Biogas Programs in Bangladesh: A Solution To Growing Fuel Crisis in Rural Households

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Presentation -  Biogas Programs in Bangladesh: A Solution To Growing Fuel Crisis in Rural Households

By

M S Islam (  Former Director General, BARI and Specialist, Biogas & Organic Manure, GS)

Presented at the National Seminar on Renewable Energy 2006

Renewable Energy Research Centre

University of Dhaka, Bangladesh.                                 

24 March 2006

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• Biogas technology, although a potential technology for rural Bangladesh, has not been disseminated up to satisfactory level due lack of initiative & drive by the government and development agencies.

•  Bangladesh Agricultural University first demonstrated the floating-drum type biogas plant of 3 m3 in the Department o f Agricultural Chemistry as early as in 1972.

• Later on, few such biogas plants were constructed around Mymensingh for cooking and lighting purposes.

•  In 1976, Bangladesh Academy for Rural Development constructed similar floating-type biogas plant in Comilla.

• Institute of Fuel Research and Development (IFRD), Bangladesh Council for Scientific and Industrial Research constructed one biogas at its premises in 1976.

• A total of 72 such plants were constructed in households with technical assistance of IFRD.

• In the meantime different organizations such as BUET, BARC, BADC etc started research on biogas technology.

• In 1980, a Department named as Environment Pollution Control Department was created under the Ministry of Environment and Forest to look after the activities on biogas plants.

• With Government grant, the Department constructed about 150 floating-drum and 110 Chinese fixed-dome plants.

• During the time other organizations such as BSCIC, DANIDA, LGED, DLS and Grameen Bank constructed different types and shapes of biogas plants.

• Altogether about 300 biogas plants were constructed. Under the Fuel Saving Project implemented during 1989-1991 IFRD trained local youths who constructed a total of 126 plants.

• The IFRD and the Dhaka City Corporation jointly built an experimental large-size biodigester having 85 m3 digester volumes at Dholpur. City wastes were used as raw materials.

• LGED experimented successfully with human excreta, poultry droppings and water hyacinth as sources of raw materials for the digester.

•  The first human excreta as well as water hyacinth based biogas plants were constructed at Faridpur Muslim Mission and Madaripur, respectively. So far, LGED has constructed 300-human excreta and 3000-cow dung based biogas plants.

• Dissemination of biogas technology was further extended when BCSIR implemented the Biogas Pilot Plant (Ist phase) during 1995-2000. During this period, as many as 4664 biogas plants were constructed.

• The farmers received Tk 5000.00 each as subsidy. Following successful completion of the Ist phase, BCSIR implemented 2nd phase during 2000-2004 through which 17194 biogas plants were constructed.

• During this time, the subsidy was increased from Tk 5000.00 to 7500.00.

• In view of the present energy crisis in the rural households, Grameen Shakti (GS) has started constructing biogas plants since 2005.

• By the time GS has constructed more than 200 plants in 23 districts. GS has program of constructing about 200000 plants by 2010.

•  In the mean time, IDCOL in cooperation with SNV has undertaken a program of constructing about 36450 plants during 2006-2009. There is a provision for giving Tk 7000.00 as subsidy to each farmer.

• GS has evaluated the quality of slurry obtained as byproduct from the biogas plants. The slurry contains appreciable quantities of macro and micronutrients.

•  Besides, the slurry has strong liming effects and may be considered suitable as amendment material for acid soils of Bangladesh.

• The present paper will focus about the on-going biogas activities within the country as well as utilization status of bioslurry as a fertilizing material for crop and fish production.

• An attempt has also been made to assess the availability of biomass as sources of fuel for the farm families.

Present Energy Situations (until 2006)

• Bangladesh is one of the lowest energy consuming countries in the world.

• In 2002, according to International Energy Agency, one of most authoritative sources of energy-related information, Bangladesh consumed just about 0.15 tons of oil equivalents (toe) per capita, the lowest in the world.

• Comparative figures for other countries within the south Asia are 0.51 toe for India, 0.45 toe for Pakistan, o.43 toe for Sri Lanka and 0.35 toe for Nepal.

• Other countries in the South-East Asia such as Malaysia (2.13 toe), the Philippines (0.53 toe), and Thailand (toe 1.35) are far ahead of us. If electricity consumption is considered, we become the lowest again.

• In 2002, the electricity consumption was just 108-kilowatt hours (kwh) per capita. The comparative figures for India were 421kwh, for Pakistan 384, for Sri Lanka 300 and for Nepal 69 kwh.

• According to current statistics, about 70-75% of the energy we use is in the form of biomass such as fuel wood, tree residues, agricultural residues and animal residues such as dried cow dung, poultry litter.

• Much of the biomass energy is used in the rural areas for cooking food and a little for parboiling as well as for other related activities.

