Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 1019e1025

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Renewable Energy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene

Analysis of small-scale biogas utilization systems on Ontario cattle farms

Andrew J. White*, Donald W. Kirk, John W. Graydon
Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry, University of Toronto, 200 College Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3E5, Canada

a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history: Received 8 March 2010 Accepted 23 August 2010 Available online 19 September 2010 Keywords: Anaerobic digestion Biogas Feed-In Tariff Small scale

a b s t r a c t
The production of biogas through the anaerobic digestion of cattle manure and its subsequent use in the generation of electricity on larger farms in Ontario is currently economically attractive. This is a result of the Ontario Feed-In Tariff (FIT) program, which provides incentivized rates for the production of electricity from biogas. Although larger farms can take advantage of the higher rates for electricity, there are substantially more smaller farms for which individually designed and engineered biogas systems would be prohibitively expensive. By employing the concept of modular biogas plants, this analysis evaluates the economics of small-scale biogas utilization systems. Dairy farms with at least 33 animals and beef farms with at least 78 animals can operate economically attractive biogas systems. This analysis shows that approximately 9000 additional Ontario cattle farms would be able to take advantage of the FIT program, which would add 120 MWe of renewable energy capacity to the Ontario electrical grid. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The anaerobic digestion (AD) of various organic feedstocks, predominantly animal manures and municipal wastewater sludges, produce a methane rich gaseous mixture called biogas. Biogas generally contains between 40% and 70% methane, with the balance of the gas consisting of carbon dioxide and anywhere from 100 to more than 3000 ppmv of hydrogen sulphide (H2S). Owing to the high levels of methane, biogas can be used as a heating fuel, and can even be used in an engine to generate electricity (gen-set). Biogas systems are already widely employed in Europe [6], and are gaining traction in North America. Aside from the production of heat and/or electricity, farm-based AD systems have numerous other benets for the farm, such as the production of a nutrient rich efuent (digestate) which can be used as a fertilizer, pathogen and odour reduction, weed seed reduction, and manure volume reduction [7,10,11]. In addition, methane, which has a global warming potential of 21 times that of carbon dioxide, is destroyed through its combustion and thus there is a global warming benet to the use of an AD system [5]. Although there are many benets to an AD system they have failed in the past in Ontario due to poor economic returns, [7] mainly due to the low price of electricity. With a push for renewable energy, the Ontario Government is in the process of nalizing a Feed-In Tariff program (FIT) as part of an overreaching Green Energy Act. The aim of the program is to help promote renewable energy projects (biomass,
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 1 416 9788654. E-mail address: and.white@utoronto.ca (A.J. White). 0960-1481/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.renene.2010.08.034

biogas, small hydro, landll gas, solar PV and wind) and to create green energy jobs by stipulating the inclusion of domestic content in various renewable energy systems. The FIT program would pay roughly ve times the wholesale market price of electricity [9,16] guaranteed for 20 years with a price escalation of 20% of the consumer price index yearly [16]. With such an economic incentive, the viability of farm-based AD systems is greatly improved. Existing and newly built farm-based AD plants in Ontario operate on large farms. The systems are individually designed and engineered to optimize the production of biogas. These systems tend to be on dairy farms because the operation of an AD system with dairy manure is fairly well known and the manure handling systems are already in place. Although it would be economically unfeasible to individually design and engineer AD systems for the numerous smaller farms in operation, if the systems were standardized and designed in a modular fashion, the economics should be favourable for smaller farms. This analysis will examine the economics of AD systems on smaller cattle farms in the Province of Ontario. Ontario cattle farms will be evaluated based on their size, their potential biogas production, the capital cost of a modular AD system, and the expected revenue from the Ontario FIT program. 2. Farm stock and biogas potential The methodology used to determine the biogas potential from Ontario cattle farms is presented here. The same methodology was used to determine the biogas potential from Canadian farms as a reference, with the results from both jurisdictions presented below.

