each device be used?
How many days in a year will each device be used?

In Tables 5–8, the energy demand for each sector in Shyampur village (an example) is calculated. Thereafter, in Table 9, the total energy demand for the village is computed.

For each device
Connected load in watts = (number of households and shops using the device × number of
devices per household and shop × rating of device in watts)

Connected load in kW = connected load in watts/1000

For example, to run a light, = (100 households × 2 lights per connected load in kW household × 60 W per light) / 1000 = 12 kW

Demand in kWh/year = (connected load in kW × hours of operation per day × days of
operation per year)

For example, to run a light, = (12 kW connected load × 6 demand in kWh/year operation hours per day × 365 operation days per year) = 17 520 kWh/year

Domestic energy demand (Table)
Community energy demand (Table)
Commercial demand (Table)
Demand for agriculture and industry (Table)
Total electric demand in Shyampur village (Table)

Outputs of demand estimation
At the end of this step, you should know

the amount of electricity your village requires (demand), and
the connected load (kW) for each electrical application.

What is demand estimation?
It refers to finding out
the amount of electrical energy needed in kWh (demand)
the connected load (kW) for each electric application; and
the amount of fuel (in kilograms [kg]) consumed in each thermal application

Step 3: Load scheduling and optimization
At the end of Step 2 (demand estimation), it was seen that the total connected load for Shyampur is 36.63 kW. In the following section, we will see whether this requirement can be brought down through a process called load scheduling.

Load scheduling is the process of spreading connected load across time. This is done on the basis of the following.

1 Scheduling loads as per time of use
2 Checking if loads can be rescheduled to reduce peak loads

The rescheduled peak load will define the size of the plant needed to meet the energy demand.
The benefits of load scheduling are as follows.

It provides information about when the load is maximum and when it
Is minimum. This would help meet the varying load requirements consistently. For example, if people want to watch TV from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., then the plant must have adequate spare capacity during that period to meet the extra load.
It identifies the period of the day during which the plant must be operated.
It also helps in deciding the size of the power plant such that the plant is operated at optimum capacity throughout the year.

Based on the requirement found out in Step 2, the total peak load can be assessed (Table 10).

Revised load scheduling
As Table 10 suggests, the peak load in order to meet the requirements of the people in Shyampur is 19.77 kW. Since this figure also reflects certain motorized loads, which require a higher starting current, the plant capacity to meet the load must be about 30 kW.

This leads us to the questions of (1) whether this (30 kW) should be the real size of the plant, and (2) whether the load requirement can be reduced. For answers, we must first inquire into the reason behind the high peak load. And, the reason is that a rice huller and a flour mill of 7.5 hp each run in the evening at a time when other loads are also operational. This leads us to yet another question of whether it is necessary to run these machines simultaneously along with the other loads.

In most cases, either of the two would be running at any point of time. For instance, if there are more than 8–10 pump sets in a given village, it is advisable to run them in batches.

Pumps can be split in two batches and each batch can be run at a time when the load on the power generating system is minimal. Hypothetically, load scheduling could also have been done in a manner in which the loads could be distributed throughout the day, thereby reducing the load on the power-generating unit. (Table 11). Table 11 establishes the following facts

The peak load is 16.79 kW.
Load rescheduling has reduced plant capacity size from 19.77 kW to 17 kW.
Oil expellers operate when the agriculture period is over.
This does not include motorized load, hence the total load is 14 kW for solar. In this scenario, the required plant size would be of 25 kW, taking into account operation of 6–8 hours, three days of autonomy, and 80% system efficiency.
The price includes all kinds of costs including energy plantation.

What is load scheduling and optimization?
It refers to identifying
how best the load can be distributed and managed;
how the load hours can be distributed to reduce the peak/maximum load; and
how this scheduling of load can bring down the cost of the technology?

Load as per need (Table)
Revised load scheduling (Table)

Step 4: Resource estimation
In Step 4, an assessment of the various sources of energy available in the village is carried out. It covers the following aspects.

