Abstract
The rising and unquenchable demands for energy in the developing world, together with the need to minimize the use of fossil fuels to protect our ecosystem from further deterioration in climate change, emphasizes the need to explore and exploit alternative energy sources, especially those that are indigenous to each country. Following extensive analysis, this case study identifies the problems facing the use of biomass as an alternative source of energy in Sri Lanka’s tea industry. A number of key issues have been identified; these include biomass quality, lack of funds, high cost of investment on mechanization and insufficient incentives/subsidies to promote the use of biomass as an alternative energy source. This study proposes and recommends that the most effective approach to enhancing the utilization of biomass among tea industry in Sri Lanka is to provide sufficient incentives for companies that achieve self-sufficiency in energy requirement, without burdening the already congested and costly national grid.
Keywords
Introduction
Sri Lankan tea industry has undergone vast improvements culminating to become one of the largest exporters of tea to the world market. However, Sri Lanka’s cost of production (CoP) of tea has been recording steady increases and is now around US$1.75 per kg, which is well above that of Bangladesh with US$1.35, India with US$1.25, Kenya around US$1.00 and Vietnam, the lowest, around US$0.75 per kg (Yogaratnam, 2007). Three possible ways available for the producer to enhance profitability are as follows: first, to fetch attractive prices for their produce; second, through increase in productivity level; and lastly, to reduce the CoP. In 2010 the national average yield for tea per hectare stood at 1,484 kg and the annual average export tea prices at Colombo Tea Auction was recorded at LKR 494.00 per kg (Central Bank of Sri Lanka, 2010; DCS, 2009). However, Sri Lankan tea producers seem not attracted to enhancing value addition and aggressive marketing to cater to the global market. Initiatives for increasing productivity have also been limited for reasons of poor yield, investment barriers for new technologies and setting up of new plants. Improving productivity of the labour has not yielded effective results as the issue has linkages with macro-level political framework of the country which considers the industry as a major job-generating sector of economy. This has led plantation companies to think of other ways and means of reducing energy costs. One of the major alternatives lies in exploring the possibility of switching to other forms of fuels like firewood as against use of power from the national grid. From another dimension, rapid developments in the country after years of internal war have led to high consumption of energy, creating scarcity of source of non-renewable forms of energy. Due to the limitations and lack of potential in various forms of renewable resources, many countries in Asia today focus on biomass as renewable source of energy.
Biomass is defined as ‘any organic matter that is available on a renewable or recurring basis, including agricultural crops and trees, wood and wood wastes and residues, plants (including aquatic plants), grasses, residues, fibers, animal wastes, and segregated municipal waste, etc. Processing and conversion derivatives of organic matter are also biomass’ (Ben, 2007). The biomass utilization as a primary source of energy for domestic, commercial and industrial sector is very dominant in Sri Lanka’s national energy policy agenda (Dasanayaka & Sardana, 2011). With emerging technologies, promotions and incentive schemes available for biomass utilization, there is a good opportunity to increase biomass as a potential source of renewable energy (Rupasinghe, 2005).
Biomass is the oldest form of renewable energy in the world. However, with the emergence of fossil fuels, its relative share of use has declined over past several decades. Developed countries source around 4 per cent of their energy from biomass, while in Africa and some Asian countries it ranges between 70 per cent and 90 per cent (USA Department of Energy, 2009). With adverse environmental effects such as climate change coming to the forefront, people everywhere are rediscovering the advantages of biomass (Gumartini, 2009). Potential benefits of biomass include reduced carbon emissions, enhancing energy security by diversifying energy sources, utilizing local resources, additional revenues for the agricultural and forestry sectors (SLSEA, 2011).
Use of biomass as a fuel is considered to be carbon neutral because the plants and trees remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere, store it while they grow. Burning biomass returns this CO2 to the atmosphere. At the same time, plants and trees keep the atmosphere’s carbon cycle in balance by recapturing CO2. This net-zero or carbon neutral cycle can be repeated indefinitely, as long as biomass is re-grown in the next management cycle and harvested for use. The sustainable management of the biomass source is thus critical to ensuring that the carbon cycle is not interrupted. In contrast to biomass, fossil fuels, such as gas, oil and coal, are not regarded as carbon neutral, because they release CO2 which has been stored for millions of years, and do not have any storage or sequestration capacity (Sardana & Dasanayaka, 2010).