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35,000
Mixed Dairy Beef

2.1. Farm stock The number of cattle farms was determined based on farm type, as dened by Statistics Canada. The farm types examined in this analysis are: (1) dairy cattle and milk production, (2) beef cattle ranching and farming, including feedlots, and (3) livestock combination farms, which were assumed to be a mix of only dairy and beef cows, excluding other livestock. It should be noted that farm type is dened as showing what the predominate type of production on that farm is. Thus, it is quite likely for example that a farm dened as a dairy farm also grows some amount of eld crops. The results show that 27% of Ontario cattle farms are dairy operations, 60% are beef operations, and 13% are a combination. The Canadian breakdown is slightly different, with 18%, 74% and 9%, respectively [20]. Statistics Canada also collected data on the number of cattle farms of varying sizes operating in all of the Canadian provinces. The size categories, which are based on number of animals present per farm, are 1e32 animals, 33e77 animals, 78e122 animals, 123e177 animals, 178e272 animals, 273e527 animals, 528e1127 animals, and 1128 animals [21]. The proportion of each type of farm in each size category is not given. Thus, it was assumed that the overall proportions for each farm type apply to each size category. It is likely, however, that farms with 1e32 animals would be too small to be dened as one of the cattle farm types. The data obtained from Statistics Canada [20,21] was compiled, and is presented here in Fig. 1 for Ontario cattle farms and Fig. 2 for Canadian cattle farms. It is apparent from Figs. 1 and 2 that the number of smaller cattle farms is more than one order of magnitude larger than the number of larger cattle operations, both in Ontario and Canada. 2.2. Biogas potential In order to determine the biogas potential of these various farms, rst the biogas production rate, in normal m3 of biogas per animal-day was determined. The values are based on the average size of the animals, which determines the daily manure production per animal, and the accessibility of the manure [27]. The animal sizes used are 636 kg/animal for dairy and 568 kg/animal for beef [27]. For dairy farms, an accessibility of 80% was used. For beef farms, an accessibility of 25% was used as in general beef cattle spend much more time grazing in elds where it is difcult to recover manure [27]. For this analysis, a value of 1.51 Nm3/animalday was used for dairy farms and 0.73 Nm3/animal-day was used for beef farms. These values agree fairly well with other literature values for dairy cattle, although they may be conservative based on some actual operating data, as shown in Table 1.
10,000 9,000 8,000 Mixed Dairy Beef

30,000

Number of Farms

25,000

20,000

15,000

10,000

5,000

0
1 to 32 33 to 77 78 to 122 123 to 177 178 to 272 273 to 527 528 to 1,127 1,128 +

Farm Size (Number of Animals)

Fig. 2. Size distribution of Canadian cattle farms.

With the biogas potential per animal-day determined, it is a simple matter of tabulating the biogas potential and energy potential on a per farm basis for the various farm sizes based on the average number of animals per farm. The average number of animals per farm size was determined from the Statistics Canada data [21] by dividing the total number of animals per farm size by the number of farms of that size. The methane content of biogas can vary due to numerous factors such as the diet of the animal [27]. For this study it is assumed that biogas is 60% methane, with an energy content of 23.4 MJ/Nm3. The results are presented in Table 2 for Ontario. The values are similar but slightly higher for Canada due to the slightly larger average number of animals per farm for Canada as a whole. By combining the energy potential per farm with the number of farms, total energy potential can be determined for both Ontario and Canada. Based on the data presented, there is the potential for 17,000 TJ of energy annually from Ontario cattle farms which, assuming an electrical efciency of 35%, is approximately 200 MWe of capacity. Extended to include all Canadian cattle farms, the total energy is 136,000 TJ annually, which is approximately 1500 MWe of capacity. In the analysis performed by Weiland [26], animal manure, of which cattle manure is a subset, only accounted for 24% of the total energy potential from biogas sources in Germany. Restricting that analysis to only farm-based sources of organic materials by excluding landll gas, wastewater, municipal wastes and industrial wastes, animal manure still only accounted for 28% of the total energy potential from biogas sources in Germany. Applying this gure to Ontario, the electrical capacity from all farm-based biogas sources is approximately 700 MWe and is 5500 MWe nationally. 3. Economics An economic analysis was undertaken to determine the feasibility of small-scale anaerobic digestion biogas plants. The
Table 1 Biogas potential per animal. m3 Biogas per animal-day 1.89 1.84 3.28 1.42 1.19 2.5
a

