For a country such as India, with its huge reserves of fossil fuel and main energy source being coal along with the impending emission intensity cutbacks, the transition of the Indian energy sector to a more sustainable model will require energy solutions that are cleaner and economically viable.
The main objective of this research is to investigate the performance of the Indian Lignite and coal to be used in the Underground Coal Gasification(UCG) process and to evaluate the techno-economic feasibility of a UCG plant through stochastic modelling for the current energy scenario of the country.
A comparative study of samples from the lignite fields of Neyveli and coal from the Coalfields of Giridih and Singrauli is carried out to contrast between lignite and coal through a holistic techno-economic analysis of the UCG process. The applicability and efficiency of metaheuristic algorithms in kinetic parameter estimations are evaluated. A notable part of the study is dedicated to constructing predictive models for activation energy as well as syngas production from UCG. Finally, all of these technical findings are integrated with an uncertainty-combined economic model for a holistic techno-economic assessment model.