Regional Bioenergy Planning for Sustainability in Himachal Pradesh, India

Abstract

Energy systems in mountainous regions are complex due to the wide variations in the availability and demand of energy resources. Mountain inhabitants are traditionally dependent on bioenergy resources such as fuel wood, agro, and animal residues to meet their energy requirements for heating, cooking, etc. However, depleting forest resources limits the availability of fuel wood while commercial sources such as LPG and kerosene fail to meet the domestic energy demands due to logistic and economic constraints. Hence, the inhabitants are forced to follow inefficient and ad hoc usage of juvenile forest trees (thus hindering regeneration), and agro and animal residues, disregarding their alternative utilities. This deteriorates ecological harmony and demands sustainable resource planning at the regional level. The study assesses the bioresource availability and its potential to meet the bioenergy demands of three mountain districts in the western Himalayan federal state of Himachal Pradesh. Regions of bioenergy surplus or deficit are identified for different scenarios. The ecological status of forests and actual availability along with the demand for fuel wood in villages are analyzed to highlight the significance of decentralized regional-level bioenergy resource planning. Bioenergy potential assessment (BEPA) – a decision support system (DSS) – to facilitate compilation, analysis, representation, interpretation, comparison, and evaluation of regional bioresource has been used to visualize bioenergy status. This supports energy planners and policymakers in efficient disaggregated bioenergy resource planning to mitigate the carbon imbalances while meeting the subsistence and development needs of mountain inhabitants, at least cost to the environment and economy.