Number of Farms

7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 1 to 32 33 to 77 78 to 122 123 to 177 178 to 272 273 to 527 528 to 1,127 1,128 +

Source Burke [3] Nelson [12] Nelson [12] Wood [27] US EPAa [24] OMAFRA [14]

Farm Size (Number of Animals)

Fig. 1. Size distribution of Ontario cattle farms.

Average from dairy projects.

A.J. White et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 1019e1025 Table 2 Biogas potential, Ontario farms. Farm size no. of animals Average no. of animals per farm Dairy Biogas potential Nm3/year 8400 28,600 53,100 80,300 117,400 199,100 391,100 1,203,100 Energy potential MJ/year 195,800 670,000 1,244,000 1,878,700 2,748,200 4,658,500 9,152,700 28,152,200 Beef Biogas potential Nm3/year 4000 13,800 25,700 38,800 56,800 96,200 189,100 581,500

1021

Energy potential MJ/year 94,700 323,900 601,300 908,000 1,328,300 2,251,600 4,423,800 13,606,900

1e32 33e77 78e122 123e177 178e272 273e527 528e1127 1128

15 52 97 147 214 363 714 2196

economic analysis excludes the two largest farm sizes for dairy operations (more than 527 animals) and the largest farm size for beef operations (more than 1,127 animals) as these farms are capable of supporting plants which are 250 kW or greater. Biogas plants of this size are currently economically feasible under the Ontario FIT program, and are generally individually designed and engineered. Additionally, due to their size, these plants can more easily take advantage of operation exibilities such as collecting and utilizing off-farm wastes to improve their revenue streams [7]. This analysis assumes the use of modularly designed and utilized systems, which would become unwieldy at the large farm sizes. The results are given in Canadian dollars in 2010. 3.1. Gross electrical revenue potential As stated in the introduction, the focus of this analysis is cattle farms in Ontario based on the draft FIT program, which allows generators to sell their electricity for incentivized rates, based on the size of the operation as shown in Table 3 [16]. For this analysis, it is assumed that the efciency of the gen-set is 35%, and speculatively that the generator runs 345 days per year, 24 h per day, allowing for 20 days of downtime. With these assumptions the gross revenue from electricity generation that size of farm can expect is calculated based on the Ontario FIT schedule. These results are tabulated in Table 4. 3.2. Additional anaerobic digestion benets Numerous sources extol the additional benets that an AD system can bring to a farm [2,3,5,7,10,11,25,28,29]. Some AD benets are directly related to the farm. The digestate left over from the AD process can be used directly as a fertilizer by spreading it on elds, which can increase crop yields by 6%e30% [28] versus the eld application of raw manure. Not only are crop yields increased, the AD process reduces the presence of weed seeds in the digestate, and thus reduces the need for herbicide on the farm. The digestate can also be separated into solid and liquid components, where the solid component can be used as animal bedding [10] or as a high quality compost material [28], and the liquid fraction can still be spread on the elds as a nutrient rich fertilizer. There are also societal benets to the use of farm-based AD systems. Odours can be reduced by 70%e97%, which is benecial to neighbours of the farm [28]. More importantly, odour reduction increases the
Table 3 FIT price schedule for biogas. Size range (kW) Less than 100 100e250 Less than 500 500e10 MW Greater than 10 MW Contract price CAN$/kWh 0.195 0.185 0.160 0.147 0.104

