Development of Small Agricultural Biogas Plants in Poland. The Evaluation of Technical and Economic Conditions

This article covers the scope of preparatory work for the study of two designed biogas plants consisting of fermentation chambers. On the Polish market there are no original solutions for biogas installation dedicated to the small farms that take into account their specific characteristics. The concept of modular biogas installation has been developed in the Institute of Technology and Life Sciences, a solution in the form of two types of biogas installation for processing liquid substrates such as pig and bovine manure. The first variant, a mono-substrate reactor tank includes a filling that increases the surface area of microorganisms. The second variant was conducted under the Biostrateg 2 project "Developing innovative technologies complex utilization of waste generated during the fattening pigs" and uses a reactor, with a pump for lifting liquid which is patent protected. In order to estimate the energy efficiency of these two variants, the theoretical balance of energy needed to efficiently carry out the fermentation was calculated.