Overview

This event report captures the outcomes of a roundtable hosted by Indicc Associates in collaboration with SPRU (University of Sussex), Spray Engineering Devices Limited, and Narrative Research Lab in February 2025. Industry leaders, policymakers, equipment manufacturers, farmers, and researchers came together to examine how India's sugarcane value chain can evolve into a sugar-energy complex, balancing energy efficiency, decarbonisation, and equitable value distribution for farmers.

Key Highlights

• Energy efficiency hinges on better biomass use: sugarcane is one-third sugar and two-thirds biomass, yet much of this energy potential is lost. Technologies like Mechanical Vapor Recompression, biomass valorisation, and decentralised modular processing units can cut energy waste, lower logistics costs, and create new revenue from biofuels, CBG, and fiberboard.
• CBG is a credible fossil-fuel alternative, but commercial viability is held back by unclear pricing; fair market-driven pricing and CBG-retrofitted tractors could expand rural adoption.
• Decarbonisation must move from carbon-neutral to carbon-negative, using biochar, regenerative farming, and soil carbon enrichment, alongside CCUS — distillery-generated CO₂ is over 98% pure and can be repurposed industrially.
• Ethanol blending reached 17.4% (Nov 2024 – Jan 2025) but further growth is constrained by land and water; the next phase requires policy support for 2G/3G ethanol, Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and biomass-based green hydrogen.
• Farmers remain price-takers with skewed returns: revenue-sharing mechanisms, farmer-owned cooperatives, decentralised processing, and farmer-centric credit schemes are needed to reduce dependence on middlemen and informal high-interest loans.
• Institutional barriers slow the transition: opaque pricing of byproducts, conflicting state and central regulations, high capital costs for biofuel and CCUS projects, and reluctant traditional financiers all hold back investment.

Recommended priorities: introduce tender-based pricing models (as in solar) for byproducts; harmonise biofuel regulations across states; develop blended finance tools like land banks and PPPs; and establish a dedicated National Biofuel Authority to coordinate policy, pricing, and investment, similar to NTPC's role in power.