• The recent survey made by BIDS (2005) shows that all households consume biomass and non-biomass types of energy.

• Most households use firewood, tree leaves, crop wastes, rice husk and dried cow dung sticks or balls.

• Rice straw is the widely used crop residue (55% of households) used for energy purposes.

• This is followed by rice husk (41%), rice bran (23%), jute sticks (28%), dried plants (12%), wheat straw (9%), dhaincha sticks (8%), dried sugarcane tops and leaves (7%) and bagasse (3%).

•  Almost 90% of the biomass is used for cooking. Nearly 3 metric tons of biomass is used by an average rural household (of an average of 5 members)

• Only 30% of the households have an electricity connection.

•  Among non-biomass energy, kerosene is the most widely used fuel followed by electricity.

• These privileged people suffer from frequent load shedding and ever increasing fuel prices. The other 70% of the people have no access to grid electricity.

Straw of  Paddy

Fire wood

Fire wood

 ( Cow dung briquette)

Dry cow dung

(Fig : fire wood)

(Jute sticks)

Rice husk uses in small rice mills

Jute sticks

Sugar cane straw

(Maize straw)

Table 1. Annual average household energy use pattern by annual income  of  household.

Table 2. Livestock distribution among farm families/holdings.

Domestic Biogas Production Potential

• ·         Fossil fuel energy is getting diminished day by day and one day it will be exhausted unless new sources are discovered.

• But renewable energy will remain as long as nature will exit. Hydroelectric power, solar energy, wind energy etc are very prominent sources of renewable or alternative energy.

• Biogas is also a prominent source of renewable energy, which can be easily produced at homesteads as well as in farms having requisite amount of raw materials such as cow dung, poultry litters and other easily decomposable  organic materials.

• China, India, Thailand, Nepal, Pakistan and Morocco have been using biogas since long. As mentioned earlier, biogas program in Bangladesh is also getting popular day by day.

• Biomass energy is the major source of energy in rural Bangladesh since time immemorial.

• At the moment about 43 million tons of biomass fuel are used annually.

• Use of wood as fuel is causing deforestation and vegetation is loosing its intensity every day.

• With the increase of population, fuel crisis in the country is increasing.

• t will be more acute when the stock of natural gas (20509.10 billion cubic feet) will be exhausted after 30/35 years.

• Therefore, it is very important to search for all the possibilities for utilizing the alternative energy at an affordable rate.

•  Biogas energy may be considered as an effective source of such energy that can ensure healthy environment and produce clean fuel for cooking and quality organic manure for crop productivity.

• Bangladesh is located within tropical and subtropical region.

• The temperature is warm (except few days during winter times when the night temperature goes down 10o C) and very suitable for biogas production.

• Raw materials for biogas production such as cow dung, poultry litter, water hyacinth and other easily decomposable organic wastes are easily available in the country.

• 11.80 million households are reported to keep 22.29 million of cattle/buffalo (an average of 1.87 cattle per household).

• Out of this about 1.9 million households rear more than 5 heads of cattle per household whereas about 4.9 million households keep average 3-4 cattle heads per household.

• Altogether there exist 120000 poultry farms in the country.

Table 3. Households with cattle and poultry birds.

• ·        Construction of biogas plants is simple and the materials needed such as sand, cement, bricks and water are readily available everywhere.

• ·        Thus, it can be easily visualized that there is bright prospect for expanding the biogas program within the country.

•  

Table 4. Differences between biogas and natural gas.

Why Should We Use Biogas?

·        In Bangladesh the average cooking requirement per family per day is estimated to be 5-6 hours in rural households.

·        Each household needs minimum 4 tons of biomass per year to cook their food as well as to parboil their paddy rice.

·        Assuming that 60% of the households use biomass for cooking, about 43 million tons of biomass fuel will be required every year for cooking only.

·        Supply of such huge quantity of biomass will exert pressure on the forest and vegetation

Table 5. Differences between biogas and natural gas.

• Besides, it will create indoor air pollution, as biomass smoke is considered to be significant source of public health hazard, particularly to the poor and vulnerable women and children.

• Burning of biogas as fuel makes the crockeries and utensil dirty with black carbon.

• As a result of burning cow dung and poultry litter a large amount of plant nutrients gets lost through burning.

• If biogas is produced with these raw materials, improved quality of fuel could be obtained and the bioslurry generated would be good quality organic manure.

• This manure could be used to improve the soil conditions for greater crop productivity.

• Besides, during night hours no kerosene is needed, rather using biogas mantle can be lighted for great intensity of light.

( Hydraulic Chamber )

( Biogas digester  )

( Biogas digester  )

Limitations for Biogas Plant Expansion

• Monsoon flooding is one of the major constraints for expansion of biogas program in the floodplains, which are vulnerable.

•  Flooding in low land areas could damage the structure of the plant or disturb its operation through in-flow of water in the outlet and digester.