Research Objectives
This research focuses mainly on reviewing the present status of biomass in the country and identifies key issues faced by tea industry in utilizing biomass. Changing over to biomass thermal energy will bring down the cost of energy considerably. Also, there are ways and means of project funding and subsidies under carbon emission reduction which can improve project feasibility and enhance utilization. The research objectives can thus be summarized as follows:
To identify the current situation with respect to biomass utilization in Sri Lanka. To identify key issues affecting biomass utilization for thermal energy generation in tea industry. To carry out biomass utilization feasibility in the tea industry. To recommend policies and strategies to enhance utilization of biomass as sustainable and independent thermal energy source.
Literature Review
There is only a limited literature available on the subject. A few in-depth studies have been, however, conducted. These constitute valuable additions to the scarce literature.
A study conducted by the Asian Regional Research Programme in Energy, Environment and Climate (ARRPEEC, 1989) looked into the nature of biomass utilization in Sri Lanka considering three main biomass energy technologies (BETs), namely, Anagi-2, two-pot improved cooking stove, biomass residue–based cogeneration combined heat and power (CHP) and wood gasifier-engine–based electricity generation. The study also discusses the barriers to promote these BETs and strategies to eliminate such barriers and promotion of such BETs. Several models of improved cooking stove (ICS) have been developed and disseminated in Sri Lanka since 1950s. The Anagi-2, two-pot stove, has been recognized as the only popular model available in the market.
The second phase of ARRPEEC study (2005) consisted of four regional projects on biomass, power, small- and medium-scale industries, and urban transport with involvement of 23 national research institutes from eight Asian countries. Thanh (2005) identifies the status of biomass utilization in Vietnam, potential of biomass as source of indigenous energy source, specific problem in promotion and some directions to policy-makers to take some initiatives towards enhancing utilization. The report brings out that biomass is mainly used for household energy needs as cooking, heating, water and domestic space heating; it accounts for 90 per cent of total biomass. In recent years, the rapid development of the sugar cane industry has led to the use of sugar cane residues from industry, mud and molar for organic fertilizer. It is estimated that about 400,000 tonnes of organic fertilizers are produced each year. Ben (2007) reports studies conducted by the North Carolina Council and the recommendations for fossil fuel displacement through biomass utilization. These recommendations include focusing on growing plants which yield an abundance of inexpensive sugar, starch and cellulose, introduction of incentives to farmers to produce energy feedstock, tax incentives, processing facilities, tax credits, state-funded pilot plants that convert biomass to biofuels, increasing the market entrance and profitability of producing power from renewable resources and others. Clean Energy Council (2008) has set the directions for biomass in stationary energy. The roadmap has been developed in collaboration with the bio-energy industry in Australia and is designed to set the strategy to build a strong and vibrant Australian bio-energy industry by 2020.
This roadmap details a series of objectives, issues and strategies that need to be implemented to overcome barriers impeding the growth of bio-energy in Australia. Yisehak et al. (2009) present an interesting exploratory study of biomass energy for cement production opportunities in Ethiopia. The study jointly developed by UNDP and UNEP Risoe Centre seeks to outline the potential, taking the Ethiopian cement sector as a specific example of how biomass energy might be deployed in practice. Many of the issues covered, such as the need for biomass pre-treatment and densification, the problems of biomass availability in space and time, and the importance of appropriate on-site storage and handling facilities, are equally applicable to other countries of the region and indeed, other manufacturing sectors.
Research Design and Methodology
Questionnaire Design
As a first step, a well-structured literature-based questionnaire was developed. A pilot study was undertaken at the second stage with 10 key players, five each from energy field and tea industry who were involved in biomass implementation activities, to get their views to customize the draft questionnaire. The pilot study helped to identify some of the issues specific to the tea industry. These concerns were added to the draft questionnaire while deleting those issues that were found to be less important and less applicable in the context. The final version of the questionnaire comprised of three sections: the first section comprised of questions seeking general information about the candidate to get an opinion on his experience in tea industry; the second section focused on various issues faced by tea industry, such as technology, biomass feedstock, information and awareness, macro level and global impact through 75 questions; the third section offered few open-ended questions for an opportunity to express opinion about possible measures regulatory bodies could take at macro level.
