Poultry litter will soon find its utilisation in generating energy as Emergent Ventures India (EVI) along with Haryana poultry farmers has proposed to set up the country's largest renewable power generation plant from the waste at Panchkula near Chandigarh.

Involving a sum of Rs 67 crore, the plant, once commissioned, will generate 5.6 MW of power after consuming massive 500 tonne of litter per day from about 80 lakh egg layer birds.

"The renewable energy plant, which has been proposed to be set up at Barwala in Panchkula district of Haryana, will be country's largest energy plant using poultry litter. There are a couple of plants in Andhra Pradesh and Chennai, which have capacity of 1 or 2 MW," a senior official of Haryana Renewable Energy Development Agency said.

With the technological support of US-based company Indus Terra Energy, promoters will use Anaerobic Digestion technology for the first time in generating power from poultry litter.

"This technology involves biological conversion of (poultry) litter to methane and subsequent utilisation of methane for power generation with zero discharge," Emergent Venture (a climate change consulting company), COO, Deepak Verma said.

This technology will involve a series of processes in which micro-organisms metabolise biodegradable material in the absence of oxygen. The end product of the process is a gas that has considerable calorific value and a biologically stable substrate, which can be used as manure, he further informed.

Barwala in Panchkula, which is a one of the biggest poultry clusters in the state, is posing a serious threat of health hazard because of generation of 700 tonne of litter per day involving 140 poultry farm units. "With the commissioning of power plant, problem of health hazard caused by tonne of litter will be solved," he said.

Promoters have sought Rs 6.24 per unit from Haryana Electricity Regulatory Commission (HERC) to be paid for feeding the power so generated from litter into the state grid. "We have asked Rs 6.24 a unit from HERC as it is the viable rate for setting up the plant," he said. Haryana currently does not have a tariff for bio-methanation projects.

Proposed to be set up in two phases, the first unit of 1.4 MW will be set up within 9 to 10 months of approval of power tariff by HERC. And the second phase will be completed in next 6 to 9 months, he said.