A2P Energy Solution

A2P Energy (Agri 2 Power) was started with three main goals

• Solve the crop residue burning problem
• Increase the farmers income, and
• Provide useful products made from crop residue to Industry

A2P is working towards resolving the open field paddy straw burning problem by putting up sustainable projects for converting the straw into useful products.

One hand we solve the paddy straw burning problem by collecting the straw and we promote entrepreneurship with the village community and help increase farmers income.  On other hand our fuel replaces the conventional fuel in the boilers such as wood and coal. We are working on other products like bio-oil, wooden board and also Nanocellouse out of the straw. Apart from the technology to convert bio-mass into energy in our manufacturing plant, we use advanced technology like Machine Learning to optimize our operations and track farm fires. 

India produces 500-550 million tonnes of crop residue every year. On one hand farmers in northern India burn stubble due to lack of alternative ways for its disposal. The smoke from the straw burning becomes one of reasons for creating smog which causes heavy pollution in Delhi-NCR before the onset of winter. On the other hand we have the Industry facing problems to get clean fuel.

The pollution from annual stubble burning has a huge climate impact as highlighted by the below news headlines:

• “World Air Quality Report 2018: 7 of the top 10 most polluted cities in the world are in India”
•  “Particulate matter in Delhi spikes to 20 times the WHO limit..”
• “Delhi kids have smaller lungs compared with children in US due to air pollution’”
• "Delhi’s air quality set to worsen as stubble burning intensifies"
• “Air quality in the national capital region is likely to deteriorate as burning of paddy stubble by farmers in Punjab and Haryana intensifies over the next fortnight.”
• “Fuel inefficient India heading towards energy crisis”
• “India bans pet coke import because of pollution”

Farmers:

We have been working with farmers educating them on harmful effects of burning crop residue. We have also promoted few entrepreneurs from the village who works with us on straw collection through the farmers. We do training on straw collection and also on ways to use the machinery for straw collection. We buy the straw from the trained farmers/entrepreneurs, so one benefit is that it saves the straw from burning but also it helps to generate additional income for farmers.

Industry

From a customer perspective, the industry in North India is struggling to meet its energy/fuel requirements. So all the industries which have boilers are our customers. Our energy pellets replace the conventional fuel like wood and coal. Industry find significant advantages on using our fuel as, Our fuel is cheaper (10~15%) and cleaner comes in bags. Our fuel has 60-70% less moisture compared to conventional fuel like wood. We have supplied the pellets to MNCs like Pepsi, HUL and now we are also integrated in the IKEA vendor supply chain where we supply green fuel to  IKEA vendors in Punjab which has helped them to replace the conventional fuel with this paddy straw pellets. 

No other company in India is able to produce fuel from the paddy straw as it a very challenging raw material because of silica in it and also there are challenges in straw collection and processing. We use Artificial intelligence in Straw collection and we have research on the right metallurgy required for straw processing. We have cracked the solution for straw collection, converting the straw to fuel. We have made our own machinery, both for straw collection and straw processing.

We collect paddy straw during harvesting in baled form, then we process the paddy straw into different products, the first commercialized product is energy products like pellets. The first stage of making the pellets is completely commercialized and we have supplied pellets to clients such as food processing, pharmaceutical and dyeing industries.

As a value addition: we are doing R&D projects and working on other products like bio-oil, wooden board and also Nanocellouse out of the straw. Apart from the technology to convert bio-mass into energy in our manufacturing plant, we use advanced technology like Machine Learning to optimize our operations and track farm fires. We use NASA satellite data to track open field paddy straw burning. This helps us in monitoring the crop burning areas and train farmers for paddy straw collection instead of burning.

One hand we solve the paddy straw burning problem by collecting the straw and we promote entrepreneurship with the village community and help increase farmers income.  On other hand our fuel replaces the conventional fuel in the boilers such as wood and coal. And our fuel is also more efficient

We also spend lot of efforts in R&D to remain ahead of curve.

• Innovation: We are proudly the first company in India to commercialize products out of 100% paddy straw by using innovative business model and providing economic value to the farmers.
• Propriety Machine Learning Model : In the straw collection process the presence of large and continuous fields is necessary to avoid wastage of resources, we use our propriety machine learning model on top google earth’s API to extract the satellite data for Punjab to recommend optimum location for paddy straw collection.
• Intellectual Property: the ongoing research with Punjab Agriculture university and Indian Institute of Petroleum is based on IPR for the new products like Bio-Diesel, Bio-Char, Nanocellulose, etc

The current approach by govt is to help the farmers mulch the residue in the field itself.  But the degradation of paddy straw is not quick and there are challenges to grow the next crop in the same field. Mulching also requires additional machinery, & barely two to three weeks to dispose the straw & prepare the fields for the next crop, cost-conscious farmers are left with only few options other than burning the straw. Also with an average land holding of around 7-10 acres, the decisions needs an economical backing than anything else.

