Like many, Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe has been “distressed” about India’s energy scenario for decades. From his days pursuing mechanical engineering at IIT Bombay, to be precise. “It was in college that I saw the documentary An Inconvenient Truth, and it was my first exposure to climate change,” says the Pune-based climate entrepreneur who went on to launch Vaayu Biogas a few years later.
Read more |Can India’s waste solve its energy crisis?
Priyadarshan Sahasrabuddhe. Photo: Special Arrangement
After graduating from IIT in 2008, Priyadarshan went the social work route and worked in National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) for a couple of years that he now recalls as an “introspective journey”. “In 2011, I joined my parents’ business – manufacturing automobile components and furniture. I learnt a lot about management, efficient operations, and also how to manage waste.” Elaborating on the latter, he explains how he came up with a solution to tackle the unit’s “lunch” waste by converting it into biogas.
With Vaayu Biogas, you can convert food waste to biogas. Photo: Special Arrangement
“This was in 2015,” says Priyadarshan, “I happened to meet scientist Dr Anand Karve during this phase and made the first plant under his guidance wherein I eliminated the need to crush the food waste before processing, and also used separate storage balloons for the gas. This process was completely aligned with the future we needed to build.”
And thus, Vaayu was launched in 2019, on Earth Day (April 22).
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Kitchen waste to biogas
Now in his seventh year of operations, Priyadarshan has two solutions that use his waste-to-energy technology: Vaayu Biogas and Rajhans. “At the former, we convert food waste to biogas and install the system for individual families, food businesses, company canteens, and housing societies. We also work with developers for new projects,” he says, adding that Rajhans is for toilet waste water management. “This system treats the toilet output and the discharge can be used directly for gardening, and it also generates biogas. Till date we have installed 450 systems, a majority in and around Pune, with a few in Uttarakhand and Vishakhapattanam,” says the climate entrepreneur.
Till date Priyadarshan has installed 450 systems, a majority in and around Pune. Photo: Special Arrangement
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He explains how our fuels are finite, but “we are building our civilisations as if these resources are infinite”. And the recent LPG crisis is proof. “It is not just about cooking gas, but all fuel supplies. What if our petrol supplies are hit in a similar fashion? We cannot predict the future but we want to keep doing what we are doing and keep talking about it,” says Priyadarshan, who received over 1,500 requests for his clean energy systems since the LPG crisis hit in March 2026.
“At present, we are taking up only Pune orders, which are around 200. To take on more orders pan-India, we need to have a service team in place to provide timely after sales support, and we are working on this.”
A significant shift
Highlighting success stories, the climate entrepreneur says he has saved 10 LPG cylinders since 2019 by cooking entirely on biogas. “There are about five such families in Pune who use Vaayu and are LPG-free. These families (with 2-7 members) get waste from their neighbourhood, and about 200 people use our small Vaayu module which manages their organic kitchen waste and saves about 15% of their cooking gas,” he explains. In addition, the team has installed the biogas system in the homes of 50 waste pickers and members of SWaCH, a cooperative of waste pickers in Pune.
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Expired vegetables and fruits in a bin
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With a compact nine member team, Priyadarshan explains how they are now shifting to a new rented workshop where toilet water will not be flushed out to the drainage. “We plan to be 100% zero-discharge by growing a range of plants, vegetables, creepers, and bamboo on this reused water.”
Looking ahead, Priyadarshan hopes to build a large community “which will be innovating on their lifestyles to live sustainably”. He adds, “We hope to come up with many more solutions which will take us closer to the cyclic processes of Nature”. As for the LPG crisis, he says, it has exposed how vulnerable these fuels have made us even for core basic needs of cooking food. He concludes, that this has made it easier to convince people to make the switch.
Published – June 03, 2026 07:05 am IST