Renewable energy source is the energy obtained from natural and persistent flow of energy occurring in the immediate environment. Renewable energy systems are becoming widespread due to adverse environmental impacts and escalation in energy costs linked with the exercise of established energy sources.
Solar and biogas are recognized as having the highest social, economic and environmental benefits of the renewable energy sources existing and also are the most feasible to use in a renewable hybrid energy system for electricity generation. The study considers photovoltaic cells as the device for trapping and converting solar energy to electrical energy while pig dung was used to prepare the digester materials for biogas energy and bio-digesters were used to convert the digester to electrical energy through dual ac generator.
The simulation was carried out using MATLAB software to calculate the output energy. The result reveals that biogas energy generated more energy and performs better as compared to the solar energy for the area. This paper forms a basic for evaluation and performance of biogas energy for rural communities.
Biogas Energy
Biogas energy is an energy source and renewable fuel that can be applied in many different circumstances. It is a combustible gas mixture produced from anaerobic fermentation of biomass by bacteria that requires several days to form. The remainder of agricultural products is a good resource for biogas energy. For example, woods and remnants of the harvest can be processed by thermal conversion to produce energy, vegetable oils and animal fats to produce biodiesel, or starch crops to produce ethanol.
Solar Energy
Solar energy is the energy radiated by the sun and used in a way to tap the light photons to excite electrons. At present, solar energy is widely used, and was raised on a large scale by various energy investment company. Sunlight provides an abundant source of renewable energy. Solar technologies take advantage of the sun’s energy using two different capture methods: active and passive.
Active solar technologies use complex mechanized collectors, such as photovoltaic panels, to collect and store solar energy. Passive solar technologies are less complicated and rely on the design and orientation of the collector rather than mechanical devices to absorb and store the sun’s energy. Technologies that use these methods include Photovoltaic (PV). PV systems directly convert sunlight into electricity using solar cells. These systems, which produce electricity even in the absence of strong sunlight, can generate significant quantities of electricity depending on several factors, including quality of the sunlight and the systems mounted pitch. A 10-kW system that produces 1,500 kWh per kW capacity per year could thus produce 15,000 kWh annually.
CONCLUSION
This study modeled both the biogas and solar energy by comparing both energy sources with respect to the volume of biogas and number of solar panel and their productivity in order to argue the best renewable sources for the community.
The results were presented based on the electric energy generated by the biogas and solar energy as well as number of solar panel required to generate the same amount of energy generated by the biogas energy. From the results, it was deduced that generating energy from biogas is more effective and reliable for the community compared to solar energy. The results also revealed that the biogas energy generated more energy and performed better as compared to the solar energy for the community area.
Anaerobic Digestion Energy verse Wind Energy
The most important fact that outstrips all others, and we make no apology for placing first in our list, is that AD Plants generate electricity 24 hours every day. A reliable and well run anaerobic digestion plant will provide a base load of electrical power 24/7 and 365 days a year, every year.
Until technology finds a low-cost and reliable way to store electricity, or to store energy which is ready on-tap for use on-demand, when people want to use it, it will remain necessary to maintain fossil fuel generating capacity alongside all the wind farm capacity.
The true cost of wind energy should therefore be calculated on the basis of the cost of the wind energy itself, plus the cost of maintaining a fossil-fuel powered power station capable of delivering the energy of the wind farm, and to do that while being on-call at a moment’s notice, ready for when the wind stops.
Although, the reserve backup capacity may not need to be 100% of the wind farm generating capacity, if the power grid extends over an extremely large geographical area. The above reserve capacity then provided, can only be less than 100%, if it can be shown that there will be no occasions when all wind farms in the grid feed area, would never all be becalmed simultaneously.
Winter farm subsidies, are not based on this presumption and therefore are subsidized at an unrealistically high level by governments. By contrast, anaerobic digestion power, due to its continuous baseline supply capability, holds none of these hidden costs. Which also include, the use in the case of wind energy, unsustainable energy in the form of carbonaceous fuel consumption.
Anaerobic digestion is better than wind farms, because most anaerobic digestion consumes waste, this waste would have harmful consequences if it was not digested. Clearly some wastes are more hazardous to the environment than others. The biggest advantage to the environment when a waste is digested comes from digesting food waste. Food waste increases the risk that the environment will be damaged by polluting emissions if it is placed in landfills. However, all of organic waste is less hazardous to the environment once it has been digested. Not only that, anaerobic digestion contains a pasteurization stage during which it is sanitised and any pathogens present, and seeds, will be killed.
A wind farm, once it has been constructed and commissioned, provides very little in the way of jobs for local people. By contrast, an anaerobic digestion plant will require at least one, possibly more, plant operators for as long as it is in use.
The turbine blades at wind farms provide a hazard to birdlife. An anaerobic digestion plant does not provide any hazard to birdlife.
The motion of wind turbine blades produces noise which can be heard over very long distances. An anaerobic digestion plant, may produce some noise which is potentially audible to those within about 50 metres of an AD plant. Noise nuisance from AD plants is orders of magnitude less intense. Anaerobic digesters, can be described as able to kill three birds with one stone, because they produce renewable energy, treat waste, and provide a valuable agricultural fertilizer.
It would be a little bit unkind, to say that winter turbines only in comparison, kill three birds with one blade! However, the reader will by now have picked up the views of the author in respect of wind energy… All the author would ask of governments which promote wind energy, that they set tariffs and other incentives at a level which reflects the fact that wind energy is not such a good (nor economic) provider of energy as it might appear to be at first sight.
To give incentives to wind energy which are comparable to, or greater than, anaerobic digestion facilities is illogical. So, we return to where we started this article and repeat that; “flatulence, not wind, is the way to go”.