• During the rainy season, which lasts from June to September, high water table may limit construction of plants.

•  In the flood prone areas, the farmers should build their houses on raised lands so that flood could not damage the plants.

• Biogas plants are usually built near the kitchen from where gas connection is taken through plastic pipe to cooker/lighter/generator.

• As there remains some water in biogas, delivery line should be heightened in the middle so that there cannot be any water drop at the delivery mouth.

• No big trees are allowed to grow near the plant as their roots can break the wall of the plant.

•  During the last few years the total population of livestock especially the number of cattle and buffalo shows a static or declining trend.

• If the trend continues to remain so, there will be problem of expansion of biogas program with the households with small number of cattle.

•  The government and NGOs should come forward with micro credit program to promote livestock rearing in the country. However, poultry birds rearing are increasing day by day. 

• The recent survey made by Van et al. (2005) indicates that biogas produced by  cattle and    buffalo is widely accepted by the Bangladeshi households.

• But there is social problem for accepting biogas plants with night soils because of two major problems: negative attitude of the people to use gas generated from night soils and hesitation among the people to handle bioslurry coming from the digester.

•  However, it would be possible to construct community biogas plant at students’ hostel, local markets and jails where there is more concentration of people.

• Construction cost of biogas plant appears to be high for many poor farmers.

•  It is difficult for them to bear even the initial down payments, although the total payments are realized through installments.

However, Grameen Shakti has recently reduced the amount of down payment from 25 to 10%. This will be discussed in detail in later section.

Size and Shape and Operation of Biogas Plants

·        The size and shape of the biogas plants depend on the number of the family members, availability of the raw materials for plant feeding, ambient temperature, availability of construction materials and appliances, transportation facilities, water table status, household structure and farming system as well as the financial ability of the farmers.

·        In different countries of the world, there exist mainly two types of biogas plants namely floating-dome model and fixed-dome model.

·        Considering the advantages and disadvantages of the plant, Grameen Shakti has recommended fixed-dome model for domestic and commercial purposes. This model has been named as Grameen Model.

·        Cow dung and poultry litter are equally good as raw material for feeding the biogas plants.

·        At the time of starting operation, 1-2 tons of cow dung or 0.5-1 ton poultry litter is necessary.

·        Cow dung is poured into the digester through the inlet mixing with water in the ratio of 1:1, but incase of poultry litter the ratio should be 1:2.

·        The mixture of raw material and water should be poured up to the level of bottom of the hydraulic chamber.

·        During charging care should be taken so that no stone, sands and other solid material can enter into the digester.

Grameen Shakti Program

·        Grameen Shakti (GS), a member of Grameen family, was incorporated in 1996, as not for Profit Company, to promote, develop and popularize renewable energy technologies in remote rural areas of Bangladesh.

·        At present, GS is serving more than 295000 beneficiaries through its 150 units offices.

·         GS has two major programs-Solar PV technology and Biogas technology.

·        Because of significant achievements in popularizing the solar technology, GS has won several international awards such as Energy Globe Award 2002 from Austria, European Solar Prize Award 2003 from Germany, Best Theme Award 2003 from USAID and Solar Prize 2004 from Infrastructure Development Company Ltd (IDCOL).

·        Besides, GS has received Best Organization Award in 2005 from the Prime Minister, Bangladesh at the ceremony held for the installation of 50000th Solar Home Systems (SHSs) under the IDCOL project.

·        GS has successfully completed a pilot project and completed more than 253 biogas plants.

·        GS plans to construct around 3000 biogas plants by the end of 2006. GS has also undertaken an ambitious program of constructing 200000-biogas plants within 2010.

·        GS has standardized different sizes of the plants with their expenditure to promote the biogas program throughout the country.

GS program follows no profit no loss approach, providing soft loans to the small farmers to make biogas plants more affordable

Table 6. Sizes and expenditure of biogas plants.

There are four different ways by which a farmer can get facilities of GS for owing a biogas plant:

a)            A farmer can make 10% down payment at the time of construction and the rest 90% along with 4% service charge will have to be paid in 12 installments within one year.

b)            The farmer can make 10% down payment at the time of construction and the rest 90% along with 4% service charge will have to be paid in 24 installments within two years.

c)            The farmer can make 10% down payment at the time of construction and the rest 90% along with 6% service charge have to be paid in 36 installments within three years.                                                                     

d)            The farmer can bear all the cost of the biogas plant by himself/herself without taking any loan from GS. In that case he/she will have to pay half of the technical and service fees before construction and the rest amount after construction of the plant.

e)             Grameen Shakti has recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Ministry of Environment and Forest to implement a project on generation of biogas from water hyacinth and poultry litter.

f)       Three biogas plants have already been contructed at Maona, Gazipur where poultry litter are being used as raw material.

g)            Another two biogas plants are under construction at Jessore where water hyacinth will be used as raw material.

h)            For marketing of slurry commercially, GS has undertaken SME development program throughout the country.

i)       Two private companies namely- MATI at Gazipur and Faridpur Muslim Mission have already approached GS and they are going to sign agreement with GS soon.