Size of the Sample
The size of the sample required from the targeted population was determined statistically by using Cochran’s (1977) sample size. The target population N was 115. The minimum sample required was calculated to be 42.75, or 43 for the targeted population. The population of the research comprised mainly of tea factory managers belonging to Regional Tea Plantation Companies (RTPC) and their group managers, cluster general managers and engineering managers. Since the population was manageable, questionnaire was distributed to 96 factories where two plantation groups refused to participate for the questionnaire survey. The questionnaires were e-mailed through plantation chief executive officers to the respondents at the tea estates. Out of 96 questionnaires, 77 completed questionnaires were collected with response rate of approximately 80 per cent. The main aim of the questionnaire was to collect data for ranking the issues faced by the industry in utilization of biomass for thermal energy generation. Respondents were asked to rate each issue based on their experience on a four-point Likert scale. To facilitate the analysis of the responses, numerical values were assigned to the respondents’ ratings, that is, 1 to 4 for ‘not important’ to ‘very important’, respectively. The issues were analyzed and ranked according to the responses.
Operationalization of Variables
Operationalization table (refer to Appendix 1) was prepared by listing variables, indicators and measures to prepare the questionnaire.
Data Analysis
Importance index method was used to analyze data and identify the key issues faced by RTPCs while using biomass as a source of energy. A study by Wa’elAlaghbari et al. (2007) has used SPSS 12.0 to obtain frequency, statistical descriptive analysis and variance. Subsequently, the importance index method used by Kumaraswamy and Miller (1998) for analysis of similar data was adopted for the data analysis in this research.
Identification of Key Issues Faced by RTPCs
The importance indices (refer Table 2) were calculated using the following formula for each factor.
where
I = importance index
ai = constant expressing the weight of the ith response, where a = 0, 1, 2, 3 for i = 1, 2, 3, 4, respectively
xi = frequency of ith response given as a percentage of the total response for each cause
x 1 = frequency of ‘not important’ responses
x 2 = frequency of ‘somewhat important’ responses
x 3 = frequency of ‘important’ responses
x 4 = frequency of ‘very important’ responses
Reliability Statistics
The questionnaire was tested for reliability using SPSS 16.0 and results were witnessed that the Cronbach’s Alpha exceeded 7.0 for all variables as noted in Table 1.
Reliability Statistics
The overall Cronbach’s Alpha for the complete questionnaire was 0.898 for all 74 questions being considered in Annexure I. Important index was found for each issue and ranked with highest important index as rank one and lowest index with the largest rank as in Table 2.
Important Indexes and Ranks of Respective Issues
The issues can be summarized to seven key issues faced by tea industry while using biomass as a viable source of energy. The issues which are in similar context have been considered by taking average of important index and ranking them accordingly. Table 3 depicts the seven items.
Seven Key Issues Faced by RTPCs in General Context
Situational Analysis
This section explores a general understanding about the background of the biomass industry in Sri Lanka. The preference of biomass over other alternatives is highlighted.
Tea Processing and Power and Energy Consumption in Tea Industry
In contrast to the other areas of operation, there is substantial machinery usage in the factory operation of tea production. There have been several improvements over the years and one underlying factor for the high quality tea of Sri Lanka is the fine-tuning that has gone into the factory operations. The basic principles and technologies used in the transformation of the green tea leaves into the drinkable form have been long established. During processing, tea leaves undergo many chemical and physical changes. The main steps involved in the black tea production are as follows:
Withering → Rolling → Fermenting → Drying → Sorting
Within the framework of established practices, several modifications to tea-processing machinery have been introduced. Most of these are towards better energy efficiency and have improved productivity. Tea manufacturing has undergone a lot of modernization during the last two decades. Considerable amount of mechanization and instrumentation have also been introduced (Chacko & Ramakrishna, 1999).
Tea-processing industry is responsible for a substantial part of the energy consumption of the industrial sector in the form of electricity, fuelwood and oil. The energy component of CoP of processing tea ranges between 15 per cent and 25 per cent in general. There is a scope to cut down the costs of energy consumed through other forms of renewable energy options, such as micro hydro and biomass (Dhanapala & Wijethunga, 2002).
Biomass Consumption
Heavy forestation in the country did not call for any regulation for utilization of forest wood till recently (Hearth, 2000). Therefore, most of the users including domestic and other basic industries heavily used fuelwood as the main source of energy (Leelaratne, 2006). The firewood and its off-cuts, coconut shells and cashew nut shells have remained common forms of biomass used by the people for hundreds of years. Later on with the emergence of manufacturing industries, such as tea, coconut products, food and rubber, biomass utilization for industries came into play. Traditional biomass accounts for nearly 52 per cent of the primary energy supplied in Sri Lanka and nearly 76 per cent of the population still depends on fuelwood and other forms of biomass for their household cooking (Jayasinghe, 2007; Ministry of Power & Energy, 2006). However, the introduction of LPG for the domestic cooking has reduced such use in the urban households. This trend will continue in future until there is a substantial increase in the per capita income of the rural population to meet the high costs of LPG in their households.