exibility of when the farm can land-apply the digestate versus raw manure [11]. Pathogens are also reduced through AD, with a reduction in fecal coliform groups by 99.9% [11] and Mycobacterium avium paratuberculosis by more than 99% [11]. This pathogen reduction helps prevent ground and drinking water contamination which could occur with the land application of raw manure. Finally, there is a double greenhouse gas emission benet through the use of AD systems. Firstly, methane is captured and eventually converted to heat and carbon dioxide instead of being allowed to escape to the atmosphere as it does in the simple open lagoon storage of manure. Methanes global warming potential is 21 times that of carbon dioxide and thus the conversion of methane to carbon dioxide reduces the global warming potential [5]. Secondly, if the AD biogas plant offsets fossil fuel-based electricity (such as natural gas red power plants), there is a reduction in fossil fuel-related carbon dioxide emissions [5]. Many of the non-market benets listed above (reduction of odours, pathogens and greenhouse gas emissions) are difcult to quantify monetarily, and thus this analysis will only include the cost savings associated with the use of the digestate as a fertilizer. An average of CAN$30/tonne (dry) of compost [13] will be used. To remain consistent with the method employed in the rest of the analysis, the amount of money saved through the use of the digestate as a fertilizer was calculated on a per animal-year basis. The total solids content of manure was taken from the OMAFRA Nutrient Management Software [15] to be 8.4% for dairy cattle, and 28.4% for beef cattle. It is assumed that dairy cattle produce 52 kg of manure per animal-day, and beef cattle produce 34 kg of manure per animal-day with availabilities of 80% and 25%, respectively [27]. It was assumed that the volatile solids available in the manures was 799 g per kilogram of total solids [19]. It was also assumed that the efciency of the AD system is 100%, and, therefore, all of the volatile solids were consumed. The difference between the total solids and the volatile solids is what is available for fertilization use. Using the above values, the fertilization cost savings by using the digestate is CAN$7.70 per animal-year for dairy farms and CAN$5.32 per animal-year for beef farms. 3.3. Capital cost The capital cost gures used in this analysis assume a modular biogas system design. As such, the engineering design
Table 4 Gross revenue from electricity, Ontarian farms. Farm size Dairy kWh 1e32 33e77 78e122 123e177 178e272 273e527 528e1127 18,000 62,000 115,000 174,000 254,500 431,000 e CAN$ 3500 12,000 22,500 34,000 49,500 80,000 e Beef kWh 8500 30,000 55,000 83,000 122,000 207,000 406,000 CAN$ 1500 6000 11,000 16,500 24,000 40,500 75,000

