Dear Sirs,
My name is Tom and I am emailing you from Wales in Great Britain. I
came across your company looking for a solution to a problem in Bangladesh.
My friend has a small village that he would like to supply gas for 1 burner
for 6 – 10 homes and possibly some small amounts of electricity as well.
He came to me with this problem and I hope you may have the answers that can help his small village out.
Currently there are 6 – 10 homes roughly in an area about one city block or
less. They have 10 – 12 cows producing manure but no other farm animals to
speak of…they are vegetarians and the cows are only for farming functions.
They would like to ‘pipe’ gas from a methane-generating tank into each home that would be located in the village.
Now, I am not sure if there would be enough excess methane to product any
electricity but even small amounts would go a long way in helping them out.
As for the local area the average temperature is 25-26 Celsius, with it
increasing to over 32 – 35 Celsius during the hotter parts of the year.
I look forward to any response as I am new to this field,
Tom
System setup for small villiage in Bangladesh
Moderator:Bob
Hi Tom,
Did you try using my Biogas Calculator? Plugging in 40 (assuming 5 people/house x 8 houses) people and 10 cows -- and a little extra water, leaves and kitchen scraps to get a proper mix, it looks like you shuld be able to generate about 350 CF of biogas/day. Assuming 65-70% methane content, this would be about 235 CF of methane per day. (You can tweak those numbers to better suit your requirements...)
Assuming 900 Btu/CF for methane, and an average 6,500 Btu/Hr for a typical gas burner, this would be enough gas to operate 10 burners for 3.25 hours/day:
(235 * 900) / (6,500 * 10) = 3.25
To generate electricity, assume, say, 12.5% efficiency for a small gas-fired generator. One KWH is equivalent to 3413 Btu. Let's say that the burners only need to run for 1 hour a day, leaving 2/3 of the total gas available for electric generation.
With this amount of gas available (after cooking needs are met), you could generate about (235 CF * 900 * .667) / (3413/0.125) = 5.17 KWH/day
This would be enough gas to run a 2 KW generator for between 2 and 3 hours/day, depending on load and efficiency. Divided by 10 houses, each house could operate a number of electric lights (e.g. 13 watt compact fluorescents), a radio, computer, etc.
This sounds like an interesting project. What kind of budget do they have? Bear in mind that the electricity generation will add considerable complexity and cost above and beyond a simple cooking gas application.
Did you try using my Biogas Calculator? Plugging in 40 (assuming 5 people/house x 8 houses) people and 10 cows -- and a little extra water, leaves and kitchen scraps to get a proper mix, it looks like you shuld be able to generate about 350 CF of biogas/day. Assuming 65-70% methane content, this would be about 235 CF of methane per day. (You can tweak those numbers to better suit your requirements...)
Assuming 900 Btu/CF for methane, and an average 6,500 Btu/Hr for a typical gas burner, this would be enough gas to operate 10 burners for 3.25 hours/day:
(235 * 900) / (6,500 * 10) = 3.25
To generate electricity, assume, say, 12.5% efficiency for a small gas-fired generator. One KWH is equivalent to 3413 Btu. Let's say that the burners only need to run for 1 hour a day, leaving 2/3 of the total gas available for electric generation.
With this amount of gas available (after cooking needs are met), you could generate about (235 CF * 900 * .667) / (3413/0.125) = 5.17 KWH/day
This would be enough gas to run a 2 KW generator for between 2 and 3 hours/day, depending on load and efficiency. Divided by 10 houses, each house could operate a number of electric lights (e.g. 13 watt compact fluorescents), a radio, computer, etc.
This sounds like an interesting project. What kind of budget do they have? Bear in mind that the electricity generation will add considerable complexity and cost above and beyond a simple cooking gas application.