Energy use pattern in rice milling industries-a critical appraisal

Rice milling industry is one of the most energy consuming industries. Like capital, labour and material, energy is one of the production factors which used to produce final product. In economical term, energy is demand-derived goods and can be regarded as intermediate good whose demand depends on the demand of final product. This paper deals with various types of energy pattern used in rice milling industries viz., thermal energy, mechanical energy, electrical energy and human energy. The important utilities in a rice mill are water, air, steam, electricity and labour. In a rice mill some of the operations are done manually namely, cleaning, sun drying, feeding paddy to the bucket elevators, weighing and packaging, etc. So the man-hours are also included in energy accounting. Water is used for soaking and steam generation. Electricity is the main energy source for these rice mills and is imported form the state electricity board grids. Electricity is used to run motors, pumps, blowers, conveyors, fans, lights, etc. The variations in the consumption rate of energy through the use of utilities during processing must also accounted for final cost of the finished product. The paddy milling consumes significant quantity of fuels and electricity. The major energy consuming equipments in the rice milling units are; boilers and steam distribution, blowers, pumps, conveyers, elevators, motors, transmission systems, weighing, etc. Though, wide variety of technologies has been evolved for efficient use of energy for various equipments of rice mills, so far, only a few have improved their energy efficiency levels. Most of the rice mills use old and locally available technologies and are also completely dependent on locally available technical personnel.