Bridging Sustainability in Green Buildings through Biomass Energy

Abstract

Buildings are responsible for more energy use and CO2 emission, than any other sectors including transportation. Recent efforts world over is to generate energy from renewable resources and thereby save earth from pollution. Building sectors today consumes approximately 45% of total electricity generated in the country. High quality stable energy both electrical and thermal are required to attain the higher growth rate in industry. As fossil fuel are limited and have adverse environmental impact, it would be appropriate to use renewable energy source like biomass resources such as crop residues and agro-industrial wastes for generation of energy for meeting the total energy demand. Biomass materials are used since millennia for meeting myriad human needs including energy. This paper brings out the status of biomass energy, modern technology applied to generate electricity in India. The critical areas such as availability of degraded land for biomass plantation, enhanced biomass producity, economic operations of plantations, logistics infrastructure and efficient conversion for promoting biomass energy for sustainability in green buildings are also projected. This paper highlights the concept “wealth out of waste” by the way of producing electricity from the agro and house hold waste and leaves pollution free environment to the future generation. In the case study, Karaikal town which is a part of United Territory of Puducherry has been considered. Agricultural data and waste produced are calculated which inturn replace the considerable amount of conventional electricity produced by coal/natural gas is also highlighted.