Technical and Economic Assessment of Power Generation from Dairy Farm-based Biogas Plants in South Africa

Abstract:
The paper reports on the technical, economic and environmental assessment of stand-alone and grid connected electricity generation from dairy-based biogas plants in South Africa. HOMER will be used assess the possibility of integrating microturbine and or diesel generator systems on small dairy farms, where grid extensions are complex and uneconomical. HOMER will also be used to assess the possibility of using these electricity generating systems on large scale dairy farms, for grid-connected applications. The decision criteria used for these assessments include, the equipment setup, energy production, financial viability, fuel consumption and CO2 emissions and the main decision parameters used are net present cost (NPC) and renewable fraction (RF).