Identifying the different sources of energy in the village
Estimating the current production of the resource
Estimating the current consumption of the resource

Let us now then assess the resources required for all technologies employed
to generate energy from renewable sources of energy, such as the following.
Biomass-based power generation
Solar-related technologies
Mini/micro hydro technologies
Bio-diesel applications

Biomass-based power generation
There are generally two forms of biomass in a typical village.
Crop residue
Firewood (wood from trees)

Forest reserves should not be taken into consideration here, as felling of trees is illegal in many places. However, if there is an energy plantation available in a village for captive use, it can be taken into consideration. Table 12 shows how surplus crop residue is calculated for each variety of crop in the village we are considering in this chapter—Shyampur.

The MNES (Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources) is developing an online biomass atlas for India. It will provide details of biomass availability, and thus the potential of a region in this respect, at the click of the mouse.
Information of this nature will help energy planners to access information from a reliable source on biomass-related issues. In this regard, the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, has become the national focal point on
biomass. Five other apex institutes mentioned below, along with consultants, have been entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the above-mentioned atlas.

TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute), New Delhi
Anna University, Tamil Nadu
ORG (Operations Research Group), New Delhi
Jadavpur University, Kolkata
ASCI (Administrative Staff College of India), Hyderabad

Woody biomass
An assessment of the existing stock of biomass should be carried out to find the sustainable yield from the growing stock at the village level. To estimate the biomass for different land categories, the quadratic method is adopted.

Volume is measured through either of the following equations.
V = a + b × g2 × h
or
V = a + b × d2 × h
where,
V = volume in cubic metres
h = height in metres
g = GBH (girth at breast height) in metres
d = DBH (diameter at breast height) in metres
And, a and b are regression constants.
The annual sustainable yield (Y) is:
Y = 2 GS / R

Calculation of surplus crop residue in Shyampur (Table)

where,
Y – sustainable yield (tonnes/y)
GS = growing stock
R = rotation of growing stock in the village
General volume table
The general volume table (Table 13) is used if the regression equation of particular trees is not known. In this case, the girth of trees must be measured and its corresponding volume be provided in the general volume table.

For example, in case the girth of the tree is 101 cm, it would fall in the third row within the girth class of 90–120 cm. The last column of the same row shows the volume, which is 0.55 m³ (cubic metre).

General volume (Table)

Solar-related technologies
To estimate the availability of solar energy in an area, you would need to know the following.
Number of sunny days in a year in the area
Average number of sunlight hours per day

Solar radiation data are generally available at the local weather data collection centre of the Department of Meteorology. Solar technology is feasible in most parts of India. It needs at least 5–6 hours of sunlight per day for at least 250 days in a year. If an area receives the specified amount of sunlight, solar technologies can be used for power generation. There may be site-specific issues (detailed in Chapter 3 on solar photovoltaic), which must be taken care of before finalizing the technology.

Hydro-based technologies
To assess hydropower potential, you should know the following.
The quantity of water flowing at the point of intake
The flow (To estimate the flow there are two aspects that need to be kept in mind, that is, lean [minimum] flow and peak [maximum] flow [when it is] and the period of the year when the flow is low and high.)
The height and speed of water

Bio-diesel applications
To estimate the resources required to produce bio-diesel, you should know the following.
As mentioned in Chapter 6 on biofuel technology, bio-diesel can be produced from seeds of different varieties of plants.
Oil-yielding plants may occur naturally or they may be grown on farms, bunds, waste lands, and the like.
Bio-diesel can be produced from non-edible oilseeds such as Pongamia
pinnata (Karanj, Honge), Jatropha curcas (Ratan Jot), Hevea braziliensis (Rubber), Madhuca indica (Mahua), and Shorea robusta (Sal).
Information on oil-yielding species, which occur naturally or which can be cultivated in the region, can be obtained from local forestry offices.
There are numerous plants that can yield oil; however, the oil-yielding capacity should be in the range of 25%–35% of the seed weight; otherwise extraction of oil is not viable.
Farmers should find out if oil-yielding seeds are available in a nearby market. If yes, then the cost for the same must be found out. As per the Planning Commission report of the Committee for the Development of Biofuel, the cost of oil-yielding seeds is in the range of 14.98–16.59 rupees/ litre, based on the assumption that the seed contains 35% oil, and 91%– 92% of the oil can be extracted.
Farmers should also know the yield for different varieties of oil-yielding plants. An estimate of the average yield of Jatropha curcas is given in Table 14.