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cost was assumed to be zero, as it is expected that this cost will be recovered after a few unit sales. The system consists of a mixing/holding tank for the raw manure, digestion tanks with piping, uid handling equipment, a gen-set with instrumentation, associated equipment buildings and an activated carbon column. Two different digestion modules would be available, which could be used in any combination. The smaller module would have an 11 m3 digestion capacity, while the larger module would have a 34 m3 digestion capacity, and both modules would operate in an upow anaerobic sludge blanket (UASB) conguration. Gas cleaning with activated carbon was employed to allow for the use of off-the-shelf gen-sets in order to reduce overall cost. 3.4. Operational cost The electricity consumption of the biogas system is also analyzed. The electrical load caused by the uid handling equipment is subtracted from the gross electrical output of the system to determine the net electrical output. The revenue calculated in the economic analysis is based on the net electrical output of the system. It is assumed that the waste heat recovered from the gen-set is totally consumed to maintain the temperature within the digestion tanks, and thus no surplus heat is available for other farm processes as is usually the case [7]. The labour and maintenance costs of the system were assumed to be provided by the farmer, with no cost associated with these activities. 3.5. Activated carbon cost To determine the cost of activated carbon, rst the H2S production from the anaerobic digestion process on a per animal basis was determined. The concentration in biogas can range from 100 ppmv to over 3000 ppmv [25], and a mid-range concentration of 1000 ppmv was adopted. From this value, it was determined that dairy cattle produce 2.1 g H2S/animal-day and beef cattle produce 1 g H2S/animal in the biogas. The capacity of activated carbon to adsorb H2S is reported in numerous articles [4,17,28], and for this analysis a mid-range value of 250 mg H2S/ kg carbon is assumed. From the amount of H2S produced, the capacity of the carbon and the price of carbon the annual cost was determined. This analysis used a value of $5/kg carbon, which is an average from [8] and the price paid for a small amount of activated carbon for in-lab use. 3.6. Protability decision-making criteria Common protability standards used for project evaluation include: return on investment (ROI), payback period, net return, net present worth and discounted cash ow rate of return [22]. For this analysis payback period and return on investment are used to evaluate the protability of small-scale anaerobic digesters on the various farm sizes.
Table 5 Economic evaluation, Ontario dairy farms, base case. Farm size no. of animals 1e32 33e77 78e122 123e177 178e272 273e527 Net revenue (CAN$/year) 2900 11,100 21,000 31,800 45,400 73,200 Total capital (CAN$) 37,100 67,400 112,700 161,900 220,800 361,200

3.7. Sensitivity analysis Due to the variability of many of the factors used in the analysis of small-scale anaerobic digestion biogas systems, a sensitivity analysis was undertaken to determine the effect of these variables. The two different farm types (dairy and beef) have different biogas production levels. Therefore, it can be assumed that the beef cattle biogas rate is the lower bound of a sensitivity analysis for the dairy, and dairy is the upper bound of a sensitivity analysis for the beef. The upper bound for the dairy biogas production rate was rounded up from the highest value presented by Nelson [12], and the lower bound for the beef biogas production rate was determined assuming the availability of the manure dropped to 15%. It follows that the sensitivity analysis will look at an upper and lower bound of 3.5 Nm3/animal-day and 0.73 Nm3/animal-day, respectively, for dairy operations. For beef farms, the upper and lower bounds are 1.51 Nm3/animal-day and 0.44 Nm3/animal-day. The conversion of biogas to electricity is evaluated, with a lower efciency of 25% and an upper efciency of 45%. The co-benets of AD were varied, from half the original estimate to quadruple to original estimate. Finally, the operational cost of activated carbon was varied by varying three parameters, the production of H2S per animal-day, the adsorptive capacity of the carbon in g H2S/kg carbon, and the cost of carbon in CAN$/kg. The production of H2S on a per animal basis was calculated from H2S concentrations in the raw biogas of 250 ppmv and 3500 ppmv. If a small amount of air is injected into the headspace of the anaerobic digestion unit, the concentration of H2S can be reduced to approximately 250 ppmv through a microbial process [26], and, therefore, the activated carbon would be used as a nal polishing of the gas. However, if the biogas is untreated, the concentration of H2S could reach 3500 ppmv, depending on the digester feedstock. The capacity of carbon was also varied, from 60 g H2S/kg carbon [17] to 500 g H2S/kg carbon [4]. Finally, the cost of carbon was varied from CAN$2/kg [8] to CAN $12/kg, the price paid for a small amount of activated carbon for inlab use. 4. Results and discussion The economic decision-making criteria of payback period and return on investment are presented for small-scale on-farm AD and biogas utilization systems. The criteria are presented only for Ontario dairy and beef farms as the economic incentives associated with the FIT program are only available in Ontario. The effects of changes in biogas production levels, gen-set efciency, co-benets, hydrogen sulphide production, activated carbon adsorbance capacity and activated carbon price on the decision criteria are presented in a sensitivity analysis. 4.1. Evaluation criteria The payback period and return on investment were analyzed for small-scale biogas plants in Ontario. Due to the unaccounted for co-

