Minister of state (IC) for power, Raj Kumar Singh said the power ministry has issued a policy to use 5-10 percent of biomass pellets along with coal for power generation in thermal power plants.

Singh was replying to a query on the progress on mixing crop residue pellets with coal for power generation in Lok Sabha.

He said that to promote use of the biomass pellets, Central Electricity Authority (CEA) has written to all central/state utilities, state governments, power equipment manufacturers that all fluidised bed and pulverised coal units of power generating utilities (coal based thermal power plants), public or private located in India except those having ball and tube mill, shall use 5-10 percent blend of biomass pellets made, primarily, of agro residue along with coal after assessing the technical feasibility.

NTPC has invited tenders for procurement of 500 TPD (tonnes per day) agro residue based biomass pellets and 500 TPD of agro residue based torrefied biomass pellets for power generation at NTPC Dadri Project, to be supplied over a period of two years, the minister said.