Our unique idea is to focus on providing economic value to the farmers out of the straw by converting straw into useful products. As part of this solution, A2P promotes entrepreneurship by working with village youths for straw collection and transportation. We buy the straw from farmers/entrepreneurs so there is an economic incentive of not burning.

No other company in India is able to produce fuel from the paddy straw as it a very challenging raw material because of silica in it and also there are challenges in straw collection and processing. We use Artificial intelligence in Straw collection and we have research on the right metallurgy required for straw processing. The challenges is to collect paddy straw for full year of operations in 21 days’ time,

We use advanced technology like Machine Learning to optimize our operations and track farm fires

• Optimising straw collection process: In the straw collection process, the presence of large and continuous fields is necessary to avoid wastage of resources. To tackle this we use Google map API to extract the images and analyse them using unsupervised machine learning techniques to segregate dense continuous paddy fields from the other crops
• Recommending ideal plant locations: The collected straw needs to be transported to the plant within 20 days to be effectively converted to biomass fuel. We built a machine learning model to recommend optimum location for the plants helping us reduce our costs by 12%.

Machinery for straw processing: Straw has lot of silica, so it causes lot of wear and tear in the machines. That makes straw a very difficult material to process. We have been doing R&D for making a right set of machinery using different metallurgies for processing the straw. We have experimented with different materials and now have an ideal machinery to process the straw.

• The current approach by govt is to help the farmers mulch the residue in the field itself.  But the degradation of paddy straw is not quick and there are challenges to grow the next crop in the same field. Mulching also requires additional machinery, & barely two to three weeks to dispose the straw & prepare the fields for the next crop, cost-conscious farmers are left with only few options other than burning the straw. Also with an average land holding of around 7-10 acres, the decisions needs an economical backing than anything else.
• Our unique idea is to focus on providing economic value to the farmers out of the straw by converting straw into useful products. As part of this solution, A2P promotes entrepreneurship by working with village youths for straw collection and transportation. We buy the straw from farmers/entrepreneurs so there is an economic incentive of not burning.

• On the industry side: we are producing a green fuel from them, which is not only cheaper and cleaner than the current fuel but also helps them be part of the problem solving of the straw burning.

Impact No.s (currently)  

• Make Fuel Pellets for Industry (tonnes)         900
• Acres Saved from burning      450
• Farmers impacted       45
• Employment Generated ( Operations)          10

Impact No.s (in one year)            

• Make Fuel Pellets for Industry (tonnes)         1400
• Acres Saved from burning      700
• Farmers impacted       70
• Employment Generated ( Operations)          22

Impact No.s (in Five year)            

• Paddy Straw utilized (tonnes) 9000
• Acres Saved from burning      4500
• Farmers impacted       450
• Employment Generated (Operations)           100

 In the next one year we plan to scale up and work with 70 farmers and save the straw from 700 acres from open field burning, by doing so we will save 10,22,000  kgs  of CO2 being emitted in the environment.

We will also spend our efforts on doing R&D on the products in pipeline.

In next five years, we plan to work with around 450 farmers and collect paddy straw from their fields instead of them burning the straw. We also plan to showcase an economic value chain from the usage of straw and increase the income of farmers. We might scale up using a Franchise model.

We will commercialize new products like biochar, biooil and Nanocelloulse. From the AI perspective: we want to track the fires through satellite images and also use ML to reduce the cost of operations. The impact in no.s is given below

Impact No.s (projected for five years)    

Paddy Straw utilized (tonnes) : 9000, Paddy Straw to fuel conversion facilities:10, Acres Saved from burning: 4500, Farmers impacted :450

The following gasses/material will be saved from getting released in environment through our paddy collection

Material/Gas      kg's

Particulate Matter: 27000, CO2: 13140000 , SO2 18000

Employment Generation              

Operation            No. of people employed

Baler Owners (promoting entrepreneurs) : 18, Labour for Loading/Transportation: 216, Plant Operations :100

Challenges in Raw Material collection: The time after the paddy straw harvest to new crop sowing is only 21 days, so the challenge is to collect paddy straw for full year of operations in 21 days’ time

Challenges in Machinery: Straw has lot of silica, so it causes lot of wear and tear in the machines.

Challenge in Farmers behaviour: Farmers have been burning the straw for ages and changing the mindset of farmers not burn is a major challenge

Challenge - Competing Fuel: The price of the competing fuel like coal is a challenge for our energy pellets.

