CEID Consultants & Engineering Pvt Ltd, focusing on renewable energy, plans to more than double its biogas production next year. Rajaram Prajapati, CTO and Director, said their 30-plus biogas plants currently produce over 100 tonnes of compressed biogas (CBG) daily. They aim to increase this to over 350 tonnes per day in the next financial year.
The company plans to set up more biogas plants with IOCL, BPCL, and HPCL and is working on projects in Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, and Tamil Nadu with private partners. CEID’s biogas plants use materials like cow dung, poultry litter, fruit and vegetable waste, cooked food waste, sugar mill waste, chicory waste, rice/wheat straw, and municipal solid waste.
Addressing stubble burning, Prajapati noted the challenge of collecting crop straw due to the short gap between harvesting and replanting. However, the government’s subsidies for machines to harvest and transport paddy straw could help. Instead of burning stubble, farmers can supply it to CBG plants, which use anaerobic digestion to produce biogas. For instance, their Gorakhpur plant produces 20 tonnes of biogas daily from 200 tonnes of paddy straw.
CEID is also expanding abroad. They have set up a biogas plant in Nepal, supplying biogas to 126 houses using cow dung from a Goshala. In the Maldives, they have an agreement to set up a biogas plant on one of the islands, which currently uses 5-6 tonnes of CNG. This project, using hotel and fisheries waste as feedstock, will start this financial year. They are also discussing projects with two counties in the UK.
On turnover, Prajapati said, “We aim to cross ₹200 crore in 2024-25 with 40 more plants under construction.” He noted that large companies and multinationals are now interested in these plants, supported by oil marketing companies, making the ₹200 crore target achievable.