In addition, the traditional small and medium industrial sector too has been using biomass, particularly fuelwood, for their thermal energy needs. The bricks, roof tiles and bakery sectors in particular use considerable amounts of fuelwood. Unfortunately jungle wood harvested in an unsustainable manner continues to be used heavily and wasted. The tea- and rubber-processing industries, with more than 1,000 factories distributed in the wet zone of the country, are heavy users of fuelwood. The major supplies come from rubber plantations or from jungle clearing. Today biomass utilization for energy generation has taken a new face with emergence of sustainable development concept. Developing nations are encouraging the use of biogas by converting their biomass resources through fermentation or gasification methods (Joseph, 2000). Biomass-based energy generation as alternative option of indigenous source of energy is to reduce cost of the products to face the global competitiveness.
Sri Lankan industries which are into biomass utilization can be identified as tea industry, desiccated coconut industry, garment and textile industry, food and beverage and industrial manufacturing. Bakeries represent commercial users of biomass supplies. Sector-wise consumption of fuelwood depicting a rising trend over last 25 years is noted in Table 4.
Sector-wise Consumption of Fuelwood over the Last 25 Years (%)
The major use is for household cooking which absorbs nearly 78 per cent, the balance 22 per cent being consumed by the industry including the plantation sector. In the last one decade, biomass consumption has increased in industry and decreased in household sector. The fall in the household consumption indicates urban households switching to the use of LPG.
Table 5 provides details of consumption of woody biomass in various sectors of industry, commercial areas and households. Of the various sub-sectors, tea has faced the maximum crunch in recent times. The increasing use of biomass in tea industry is a pointer to the choice of this alternative to reduce CoP.
Biomass Consumption by Industry from 2000 to 2002
Sources of Biomass
Fuelwood and other biomass supply by source as per the forestry master plan, 1995, can be identified for the year 2000 to 2002 and are depicted in Table 6. As can be seen, majority of biomass has origins from home gardens, coconut plantation and crop lands.
Biomass Supply by Source from Year 2000 to 2002
Lessons from Maskeliya Plantations
Mackwood Plantation Limited (MPL) manages 20 tea estates. The estates are distributed in high and mid regions. According to the Tea Industry Review of 2003, MPL was the largest producer with 10.2 Mn kg of tea and ranked first in profit generation in 2003. MPL is amongst the best yield earners in the corporate sector with the best net sales averages (NSA) and the lowest CoP.
MPL has shown a positive approach towards technology integration and adoption of best practices in the industry.
Leading players, such as Maskeliya Plantations, have moved towards fuelwood cultivation with an aim to convert all heaters into solid fuel firing. This has shown considerable saving in the energy costs.
Other Sources of Alternate Renewable Energy
The Tea Research Institute (TRI) is performing research on the effective use of solar energy in tea processing. Although there is potential, the high initial capital investment could be a hindrance to the use of solar energy.
Harnessing of micro hydropower potential of the estates has shown net gains to the estates enabling them to sell the excess power to the national grid during peak generating periods. Regional Plantation Companies (RPCs) are also keen to invest in such projects because of the faster paybacks and quick returns. However, tea in Sri Lanka is planted from almost sea level to 2,200 metres from sea level, in acid red yellow podzolic (utizoles) to reddish brown lateritic soils, in the wet and intermediary zones. The elevation category of tea plantations is determined by the elevation location of the tea-processing factory. Thus, the plantations are classified into high grown (above 1,200 metres), mid grown (between 600 and 1,200 metres) and low grown (below 600 metres). The tea produced in these three elevation categories possesses distinctive characteristics of their own. Based on the cultivation, present tea production is dominated by the low grown teas contributing to 55 per cent of the total production. There are but limited opportunities to install micro/mini hydropower projects in absence of natural waterfalls.
Application of Biomass in Tea Industry
The main source of biomass among tea industry is firewood. RTPCs carrying out direct combustion of firewood as an energy source is under consideration. The percentage cost of biomass per unit CoP varies from 2.5 per cent for factories which are self-sufficient in biomass to 8 per cent which are solely dependent on outside firewood suppliers. To be self-sufficient through in-house biomass for cost considerations is the main challenge.
