A Study of Biomass as a Source of Energy in India

Abstract

Biomass is a major source of energy in India. However, as in the case of most developing countries, reliable estimates of biomass energy use in different sectors of the country are not available. An assessment of sectoral biomass energy consumption in India has been presented in this paper. It is estimated that the total biomass consumption for energy was about 321 billion kg or 380 kg/capita/year (103 MTOE or 0.12 TOE/capita/year) in the year 1990-1991; this amounted to 45% of the total primary energy consumption of the country. The share of fuel wood in the traditional energy is about 53%. The household sector is the major end user and consumes 83% of then total biomass energy. The traditional cook stoves are the major end users of biomass energy, and accounted for about 76% of the total consumption.