India's thermal coal power plants have raised biomass co-firing by more than four times over the country's India's April 2024-March 2025 financial year.

Overall biomass consumption in the country reached 1.62mn t in April 2024-March 2025, up from 375,000t the same period a year earlier, according to India's minister of state for power Shri Naik.

India's biomass consumption reached around 3.42mn t in January-October, according to an estimate by the country's power ministry in parliament.

Biomass in India mainly consists of pellets made from agricultural residue. The country's existing biomass mandate requires 5pc of co-firing biomass at coal plants.

The co-firing of biomass pellets this year has led to a reduction of around 4mn t of CO2 emissions, said Naik. The government has taken various steps to support the establishment of biomass pellet manufacturing units across India including subsidy and financial assistance schemes, he added. These projects include briquette, non-torrefied and torrefied pellet plants.

Indian state-controlled utility NTPC's plant in Uttar Pradesh state consumed the most biomass in the 2024-25 financial year at 274,000t, up from about 36,000t a year earlier. This was followed by NTPC's Indira Gandhi plant in Haryana which burned 223,000t of biomass over that period, up from 97,000t a year earlier.

NTPC is likely to increase its consumption of biomass as the utility aims to increase coal output by 9pc in the next financial year.