Amid LPG crisis, Bengaluru bets big on biogas plants

Bengaluru: Across Bengaluru, seven functional biogas plants are being converted into fuel facilities but the transition is only halfway complete. Originally designed to turn wet waste into cooking gas and electricity, these plants are now attempting to scale up their operations. 

The renewed attention towards biogas follows the recent LPG shortages that disrupted commercial and domestic kitchens, pushing them to reconsider alternatives. But with only some biogas plants functioning optimally, the question is whether the city can rely on a system it has yet to fully operationalise. 

NGOs Adamya Chetana Foundation, ISKCON and other kitchens producing food for massive consumption have set up their own biogas plants. 

Bengaluru generates about 3,000 tonnes of wet waste daily but produces only about 2.5 tonnes of biogas. 

The city has seven functional biogas plants at Koramangala, Jayanagar, Pattabhirama Nagar, Domlur, Gandhinagar, Aramane Nagar and Horohalli. Four more have been set up - at Varthur, KR Market, Hemmigepura and Singapura - but are not functional yet. One more will come up at Kannahalli, off Magadi Road. 

These plants use organic waste to produce gas that is further processed into electricity to run their own generators and supply power to nearby places. 

The Koramangala plant - one of the city’s oldest and best-functioning facilities - was set up eight years ago. It is one of the very few plants that process both dry and wet waste. It receives about 18 tonnes of waste — 13 tonnes of wet waste and five tonnes of dry waste — from all parts of Koramangala. 

The plant is situated below a high-tension wire, where other buildings cannot be constructed. 

The local residents’ welfare associations are creating awareness among citizens to segregate waste. The municipal corporation collects wet waste five days a week and dry waste twice a week to make segregation easier. 

Padmashree Balaram, president of the First Block Koramangala Residents Welfare Association, said: “Thirteen tonnes of waste comes here but our job as a residents’ association never stops. The biogas produced in our centre is supplied via a pipeline to the adjacent restaurant, which agreed to take all the gas generated here. Because of the high-tension wire, we cannot have a bottling plant here.” 

The plant produces about 300 kg of biogas which it supplies to the Empire Restaurant kitchen through pipelines. The pipelines have meters in both the plant and kitchen to measure gas consumption. 

Gaffar S, Public Relations Officer, NKP Empire Ventures, the company that runs the restaurant chain, said: “We have been taking biogas from the Kasa Rasa plant since 2023. We use about 120 kg of gas per day. During the LPG crisis, we designated our Koramangala kitchen as the head kitchen and continued to supply certain food items from there to a few of our other branches.” 

He added that the biogas plant produces fewer carbon emissions and is also eco-friendly. “If we get the opportunity to use it in all our kitchens, we would definitely do it,” he said. 

In Horohalli, the Sustainable Impacts plant is operated by Carbon Masters India Pvt Ltd in collaboration with the NGO Hasiru Dala. The plant processes about 50 tonnes of wet waste generated and segregated from various parts of the city and produces about 1.5-2 tonnes of biogas, which is then supplied to Konark Hotel and other restaurants across the city. 

The wet waste is crushed and mixed with water to form a slurry, which then goes to an anaerobic digester where bio-organisms consume the organic content. Impurities such as hydrogen sulfide and carbon dioxide are removed. The final product is biomethane, which is compressed into gas cylinders or let through pipelines. 

The plant has also signed agreements with GAIL Gas Ltd to infuse gas into pipelines that the PSU would lay across the city. 

Future of biogas plants 

The renewed attention towards biogas follows the recent LPG shortages that disrupted commercial and domestic kitchens, pushing them to reconsider alternatives.Bengaluru’s four other biogas plants - at Varthur, KR Market, Hemmigepura and Singapura - have been set up but are not yet functional. 

“We may not start the KR Market plant soon but we are looking forward to operationalising all other non-functional plants,” Karee Gowda, CEO of Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Limited (BSWML), told DH. 

He added that a new plant would soon open at Kannahalli, off Magadi Road, under a public-private partnership to process about 1,000 tonnes of waste. 

Gowda said there were no plans to convert electricity plants to produce cooking gas as their final product. 

Ramalinga Reddy, Minister for Transport and Muzrai, was instrumental in setting up the Kasa Rasa plant eight years ago in Koramangala, which falls within his BTM Layout assembly constituency. 

Speaking to DH, Reddy said the plant should be a model. “I do not understand why this has not been replicated in other parts of the city. In my previous stint as Urban Development Minister, I spoke to (BBMP) commissioners about setting up more plants but that initiative did not get through. Even today, I am pushing for the plants.” 

Reddy believes that if the city could process all the waste it generates, “we can solve both the waste problem and energy problem at once.” 

The new plants may help in solving the problem, he added. 

While biogas is better than LPG in terms of price, clarification and calorific value, it might not reach the kitchens of households as Bengaluru lacks a gas pipeline system. 

A worker clears wet waste at the Kasa Rasa plant in Koramangala.

Scan to see how Bengaluru’s waste becomes biogas.