Under a technical assistance programme sponsored by the European Commission, Sri Lanka’s Energy Managers Association (SLEMA) in association with Winrock International India (WII), a non-profit working on natural resource management and energy, have initiated ProBios, a study programme aimed at promoting biofuels in the region of southern India and Sri Lanka. The roadmap proposes five alternative routes to reach a final target of replacing 20 per cent of all liquid fossil fuels by 2020.
Conclusion, Findings and Recommendations
The study highlights major issues which need to be addressed while promoting biomass as a viable energy source for RTPCs. Three top issues include ‘not having quality standards’ defined and followed by the industry, ‘not having proper quality checking techniques’ and ‘not having effective mechanism to promote dedicated energy plantations’. ‘Not having funding agents’ and ‘high investment on conversion technologies’ imply the requirement of easy funding for such projects to switch into biomass- based energy generation. The study also focuses on poor management in biomass feedstock. It points to the need for a national level body to manage existing biomass resources. The lack of an automated feeding system appears to be a critical issue for biomass conversion technologies. Processing temperature is very critical for tea processing and it is totally determined by the correct feeding of biomass for combustion.
Energy cost reduction is the main motive of tea sector to move into biomass utilization. Originally, the entire tea sector was using furnaces run on fuel oil. The sector realized that oil prices were always rising and were not in control of factory owners or even government. This had a major impact on CoP and consequently, Ceylon tea had to face huge competition. But subsequent switching into biomass-based thermal energy generation brought a significant reduction in expenditure for energy generation.
Unreliability of biomass suppliers is a main drawback the tea industry is facing on switching to biomass-based energy generation and as a result their main focus is to move into energy plantations.
Technology used for converting biomass into useful energy is same among the RTPCs and it is available without effort. High wages and scarcity of workforce have become critical issue as far as whole tea sector is concerned.
The following recommendations are made in order to enhance utilization of biomass-based energy generation, focusing on RTPCs in Sri Lanka.
Institutional development: The country needs a central agency to investigate into regional potential of biomass focusing on specific industries, such as tea, desiccated coconut and paddy mills, to manage existing resources. This centralized body should coordinate important departments/organizations as well as industries to achieve/set goals by implementing strategies.
Tea board should directly take part in the energy-related initiatives taken by the central agency to find solutions to problems faced by tea industry. Policy development is needed to focus on setting quality parameters and standards and introducing quality checking mechanism to bring quality-driven biomass supply network.
Capacity building and skills development: It is very important to enhance human capacity to cater to energy plantation and biomass processing as a solution to lack of labour force. Biomass generation capacity development is to be addressed mainly through local stakeholders, local regulatory agencies and community organizations, so that each tea plantation can maintain its own dedicated energy plantation as buffer stocks.
Energy planning and policy development: The energy planning activities should not only be at macro level as at present in the country but also need to address both area and industry based decentralized approach with the coordination of representing institutions to address specific issues faced by the respective industries. Since tea industry is facing huge CoP problem to be competitive in the global market, total energy requirement of tea factories need to be planned to be delivered by biomass-based energy generation, such as biomass gasification-based electricity generation. Available technologies are to be evaluated and rated with respect to the type of biomass available, industry of utilization, climatic conditions and forms of output energy, such as power or thermal, in order to help industries to select best form of conversions technology.
Research and development: The case study presents findings of a survey carried out at country level in the tea industry. It is an extensive R&D activity focused mainly on energy plantation as inter crop in tea estates and its impact on main crop in long run to find best suited type of energy crop for different fields. The country needs R&D institute to look into efficient and effective biomass generation, collection and storage and conversion into useful forms of energy. This institute should provide know-how on cost-effective means of energy generation.
Limitations
The study involved extensive collection of data from various players. These include government institutions, plantation managers and experts in industry, the chambers of commerce and researchers. There were constraints of availability of time and resources. In many instances, the study had to depend on data on demand, supply and infrastructure from the government sources. The information is invariably based on government departmental surveys which are carried out on intervals in the country. These become obsolete before a new survey is taken up.
Policy-making in Sri Lanka is with the government which has got its own priorities on generation of employment, promotion of practices, research and long-term strategic planning to enhance the sector. Recommendations as covered are, therefore, largely addressed to the government.