Challenges in Scale up: For making a large impact on prevention of straw burning, we need to scale up. From a problem and need perspective: we have 35 million tonnes of straw available every season in the two northern states in Indian and most of the industry also is also struggling to get a clean fuel source. 

Challenges in Raw Material collection

Mitigation Strategy: In the straw collection process the presence of large and continuous fields is necessary to avoid wastage of resources, we use our propriety machine learning model on top google earth’s API to extract the satellite data for Punjab to recommend optimum location for paddy straw collection.

Challenges in Machinery

Mitigation Strategy: We have been doing R&D with the machine manufacturers for making a right set of machinery using different metallurgies for processing the straw. Once we are able to increase the machine life, we can replicate that configuration for our next plants.

Challenge in Farmers behaviour

Mitigation Strategy: Unlike other solutions like putting fines on farmers for burning the stubble, we work on the taking out economic solutions for utilizing the straw and provide additional income back to farmer.

Challenge - Competing Fuel:

Mitigation Strategy: We work with companies and explain them about benefits of using a green and cleaner fuel. We also give price advantage for using the fuel as we use advanced technology (like satellite data, etc) to reduce our operations cost.

Challenges in Scale up:

Mitigation Strategy: The opportunity is huge and the problem of paddy straw burning is also very serious, we can add 15-20 new plants every year but we need external funding help for this. With our funds, we plan to put up one new plant every year. We are trying to raise some grants and funds.

2 CoFounders and 12 people in Manufacturing Plant

Mr. Sukhmeet Singh (Cofounder): over 15 years of experience in the areas of Bio-energy, Analytics, Agriculture and Strategy. Sukhmeet is a CoFounder in A2P Energy and leads the company. He works on various business and technical aspects of the project. He helps making the business models and in overall operations of the projects. Before that Sukhmeet has worked as Associate Director at the Indian School of Business, working on projects with Government and Industry in the Areas of IT, Agriculture and SMEs. In his professional journey, Sukhmeet has worked with leading fortune 500 companies and has significant international experience in US, UK and Dubai. He is engineer and graduate from Indian School of Business (ISB)

Prof. Robert Berry (Cofounder and mentor):Prof. Berry has than twenty years in Industry and has been working on this project since inception and has helped to take this project from lab to commercilization. Professor Berry was former executive dean of Aston University’s Engineering and Applied Science department and has expertise in scaling up social projects. 

Incubation:

We are incubated at Indian Agricultural Research Institute (New Delhi). This is Government of India’s nodal institute for Agriculture research and support. We get invaluable assistance from them for any technical aspects related to raw material and for machinery. We are also exploring the technology of bio-char production with them.

Research projects:

We are doing projects with Punjab Agriculture University and Indian Institute of Petroleum for research on using pellets as a soil conditioner and other project is to extract oil out of pellets and use it as a furnace oil.

WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature)

WWF has tied up with A2P Energy under their sustainable agriculture practice and is helping A2P Energy in operational efficiency improvement and market connect. The next stage would be to help replicate the successful model of straw to energy conversion.

Aston University and European Bioenergy Research Institute:

Aston university through its European Bioenergy Research Institute helped in the technology to process the paddy straw.In particular Aston Univ has helped in the following ways: Technology, Funding and Mentorship

We have two main stake holders in our business model : Farmers (Whom we work for straw collection) and Industry (whom we supply our processed material)

• Client/buyer: Working with our clients to give them an ideal fuel made out of paddy straw for their boiler. Now we know the exact fuel mix and process for making an ideal fuel for boiler because of which our buyer has agreed on a long term buy agreement for our fuel pellets.
• Farmers/Straw Suppliers: We have been working with farmers educating them on harmful effects of burning crop residue. We have also promoted few entrepreneurs from the village who works with us on straw collection through the farmers

We have one manufacturing plant through which we aim to prevent 550 acres of paddy straw from burning. We convert this straw into fuel.

• Our fuel is cleaner and cheaper (10~15%) comes in packaged bags
• Our fuel has 60-70% less moisture compared to conventional fuel like wood

We have supplied the pellets to MNCs like Pepsi and HUL which has helped them to replace the conventional fuel with this paddy straw pellets. 

A2P is a revenue generating, operationally profitable business.

At an operational level we aim for making a 12% and breakeven in 3-4 years. Our initial investment support was done through Aston University as a social project. The initial capital was used in R&D, Manpower and streamlining the operations. Since we were the first company in India to make products of the paddy straw, so no standard machinery was available and we spent a lot on R&D and manpower.

Presently A2P has one manufacturing plant: Through the plant, last year it managed to save 450 acres of paddy straw from open field burning and this year having upgraded the plant it aims to prevent 1500 acres of paddy straw from burning. This 1500 acres is an optimal area which can be catered by one such plant.

