The Digital Global Biogas Cooperation (DiBiCoo) project is part of the EU’s Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge to secure clean and efficient energy under the call for ‘Market Uptake Support’. The project consortium includes partners from countries that have emerging biogas markets in Argentina, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa and Indonesia and partners from Germany, Austria, Belgium and Latvia.
The project’s overall objective is to prepare markets in developing and emerging countries for the import of sustainable biogas/biomethane technologies from Europe. The consortium works to advance knowledge transfer and experience sharing to improve local policies that allow target countries to increase market uptake.
This is facilitated through a digital matchmaking platform and classical capacity development mechanisms for improved networking, information sharing and technical/financial competencies. Furthermore, DiBiCoo has identified five demo cases to provide support, in the form of a desktop study, from within the five emerging biogas market countries.
To support the development of five selected demo projects in the southern hemisphere, including three within Africa, the DiBiCoo project completed a biogas market and framework analysis for each emerging biogas market within Argentina, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa and Indonesia. The study of these emerging biogas markets provides an overview of the drivers and barriers to biogas implementation. In addition, it covers the potential feedstock options, utilisation pathways for biogas produced, digestate management options, and social and economic benefits that speak to business case viability within these markets.
Understanding the components that drive business viability for biogas within a country’s market enables a project developer to understand better the context in which a biogas project can be applied. This is truer within Africa and developing market contexts where feedstock may be different and the cost of electricity is significantly cheaper than in the European biogas business case. Therefore, it is essential to understand that drivers for biogas project uptake would depend on several other factors such as a need for waste management and beneficiation, wastewater treatment, water reticulation, alternative heating and cooking fuels, and job creation economic development. One such example is the demo case in Argentina.
In 2018, Argentina produced almost 14 million tons of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW), of which 50% was organic waste (according to the 2021 Waste Management Country Report: Argentina completed by Holland Circular Hotspot). Only 10% was recycled, while the remainder was landfilled or improperly disposed of in dumpsites. The fishing industries contributed a fair share of organic waste with 140 kilotons in 2018. It was estimated that 19.7% of MSW consisted of recyclable materials such as glass, cartons and plastics.
As a result, a city like Buenos Aires has applied a Zero Waste Law. This has enabled the city to drive landfill gas capture to produce electricity in one out of the four existing landfill sites in the province of Buenos Aires. Furthermore, the primary source of dry biomass in the country is agriculture (raw agricultural commodity and rice straw), which encourages the development of biogas projects that use this available feedstock to produce biogas that either generates electricity and/or a fossil fuel alternative.
The upgrading and usage of biogas as an alternative heating and/or transportation fuel hold more value and demand within these developing markets.
Bioeléctrica, based in Rio Cuarto, wants to utilise mixed municipal solid waste in co-digestion with thin stillage coming from bio-ethanol production for this demo case. The focus of support that DiBiCoo is providing is to assist in understanding the requirements and risks related to the technical concept being considered and assisting in finding technology partners for waste management and pre-treatment, as well as feeding.
The proposed location of this demo case provides access to the thin stillage from a bio-ethanol production plant and domestic organic household waste from the nearby Rio Cuarto suburbs. The biogas utilisation pathway being considered is that of electricity generation. The digestate is stabilised in a lagoon. After that, it is applied through manure dumps in leased fields of the Bioeléctrica.
Through the sharing of knowledge and insights, the DiBiCoo project has assisted the identified demo case projects, such as the one in Argentina, in highlighting potential challenges that the project may face in development and implementation.
One example is four biogas plants visited during a study tour in March 2022 hosted by DiBiCoo in South Africa. One of the biogas sites visited was a first-of-its-kind centralised waste management facility that extracted an organic fraction from MSW. This faced several challenges in extracting the organic fraction from the MSW received and was eventually forced to shut down and reassess its operations and business case.
Other lessons learnt from the site visits include the challenge that African and developing markets may face with the low cost of fossil fuel-generated electricity. As a result, the business case for utilising biogas for electricity is much weaker in countries such as South Africa, Ethiopia and Ghana. However, the upgrading and usage of biogas as an alternative heating and/or transportation fuel hold more value and demand within these developing markets.
In addition to the demo case in Argentina, projects are being supported in Ethiopia, Ghana, Indonesia and South Africa and will be discussed at Enlit Africa in June. For the demo case in Ethiopia, the consortium from Bahir Dar University and the Lake Tana and other water bodies protection agency will highlight their search for technical solutions to harvest, pre-treat, feed and digest water plants at Lake Tana. In addition, the biogas will be utilised in a CHP to be fed into the grid. While for the demo case in Ghana, Beta Construction Engineers Ltd. will highlight their search for technology partners to utilise the municipal waste of Cape Coast. The technological concepts and equipment needed should handle the waste and be used to produce electricity from biogas.
For the demo case in Indonesia, the company PT. Ecody Agro Energi (Ecody) will highlight their search for pre-treatment and digestion systems for fibrous, high-dry matter material from agricultural production in Kalimantan.
Crosspoint Property Investments is currently developing a smart city around Lanseria Airport for the demo case in South Africa. They will highlight their progress in developing a zero-waste concept where one goal is to utilise all suitable biogenic municipal waste for energy production via anaerobic digestion. In the first stage, sludge from nearby wastewater treatment works will be used. The clean biogas will be directly supplied via a microgrid to nearby consumers for cooking, heating and cooling purposes. ESI
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