In a bid to further boost India's commercial energy ecosystem, the government is now mulling the use of ethanol as an alternative cooking fuel, a fresh report said on Friday.
Targeting surplus reserves of biofuel in the country, the new proposal seeks to use about 1,000 crore litres for cooking as an alternative—not replacement—for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), a Moneycontrol report said, citing sources in the know.
"It can reduce dependence on imports, enhance energy resilience, and provide a viable pathway to utilise surplus ethanol, particularly in large commercial cooking applications such as hotels, airports and restaurants,” one of the sources said in the report.
This comes amid the ongoing US Navy-imposed blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has choked global energy flows, sparking a sharp rise in oil prices.
The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas (MoPNG) on Thursday also dismissed reports that the country's LPG supply would take up to four years to recover, declaring that India had already diversified its energy procurement in response to the Gulf crisis.
It had also pointed out that refineries had already increased their domestic daily LPG output by 40 per cent to 50,000 metric tonnes (MT) to reduce import dependency.
The use of ethanol for commercial cooking—should it come to fruition—is touted as another such measure to reduce import dependency on LPG.
Apart from the reduced production costs—as ethanol for cooking is said to be cheaper to produce than that used in biofuels—commercial kitchens in airports, restaurants, and hotels have been chosen for the plan, as they likely to be able to adapt to cooking ethanol more easily.
The report added that further decisions on using ethanol to complement LPG usage in commercial cooking will be taken by an inter-ministerial panel, which will receive the detailed proposal soon.
The panel includes the petroleum, road transport, heavy industries and food ministries, and is responsible for taking policy decisions on ethanol.