Operation cost (CAN$/year) 240 800 1500 2300 3300 5600

Co-benets (CAN$/year) 120 400 750 1100 1700 2800

Payback period (years) 13 6 6 5 5 5

ROI (%) 7.4 15.8 18.0 18.9 19.8 19.5

A.J. White et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 1019e1025

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benets of anaerobic digestion, a payback period of less than 10 years is deemed acceptable for this analysis. For Ontario dairy farms, the protability criteria are acceptable for all but the smallest farm size (1e32 animals), with a payback period of, at most, 6 years and an ROI of at least 15.8% as shown in Table 5. A payback period of 5 years is realized for the three largest farm sizes analyzed (123e177 animals, 178e272 animals and 273e527 animals), with an ROI of at least 18.9%. The ROI for farms of the size of 178e272 animals is higher than that of the size of 273e527 animals. This is due to the fact that the larger farm size has a capacity of over 100 kW, and, therefore, is receiving a lower tariff of 0.185 CAN$/kWh. Using the concept of a small-scale modular anaerobic digestion and biogas utilization system design, approximately 4000 Ontario dairy farms would have favourable protability criteria. If the Ontario Feed-In Tariff program was extended across Canada, approximately 20,000 Canadian dairy farms would have favourable protability criteria. For Ontario beef farms, the protability criteria are acceptable for all but the two smallest farm sizes (1e32 animals, 33e77 animals), with a payback period of at most 9 years, and an ROI of at least 11.6%, as shown in Table 6. As expected, on farms of the same size the protability criteria are more favourable for dairy operations, owing to the higher availability of dairy manure. Ontario beef farms with less than 32 animals have unacceptable protability criteria, with a payback period of 28 years and an ROI of 3.6%. Ontario beef farms with 33e77 animals are on the cusp of acceptable protability and would be acceptable if the farms had close to the upper bound of 77 animals. According to this analysis, approximately 5000 Ontario beef farms would have favourable protability criteria. If the Ontario Feed-In Tariff program was extended across Canada, approximately 30,000 Canadian beef farms would have acceptable protability criteria. This analysis has shown that small-scale anaerobic digestion and biogas utilization systems can be protable with the terms of the Ontario Feed-In Tariff program. Considering all Ontario cattle farms (dairy and beef), approximately 9000 farms would be able to take advantage of the ability to produce electricity. If a similar Feed-In Tariff program was extended across Canada, approximately 50,000 cattle farms could produce electricity economically. 4.2. Sensitivity analysis A sensitivity analysis was undertaken to determine how robust the overall economic analysis is. The results are tabulated showing the base scenario protability criteria, as well as the protability criteria using the adjusted parameters. Tables 7 and 8 present the ROI and payback period, respectively, for dairy farms. The corresponding results for beef farms are presented in Table 9 for ROI and Table 10 for payback period.

Table 7 Dairy farm sensitivity, ROI (%). Parameter Bound Farm size, number of animals 1e32 33e77 78e122 123e177 178e272 273e527 Base scenario 7.4 15.8 39.5 6.6 21.0 10.7 17.6 15.5 12.9 16.7 16.4 12.1 14.2 16.6 18.0 44.2 7.7 23.7 12.3 20.0 17.7 14.7 19.0 18.7 13.8 16.1 18.8 18.9 44.0 8.1 24.9 12.9 21.0 18.6 15.4 20.0 19.6 14.5 17.0 19.8 19.8 46.8 8.2 26.3 13.4 22.1 19.5 16.1 21.0 20.6 15.1 17.7 20.7 19.5 41.9 8.5 25.8 13.2 21.8 19.1 15.6 20.6 20.3 14.6 17.3 20.4

Biogas Upper 20.0 production Lower 2.5 Electrical efciency Co-benets Upper 10.1 Lower 4.7 Upper Lower 8.4 7.3 5.8 7.9 7.7 5.4 6.5 7.8

