# How much energy do Gokak jaggery units use, and what CO2 is counted if bagasse is the fuel?

Canonical: https://senseible.earth/answers/gokak-jaggery-cluster-bagasse-energy

Bagasse supplies about 99% of the 34,735 toe Gokak's 120 or so jaggery units used in 2017-18, and its CO2 is biogenic. What counts as fossil is the grid power and generator diesel: 3.13 million kWh and 66.3 kL, about 2,290 t CO2 a year (estimate).

## The cluster

- 95 micro units making jaggery with sugar: 28,500 t a year.
- 15 small units making jaggery with sugar: 13,500 t.
- 10 small units making jaggery without sugar: 2,700 t.
- Cane comes from farms in Belgaum and Gokak; sugar from mills in Belgaum, Gokak, Hubli and Kolhapur. About 1.5 to 2 t of cane goes into each pan.

## Inside one unit

A micro unit uses about 18,461 kWh, 460 t of bagasse and 500 litres of diesel a year; a small unit 55,384 kWh, 1,380 t and 750 litres. The crusher, usually two motors of about 15 hp, runs on the grid, mostly LT connections of 40 to 60 hp; the generator stands by for power cuts. Bagasse from the crusher is dried, by a dryer in small units and in the sun in micro units, then burnt under open iron pans 230 to 280 cm across.

## Three lines for a buyer

1. Fossil CO2: grid kWh and diesel litres. This is your Scope 1 and 2.
2. Biogenic CO2 from bagasse, on its own line, with tonnes burnt.
3. Sugar bought in, for jaggery with sugar: it carries the sugar mill's footprint, so send kg of sugar per tonne of jaggery.

## Where TERI saw savings

- Variable speed drive on the crusher motors, which run at varying load: 10 to 15% of their power.
- Replacing motors rewound three or more times with IE3 motors.
- Rooftop solar on the units' large roofs; the profile notes that Karnataka allows net metering.
- Waste heat recovery from the open pan furnaces, so less bagasse is burnt per pan.

## Gokak, fossil CO2 (estimate)

- Cluster: 3.13 million kWh x 0.675 = 2,113 t, plus 66.3 kL x 2,645 kg = 175 t: about 2,290 t
- Per tonne of jaggery: 2,290 / 44,700 = about 51 kg CO2
- Micro unit: 18,461 kWh x 0.675 = 12.5 t, plus 500 L x 2.645 = 1.3 t: 13.8 t for about 300 t, or 46 kg per tonne
- Bagasse, reported separately: 78,200 t at 3,000 to 4,000 kcal per kg x 100 kg CO2 per GJ = about 98,000 to 131,000 t biogenic

Energy and output from TERI's Gokak jaggery profile (2017-18). TERI printed 2,742 t on an older grid factor. Bagasse at the profile's calorific range and the IPCC 2006 default for other solid biomass.

## What Senseible does here

Senseible reads the unit's power bills and diesel slips into a Scope 1 and 2 figure in minutes; it applies no factor to bagasse, so the biogenic line stays yours to report.

- [Your MSME carbon number](https://senseible.earth/msme-carbon-number)
- [Jaggery carbon footprint per kg](https://senseible.earth/answers/jaggery-carbon-footprint-per-kg)
- [Biomass fuel in a boiler and Scope 1](https://senseible.earth/answers/biomass-or-waste-fuel-in-boiler-scope-1)

Sources: [TERI, Energy profile: Gokak jaggery cluster (SAMEEEKSHA, 2017-18 data)](https://sameeeksha.org/pdf/clusterprofile/Gokak-jaggery-cluster.pdf), [IPCC 2006 Guidelines, Volume 2 Energy](https://www.ipcc-nggip.iges.or.jp/public/2006gl/vol2.html), [CEA, CO2 Baseline Database for the Indian Power Sector, version 22.0](https://cea.nic.in/cdm-co2-baseline-view?mappingId=234&lang=en)

Last reviewed 2026-10-31.