A comparative study of biomass energy technologies for sustainable electricity in Nigerian rural areas

Biomass energy source remains one of the means of providing sustainable electricity to rural areas in developing countries. As a result of dwindling power generation and supply in Nigeria representing between 10 to 34%, the rural communities are mostly affected in their socio-economic activities. Considering the vast biomass resources in Nigerian rural areas, it is feasible to provide sustainable electricity to these communities through Biomass Energy Technologies (BET)-thermo-chemical and biological. However, cost has been found to be a major constraint in adopting RETs. The research aims to assess the economics of BET in generating sustainable electricity in Nigerian rural areas. Whole Life Costing (WLC) approach has been used to evaluate and optimise various capacities of BET; associated cost and revenue have been collected from manufacturers, field survey and financial institutions. The findings reveal that cost/kW of system capacities between 200kW to 10kW for gasification, combustion and biogas technologies range between US$594-US$1,280, US$1,427-US$2,249 and US$3,614-US4,602 respectively. The WLC/kWh of generating electricity from the same set of technologies and in order of system capacities above, under different operational hours (8, 10, 12 and 16), without and with Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) incentives ranges between US$0.015-US$0.11, US$0.041-US$0.37 and US$0.025-US$0.135. All gasification scenarios calculated except 8 operational hours without FIT at 10kW capacity are cost competitive with existing fossil fuel source used in generating electricity in the country at US$0.083. Direct combustion (150kW) and Biogas (100Kw) capacities are the only cost competitive scenarios with FF source without FIT at the moment. In the event fuel price increases between 50-100%, WLC/kWh of majority of all scenarios will exceed the existing unit cost of electricity in the country accordingly. Hence, incentives provision will play a greater role in encouraging investors' participation. This is the second paper of my PhD program for ARCOM conference