Currently, there are 6 MW power plants each in Hyderabad and Vijayavada (South India), where direct firing of RDF is happening to produce power. Both of these are using Hi Tech Agro’s MSW to RDF technology.

Although, use of biomass for power generation has many advantages, biomass is not being used in developed countries as yet because of high cost of biomass. In USA, cost of coal in many power plant is about $50 per metric ton. Whereas, densified biomass will cost about $80-85 per metric ton equivalent of coal. To encourage use of biomass in power plant many states in USA have mandated to use minimum 10% of biomass in large system using coal.

Requirement of densified biomass in power plant is quite large - about 1 million ton for 1000 MW power plant. To generate 1 million ton of densified biomass, more than 100 biomass depot with a installed capacity of 50,000 MT is required. As of date there are hardly any biomass processing depots in USA, even though the availability of biomass is highest in USA, but effective usage is one of the lowest. Much work remains in USA and Europe before biomass becomes a viable option to generate power in those regions.