A Review of Commercial Biogas Systems and Lessons for Africa

Abstract

Many African countries have vast biomass resources that could serve as feedstock for methane production through the adoption of commercial biogas plants. However, due to many inhibiting factors, these resources are under-utilised. This article reviews commercial biogas systems that treat organic waste from municipalities, large livestock farms, large plantations/crop farms, food/beverage production facilities, and other industries, to identify essential lessons which African countries could use to develop/disseminate such biogas systems. The review identified the critical barriers to commercial biogas development to be high initial capital costs, weak environmental policies, poor institutional framework, poor infrastructure and a general lack of willpower to implement renewable energy policies and set challenging targets. In African countries where feed-in-tariffs, quota obligations and competitive bidding programmes have been instituted, implementation has been poor, and most state-owned utilities have been unsupportive. Using knowledge from more experienced countries such as Germany and China, some key lessons have were identified. Among the key lessons is the need to institute and enforce environmental management policies to ensure that waste from medium and large livestock farms and industries are not disposed of indiscriminately, a tool China has recently used to promote commercial biogas plants to a high degree of success.

Supply Considerations for Scaling Up Clean Cooking Fuels for Household Energy in Low‐ and Middle‐Income Countries

“…Domestic biogas, on the contrary, is better suited in a rural environment where biogas installations are mainly family-sized plants and generate gas for 10.1029/2019GH000208 GeoHealth domestic use (Cheng et al, 2014). However, larger-scale commercial biogas systems that treat organic waste from municipalities, large livestock farms, large plantations/crop farms and then distribute to households through piping are also a technological option to be further expanded (Kemausuor et al, 2018).…”

The Future Agricultural Biogas Plant in Germany: A Vision

“…Biogas production has become common practice or is considered to be implemented or expanded in many countries [1]. This trend can be attributed to a number of advantages combined in anaerobic digestion: it is suitable for manifold feedstocks including diverse types of organic residues; it can be integrated into multi-faceted production systems for food, feed, bioenergy and biomaterials; and it can be adapted in a variety of scales from household to large commercial plants [2][3][4][5][6][7].…”

“…This trend can be attributed to a number of advantages combined in anaerobic digestion: it is suitable for manifold feedstocks including diverse types of organic residues; it can be integrated into multi-faceted production systems for food, feed, bioenergy and biomaterials; and it can be adapted in a variety of scales from household to large commercial plants [2][3][4][5][6][7]. Several countries have promoted biogas production by subsidies either in the form of feed-in tariffs or through supporting investments [1,[8][9][10].…”

“…In Germany, the Renewable Energies Act first came into force in 2000 and obliged energy supply companies to feed electricity generated from renewable sources into the grid at guaranteed tariffs over a period of 20 years [1,11,12]. The amendments of the Renewable Energies Act in 2004 and 2009 set strong incentives for the cultivation of energy crops dedicated to anaerobic digestion [13].…”

What Could China Give to and Take from Other Countries in Terms of the Development of the Biogas Industry?

“…The policy could focus on the revival of abandoned biogas plants as well.Sustainability 2020, 12, 1490 2 of 21 effectively and widely implemented in countries where governments and institutions are involved in the subsidy, planning, design, construction, operation, and maintenance of biogas plants [7,8]. A number of countries in Asia and Africa have launched massive campaigns to popularize biogas technology via government support and international aid (Table 1) [9,10]. Globally, it is estimated that 50 million micro-digesters (family size), 132,000 biogas engineering projects (about 15,000 in Europe [11]) and 700 biogas upgrading plants are operating [12].…”