Energy Sustainability by Adopting Resource Recycling: A Case Study in Coir Industry

Globally, annual coconut production for domestic and commercial purposes is estimated at 62.41 million metric tonnes. The coir is a naturally available elastic fibre, which is abundantly available and unhandled coir waste (i.e., short fibre/peat/dust) has significant potential to maintain the economy and ensure sustainability through an effective waste-to-energy recovery perspective. The primary energy demand in India is predicted to climb up to around 1500 Mtoe. The Indian coir industry is considered a significant energy-intensive under micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSME). The 3 M management conception has transformed into the 4 M management conception, emphasizing energy management as its key focus. The coir industry is an intermittent/interlinked process; supply chain optimization and energy management must join to maintain overall energy efficiency. The manuscript aims to carry out a detailed systematic energy analysis focusing on supply chain and power quality optimization with significant scope for implementing resource recycling measures in the Indian rural coir industry of capacity LTCT 109.9 kW with an average energy consumption of 3500 kWh/billing cycle. Power quality optimization and recommendations were proposed based on the power quality analyser and infrared thermography results to achieve better energy efficiency. Coir industries produce coir dust as bioresidues, which should be treated effectively; otherwise, it will settle over the land, preventing the locking of water bodies and creating environmental degradation. As resource recycling, the above coir industry roughly produces 75–100 kg of coir dust daily, which will be used as feedstock for a gasifier that produces 15 kW_e and 45 kW_th. This reduces the grid dependency and is self-sufficient in the power generation of the coir industry. The techno-economic feasibility study is also reported in this manuscript.