Demonstration site #1Region-Belgium

Context:

When proposing reliable business cases for small-scale farms, resources should be put to their best use. In Flanders, there is a specific category for anaerobic digestion, which is called small-scale anaerobic digestion or pocket digestion. The boundaries are that the installations have to work with their own input streams (manure and/or residual streams of crops), a maximum amount of input material of 5,000 t/year and an electric power of 200 kWel. The demonstration will look into how to maximally valorise the biogas via the installation at Inagro (30 kWel).

What solutions will be developed?

The demonstration will focus on 3 main aspects:

– A high efficiency two stage micro gas turbine will be installed at Inagro, aiming for a flameless combustion, high flexibility and low emissions.

– Biogas will be upgraded to biomethane via in-situ biomethanation. The cost and efficiency will also be compared with two other ways of biogas upgrading (membrane filtration and pressure swing adsorption).

– Subsequently, this biomethane will be valorised in a methane tractor, in order to allow the defossilisation of transport fuel, to save on energy costs, comparing costs for diesel and biogas/biomethane and to be independent/produce own transport fuel.

What are the objectives and targets?

The targeted developments in the project are the adaptation of the micro gas turbine to biogas, with high efficiency (> 30%) for small-scale farms (20 kWel). Next to this, the project aims to achieve in situ bio-methanation in small-scale reactors (about 1.5 m³) and to run a biogas tractor with a small-scale biogas plant. Consequently, obstacles related to biogas filling will be cleared out and good practices will be developed.