Upper H2S production Lower Adsorptive capacity Carbon cost Upper Lower Upper Lower

4.2.1. Biogas production The biogas production rate, in Nm3/animal-day, embodies both the potential biogas production from an animals manure and the availability of that manure. Thus, changing the value of biogas production rate in this analysis implies either changing the amount of gas that is produced per animal or changing the availability of the manure. Changing the biogas production rate had the greatest effect on the protability criteria for both dairy and beef farms and, therefore, is the most important value to determine accurately. If the biogas production per animal was constant, the overall biogas production rate used as the lower bound for dairy farms would represent a change in manure availability from 80% to approximately 40%. Therefore, if much of the dairy manure was lost in the elds due to animal grazing no dairy farms would have favourable protability criteria for a small-scale biogas plant. Although changes in biogas production affected the protability criteria for beef farms more signicantly than the other parameters, the effects were not as big as for dairy farms. This is due to the fact that beef farms already have a low manure availability. 4.2.2. Electrical efciency This analysis assumed that the efciency of converting biogas to electricity is 35%. Changes in this parameter have the second biggest effect on the protability criteria, after biogas production rate uctuations. Larger scale biogas engines claim efciencies in the range of 45%, and, therefore, this value was used as the upper bound. Although these efciencies are possible, the cost of these dedicated biogas gen-sets is signicantly more than regular gensets. The higher cost is suggested to be attributed to the hardened engine parts required to handle H2S in the engine and the lower

Table 6 Economic evaluation, Ontario beef farms, base case. Farm size no. of animals 1e32 33e77 78e122 123e177 178e272 273e527 528e1127 Net revenue (CAN$/year) 1000 4800 9300 14,100 19,600 33,400 68,600 Total Capital (CAN$) 27,600 49,350 79,100 112,700 158,400 249,300 349,200 Operation cost (CAN$/year) 100 400 700 1100 1600 2700 5300 Co-benets (CAN$/year) 80 280 500 800 1100 1900 3800 Payback period (years) 28 11 9 8 8 8 5 ROI (%) 3.6 9.5 11.6 12.3 12.1 13.1 19.2

1024 Table 8 Dairy farm sensitivity, payback period (years). Parameter Bound

A.J. White et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 1019e1025

Farm Size, Number of Animals 1e32 33e77 6 3 15 5 9 6 6 8 6 6 8 7 6 78e122 6 2 13 4 8 5 6 7 5 5 7 6 5 123e177 5 2 12 4 8 5 5 6 5 5 7 6 5 178e272 5 2 12 4 7 5 5 6 5 5 7 6 5 273e527 5 2 12 4 8 5 5 6 5 5 7 6 5

Base scenario Biogas production Electrical efciency Co-benets H2S production Adsorptive capacity Carbon cost Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower

13 5 40 10 21 12 14 17 13 13 18 15 13

production rate of these biogas specic engines. At the time of this analysis, biogas specic gen-sets are not available for smaller-scale biogas systems. There is the potential that carbon dioxide in the biogas could appreciably lower the efciency of a biogas engine generator [18], although there are other claims that the presence of CO2 has a small effect on the efciency [1,23]. To account for the possibility that CO2 could lower the efciency of biogas engine generators, a lower engine efciency bound of 25% was chosen. If the presence of CO2 does lower the engine efciency to around 25%, all but the smallest dairy farm size (1e32 animals) still have favourable protability criteria, although the favourability of these criteria is substantially less. For beef farms, lowering the engine efciency to around 25% would leave all but the largest size (528e1127 animals) with unacceptable protability criteria. 4.2.3. Co-benets Changes to the economic value assigned to the AD co-benets had relatively insignicant effects on the overall protability criteria. This is due to the overall small benet that they provide to the protability criteria. Although the co-benets are numerous, they were only accounted for through the use of the solid digestate as a fertilizer replacement. It is possible that the co-benets could

