Global Biofuels Alliance: The role of non-grain-based biofuels in India’s energy transition | 2025

Summary

This whitepaper from the Global Biofuels Alliance (GBA) outlines the significant opportunity for India to accelerate its energy transition through non-grain-based (NGB) biofuels. The use of NGB biofuels, sourced from waste materials like agricultural residues and animal manure, offers substantial environmental and economic benefits for India, including reducing emissions, creating jobs, and enhancing energy security.

The five opportune moments for the Indian non-grain based biofuels sector are the following:

• A sustainable energy growth: although NGB biofuels are gaining acceptance, their additional benefits are not yet fully acknowledged such as their contribution to addressing concerns of food vs fuels and their environmental performance.
• Capture attractive global markets: NGB biofuels market is expected to grow at a healthy rate globally.
• Development of allied industry: developing the NGB biofuels sector, Indian economy can see a development of allied sectors driven by increase in demand, stimulating growth and innovation in the manufacturing sectoe.
• Creating jobs and boosting economy: unlocking NGB biofuels industry will  create job and lead to advancement in the agricultural and back-integrated sector. NGB biofuels also help farmers with regular income by turning waste into wealth.
• Global commitment: the favourable regulatory environment worldwide is contributing to increasing the attractiveness of NGB biofuels.

The whitepaper highlights key challenges the sector faces, such as feedstock availability, collection efficiency, technology maturity, and financing, and proposes strategic actions and structural interventions across various pillars, drawing inspiration from global best practices, to unlock the full potential of NGB biofuels in India.

The document lays a foundation to evaluate the potential of NGB biofuels industry in India. Nevertheless, further analysis willl be needed to evaluate the feedstock potential on a country level and provide greater undestanding of competing demand on a more detailed level.

Download

Read the full whitepaper by downloading it here or clicking on the right hand side.