A2P aims to multiply such plants which can cater to paddy area under approximately three villages. In order to do so, they are seeking need funding as each such setup requires INR 50 lakhs of capital equipment and about INR 75 lakhs in working capital. The opportunity is huge, and the problem of paddy straw burning is also serious, A2P can add 15-20 new plants every year but need external funding. With the present model and revenues, it plans to put up two new plants every year. 

We are applying to solve for getting help in the below mentioned points

• R&D : To connect with right R&D partners for making our next set of products like cellulose, wooden board, activated carbon, etc
• Mentorship: Both technical and business mentorship for guiding us to right growth strategies.
• Funding: We are a socially oriented for profit business, so we will need help from Impact funds to help is scale up
• Exploring new markets: this straw burning problem is there in lot of other countries like Egypt, Thailand, etc. So we would explore the new markets by making the right partners and connections in these countries 

R&D : To connect with right R&D partners for making our next set of products like cellulose, wooden board, activated carbon, etc.Companies like ABB, Siemens, GE, etc

Funding: We are a socially oriented for profit business, so we will need help from Impact funds to help is scale up. Funds like: EFM, Elevar Equity, SEAF (Small Enterprise Assistance Funds)

Exploring new markets: this straw burning problem is there in lot of other countries like Egypt, Thailand, etc. So we would explore the new markets by making the right partners and connections in these countries

We use AI in the following areas, some models are developed, some needs more work:

Optimising straw collection process: In the straw collection process, the presence of large and continuous fields is necessary to avoid wastage of resources. To tackle this we use Google map API to extract the images and analysed using unsupervised machine learning techniques to segregate dense continuous paddy fields from the other crops

 Recommending ideal plant locations: The collected straw needs to be transported to the plant within 20 days to be effectively converted to biomass fuel. We built a machine learning model to recommend optimum location for the plants helping us reduce our costs by 12%.

Tracking paddy straw fires: We use NASA satellite data to track open field paddy straw burning. This helps us in monitoring the crop burning areas and train farmers for paddy straw collection instead of burning.

 The aim is to generate labelled data as we validate our unsupervised learning outcomes from the ground truth/ We use K Means Clustering Algorithm in our model.

This process provides a scalable, data driven and an eco friendly solution to the paddy burning problem

From the funding we would spend on:

• Manpower: to hire manpower both from AI and domain knowledge to help us perfect the model
• Farmer trainings and R&D for new technologies in AI / ML and also for new products on straw processing
• Processing capability: to spend on resources for gathering live data and processing it.

The current approach by govt is to help the farmers mulch the residue in the field itself.  But the degradation of paddy straw is not quick and there are challenges to grow the next crop in the same field. Mulching also requires additional machinery, & barely two to three weeks to dispose the straw & prepare the fields for the next crop, cost-conscious farmers are left with only few options other than burning the straw. Also with an average land holding of around 7-10 acres, the decisions needs an economical backing than anything else.

Our unique idea is to focus on providing economic value to the farmers out of the straw by converting straw into useful products. As part of this solution, A2P promotes entrepreneurship by working with village youths for straw collection and transportation. We buy the straw from farmers/entrepreneurs so there is an economic incentive of not burning.

We would use the funding for trainings and putting up demonstration plant for processing agriculture waste into energy products:

• Farmer trainings and R&D for new technologies and products straw processing
• Manpower: to hire manpower on operations, management and R&D levels
• Demonstration plants: setup two new paddy straw processing plants to showcase the economic viability of new technologies for paddy straw processing and promote more entrepreneurs to take this up

We use AI in the following areas, some models are developed, some needs more work:

Optimising straw collection process: In the straw collection process, the presence of large and continuous fields is necessary to avoid wastage of resources. To tackle this we use Google map API to extract the images and analysed using unsupervised machine learning techniques to segregate dense continuous paddy fields from the other crops

 Recommending ideal plant locations: The collected straw needs to be transported to the plant within 20 days to be effectively converted to biomass fuel. We built a machine learning model to recommend optimum location for the plants helping us reduce our costs by 12%.

Tracking paddy straw fires: We use NASA satellite data to track open field paddy straw burning. This helps us in monitoring the crop burning areas and train farmers for paddy straw collection instead of burning.

 The aim is to generate labelled data as we validate our unsupervised learning outcomes from the ground truth/ We use K Means Clustering Algorithm in our model.

This process provides a scalable, data driven and an eco friendly solution to the paddy burning problem

From the funding we would spend on:

• Manpower: to hire manpower both from AI and domain knowledge to help us perfect the model
• Farmer trainings and R&D for new technologies in AI / ML and also for new products on straw processing
• Processing capability: to spend on resources for gathering live data and processing it.