Footnotes
Operationalization of Variables
| Concept | Variable/Issues | Indicator | Measure |
| Key issues related to utilization of biomass | Technology | Fuel flexibility of conversion mechanism | Capability to handle multi-fuels |
| Capability to handle biomass in raw form | |||
| Impact of fuel quality on performance | |||
| Technological capability of users | Capability to modifications | ||
| Capability to operate & maintain | |||
| Availability of operators | |||
| Training & development needs | |||
| Performance of available technologies | Assurance of efficiency over life cycle | ||
| Assurance of output under varying fuel conditions | |||
| Fix level of emission control over the usage | |||
| Inflow of new conversion technologies | Competitive technologies in the market | ||
| Application-specific technologies available | |||
| Level of product modification to address specific issues | |||
| Easy to maintain by local technicians | Ability to operate for other boiler operators | ||
| Frequency of breakdowns | |||
| Cost of technologies | Cost of investment for new plant | ||
| Cost of investment for retrofitting existing oil fired equipment to biomass | |||
| Cost of spares parts, operation & maintenance | |||
| Availability of biomass storage and handling technologies | Cost of storage and handling technologies | ||
| Space required for storage technologies | |||
| Degree of automation for biomass feeding | |||
| Biomass feedstock supply assurance | Distribution of biomass sources | Availability of biomass with close proximity | |
| Effect of cost of transport on unit price | |||
| Difficult storage/inventory requirements | Lead time for supply | ||
| Storage capacity | |||
| Price fluctuation | Frequency of price revisions | ||
| High price fluctuation among suppliers | |||
| Difficulty of accurate fuel cost budgeting due to unreliable price hike | |||
| Cost for transportation | Availability of low-cost transport | ||
| Impact of cost of transport on savings | |||
| Availability of suppliers | Reliability of suppliers | ||
| Bargaining power of suppliers | |||
| Few players in the market | |||
| Standards for quality | Availability of quality measurement techniques | ||
| Set standards for biomass quality parameters | |||
| Regulatory body for quality assurance | |||
| Natural causes | Degradation under storage | ||
| Effect of unfavourable weather condition | |||
| Drop in supply due to natural diseases on biomass plantation | |||
| Information & awareness | Awareness of biomass as source of energy | Knowledge of various forms of biomass available and their distribution | |
| Knowledge of potential of such sources to reduce cost of energy | |||
| Knowledge about the various properties of biomass | |||
| Awareness of technology providers | Knowledge of available technologies | ||
| Knowledge about cost of such technologies | |||
| Knowledge about the performance of existing technologies and cost–benefits | |||
| Information related to carbon credits | Knowledge about Certified Emission Reduction (CER) mechanisms | ||
| Understanding local institutions to apply for such grants | |||
| Knowledge about procedure for processing claim under those schemes such as Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) | |||
| Not opening easy access for carbon credits and other grants under green energy concept | |||
| Awareness about cost savings | Knowledge about approximate unit cost of various forms of biomass | ||
| Knowledge about heat potential of those sources | |||
| Awareness about investment and payback | Idea about the investment on different conversion technologies | ||
| Knowledge about net savings & simple payback period | |||
| Microcredit financing mechanism | Loan schemes available | Loans available for new investments | |
| Loans available for fuel switching/retrofitting existing system | |||
| Attractive interest under green energy concept | |||
| Availability of funding agents | |||
| Government subsidies & tax concessions | Government funding agents for green energy | ||
| Tax exemption for biomass utilization | |||
| Subsidies and grants for investors | |||
| No financial grants to promote dedicated energy plantation | |||
| Government policies | Initiatives to promote biomass for industrial users | Lack of favourable policy level initiatives taken in favour of users | |
| Poor promotional programmes under these initiatives | |||
| Availability of proper mechanism to address issues | |||
| Initiatives taken to assure uninterrupted supply | Alternative measures to improve supply such as energy plantation | ||
| Establishing controlling and coordinating body for suppliers | |||
| Strategies to reduce cost of transport | |||
| Environmental regulation | Standards for emission control | ||
| Regulation in transport | |||
| Strategy formulation | Effective strategies for price control | ||
| Initiatives towards improving availability of biomass resources | |||
| Initiatives to biomass collection & storage | |||
| Financial grants | Special loan schemes under green energy | ||
| Awareness programmes to access various international grants under CER mechanism |
Acknowledgements
The author highly appreciates research assistance received from MBA students T. Weragama, P. Pathamanabha and U. Senaratahana at Management of Technology, University of Moratuwa, and Professor Mansi from UK for his editorial assistance.