Average yield estimates for Jatropha curcas (Table)

Outputs of resource estimation
At the end of this step, you should have information about the following.
Information about the resource availability for different sources of energy
An estimate of the energy generation potential for each source of energy available
An assessment of whether the resource available is sufficient to generate energy to meet the needs assessed.

Step 5: Cost and Selection of Technologies
Having assessed and matched needs and resources, we now need to select technologies that optimize costs. This section attempts at familiarizing you with the cost of each option, which would help in selecting a technology or a combination of technologies. Please note that the ‘financial analysis’ is best left to the experts. Nevertheless, Table 17 will help in developing some understanding about the cost of various options. With regard to Table 18, which provides an overview of the cost of various technologies, it is important to note the following.

The costs reflected in Table 18 may vary from place to place.
Column 2 suggests the probable cost of different energy sources per kW.
Therefore, if a plant of 50 kW is needed for a biomass-based gasifier, then the total cost, considering the cost per kW mentioned in Column 2, would be Rs 15 000 × 50 = Rs 750 000.
Column 3 gives the cost of generating 1 kW of power per hour, including the expenses on other items like repair and maintenance of the plant and the capital cost.
As electrification/energization is the foremost infrastructure requirement for any area, the government includes these as a part of their subsidized programme. Column 4 reflects the cost of generating power (1 kW per hour) excluding capital expenses, taking for granted that subsidy will be taken up to meet the capital expenses.

Can help in assessing the cost of various options even if more than one option is used (Table)

From the preceding discussion, it is apparent that a village energy plan helps you in the following aspects.

Conducting an energy need assessment and demand assessment of your area
Load scheduling and optimization to assess the peak load and hence the maximum capacity of the plant
Choosing a cost-effective technology / source of fuel based on the resources available in the region
Developing a pool of options on the basis of a financial analysis that ensures optimum utilization of the resources available in the area. (Here, a pool of resources means a hybrid system.)

Additional factors affecting selection of technologies Before a decision is taken on any option or mix of options, the following issues need to be kept in mind.

Resource reliability
Resource reliability refers to how much one can depend on the consistent supply of a resource. For example, the reliability of biomass must be determined in the case of the gasifier and of solar energy in the case of an
SPV (solar photo voltaic) domestic lighting system/power plant. Before zeroing in on any particular technology, it is absolutely necessary that we find out the availability of the resource (Step 4: Resource estimation). This step helps us to find out whether the community can rely on the resource for long-term use of the technology.

Ease of operation and maintenance
Operation and maintenance is a major consideration in the choice of a technology/technologies in any area. The community should be comfortable with the functional aspect of the technology. If the technology were very complicated, it would only discourage the community from adopting it.

For example, SPV is the easiest technology in terms of operation whereas a gasifier, apart from actual operation, involves several other steps such as collection and processing of biomass, which needs dedicated humanpower.

Community organization
A technology is only sustainable if the community participates in the process from the very beginning. Prior experience has shown that the more commitment there is on the part of a community towards the initiative, the better the management of the technology in terms of monthly payment for the service,
supervision of operators,
safety, and
operation and maintenance.

Selection of the technology should be based on expert opinion as well as the views of the community. As per the data provided in the preceding sections it is clear that to set up a 30-kW system there is inadequate biomass in the village. The surplus crop residue (Table 12) amounts to only 28.37 MT. At the same time, the initial cost of SPV (Rs 90 lakhs) is too high to be considered by the gram panchayat.