have a much higher value assigned to them, however, in this analysis even quadrupling the value of the benets didnt signicantly effect the payback period or the ROI. 4.2.4. Activated carbon Three different parameters were evaluated for the cost associated with the use of activated carbon: (1) the amount of H2S produced in the anaerobic digestion process, (2) the adsorption capacity of the carbon, and (3) the price of the carbon. Varying all three parameters had relatively small effects on the overall protability criteria for dairy farms. It is possible that more expensive activated carbon would have a higher adsorption capacity, and the less expensive activated carbon would have a lower adsorption capacity, thus negating the effects of both the price and the adsorption capacity. If the levels of H2S in the biogas reached 3500 ppmv, beef farm sizes of 123e177 animals and 178e272 animals would have marginal ROIs and payback periods of 9.9% and 10 years and 9.6% and 10 years, respectively. If the adsorptive capacity of the carbon dropped to 60 mg H2S/g carbon, only the largest beef farm size (528e1127 animals) would have favourable protability criteria, while the second largest beef farm size (273e527 animals) would have a marginal ROI of 9.7% and payback period of 10 years.

Table 9 Beef farm sensitivity, ROI (%). Parameter Bound Farm Size, Number of Animals 1e32 Base scenario Biogas production Electrical efciency Co-benets H2S production Adsorptive capacity Carbon cost Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower 3.6 10.3 1.2 5.4 1.9 4.5 3.5 2.6 3.9 3.8 2.3 3.1 3.9 33e77 9.5 22.2 4.8 12.8 6.1 11.2 9.2 7.5 10.1 9.9 7.0 8.4 9.9 78e122 11.6 26.3 6.2 15.4 7.7 13.5 11.2 9.3 12.2 12.0 8.7 10.3 12.1 123e177 12.3 27.9 6.6 16.4 8.1 14.3 11.9 9.9 13.0 12.7 9.2 10.9 12.8 178e272 12.1 28.4 6.2 16.4 7.8 14.3 11.7 9.6 12.9 12.6 8.9 10.7 12.7 273e527 13.1 29.0 6.7 17.7 8.5 15.4 12.7 10.4 13.9 13.6 9.7 11.6 13.7 528e1127 19.2 36.7 11.4 25.4 13.1 22.5 18.7 15.4 20.3 20.0 14.4 17.1 20.1

A.J. White et al. / Renewable Energy 36 (2011) 1019e1025 Table 10 Beef farm sensitivity, payback period (years). Parameter Bound Farm size, number of animals 1e32 Base scenario Biogas production Electrical efciency Co-benets H2S production Adsorptive capacity Carbon cost Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower Upper Lower 28 10 83 19 53 22 29 38 25 26 43 33 26 33e77 11 5 21 8 16 9 11 13 10 10 14 12 10 78e122 9 4 16 6 13 7 9 11 8 8 12 10 8 123e177 8 4 15 6 12 7 8 10 8 8 11 9 8 178e272 8 4 16 6 13 7 9 10 8 8 11 9 8 273e527 8 3 15 6 12 6 8 10 7 7 10 9 7

1025

528e1127 5 3 9 4 8 4 5 6 5 5 7 6 5

5. Conclusions The potential for the production of electricity from on-farm AD facilities is quite substantial. For Ontario cattle farms alone, the potential for economically attractive renewable electrical capacity is around 120 MWe. This value can be substantially higher if extended to non-cattle farms where other biogas sources can be exploited, such as other on-farm organic residues, energy crops, manure from other animals, or any combination of organic materials. Under the Ontario Feed-In Tariff program, even dairy farms with animals in the range of 33e77 and beef farms with animals in the range of 78e122 can operate economically attractive AD biogas systems. Even farms with less than 33 animals may be able to supplement manures with other organic matter and hence become economically attractive. Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank NSERC for providing research funding. References
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