Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 112, January 2018, Pages 361-370
Energy Policy

Barriers to biogas dissemination in India: A review

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2017.10.027Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Highlights

  • Barriers hindering biogas dissemination in urban and rural biogas systems are identified.

  • Decomposition and logical problem analysis tools are used for assessment.

  • Key areas of improvements in existing policies are identified.

Abstract

Biogas has emerged as a promising renewable technology to convert agricultural, animal, industrial and municipal wastes into energy. Biogas development can be integrated with strategies to improve sanitation as well as reduce indoor air pollution and greenhouse gases. Currently, the total biogas production in India is 2.07 billion m3/year. This is quite low compared to its potential, which is estimated to be in the range of 29–48 billion m3/year. Hence, this study aims to identify both technical and non-technological barriers impending biogas dissemination in India. Biogas dissemination is affected by various waste, renewable energy, and urban policies. Barriers were therefore identified individually for rural and urban biogas systems existing in India using decomposition analysis. The results show that type and importance of barriers vary strongly between biogas systems due to the difference in technology maturity, feedstock availability and quality, supply chain, awareness level and policy support.

Keywords

Biogas
Barrier identification
Decomposition analysis
Expert interviews
Literature review
Bioenergy policies

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