IDCOL Program

Ř      IDCOL has started implementing a project entitled National Domestic Biogas and Manure Program (NDBP) since January 2006:

Ř      The overall objective of the program is to further develop and disseminate domestic biogas plants in rural areas with ultimate goal to establish a sustainable and commercial biogas sector in Bangladesh.

Ř      The project activity will continue up to December 2009 biogas plants will be constructed.

Ř      The plant construction target during the implementation period is shown in Table 5, and Table 6 shows the divisions and districts.

Ř      Under the program, as many as 36450 domestic size where the programs will be executed.

Table 7. Plant construction year and target.

Table 8. Implementation areas of the country.

Table 9. Expected benefits from NDBM program

Advantages of Biogas

Biogas gas is stable, reliable, easy and useful source of household energy. It has manifolds advantages.

Benefits to housewife:

• Biogas can be used for cooking just like Titas gas

• 

• It is smokeless and does not require constant attention during cooking

• It is easier and quicker for cooking than biomass fuel and thus helps housewife save her time

• She can do other household works such as childcare, collecting water, feeding and caring of poultry birds and livestock easily

• She can also engage herself in income generating activities and social works

• She can enjoy her leisure time in recreation and also in education

Household benefits

·        Mantle can be lighted with biogas which can produce bright light

·        Electricity can be produced with the help of generator and thus electric fan, radio, television etc can be run

·        Car can be driven with biogas

·        Irrigation to crop fields can be facilitated by using pumps

·        Biogas can be used for post harvest activities such drying of food grains, fruits, vegetables etc

·        Incubator can be run with biogas

Environmental benefits

·        The use of biogas improves indoor air quality as it does not produce any smoke during burning

·        Biogas plants make the homestead/farmhouse environment neat and clean because of use of dung/poultry litter in the digester, otherwise there will be fowl smell and insect pest as well as pathogenic problems

·        Anaerobic decomposition conserves the nutrients well in the slurry and there is little possibility of nitrogen loss though ammonia volatilization

·        One biogas plant of 3 m3 gas producing capacity can save about 4 tons of biomass which on burning can release considerable amounts of green house gases and thus the saved forest or vegetation can act as sink to absorb carbon dioxide

Health benefits

·        Burning biogas hardly produces any smoke, whereas burning biomass fuel produces lots of smoke and causes air pollution to which the housewife is exposed during cooking

·        The use of biogas thus reduces the smoke exposure and significantly improves the air condition inside the kitchen

·        This situation ultimately improves overall health conditions because of reducing the incidences of eye infection, respiratory diseases, coughing, dizziness and headache.

Economic benefits

·        Biogas reduces the expenses on fuel for cooing.

·        Savings from fuel cost recovers the investment cost of the plant within 4/5 years

·        The plant owner can also rent one or more connections depending on the size of his/her plant to the kitchen of the neighbors and thus can make some earnings

•  The slurry obtained from the plant may be applied to agricultural land to increase farm productivity.

•  Thus the use of chemical fertilizers can be reduced and the farmer’s income is increased by preventing him/her from the high cost and adverse effects arising from the use of chemical fertilizers

• Slurry can also be effectively used in the pond as fish feed or fertilize the aquatic plants, which after proper growth, would become food for fishes

• The plant owner can also conserve biodiversity of his/her farmhouse, which would pay him/her in the long run..

Utilization of Slurry

•  Slurry obtained as a result of anaerobic decomposition from biogas plant may be considered as quality organic fertilizer

• ·This organic fertilizer is environmental-friendly, has no toxic or harmful effects and can help to a great extent rejuvenate the soils by supplying considerable amounts of macro and micro nutrients and organic matter, which can also improve the physical and biological conditions of the soils.

• ·This organic fertilizer contains 20-30% more nutrients than the commonly used aerobically decomposed organic manure such as cow dung, poultry manure, compost, farmyard manure etc.

• This organic fertilizer has also liming effects. The poultry litter fermented fertilizer is more effective in acid soils to reduce acidity and thereby protects crops from harmful effects of aluminum.

• The raw slurry can be used both as feed for fish or fertilize the pond for optimum growth of aquatic plants which are also eaten by the fishes.

• The slurry can also be used for earthworm, pearl and mushroom cultivation as well as for sprouting seeds.

• Nutrients from the organic sources are more efficient than those from chemical sources.

• ·Bioslurry is a 100% organic fertilizer most suitable for organic farming. This fertilizer can effectively be used for all high value field and horticultural crops including vegetables, fruit, flowering as well as ornamental plants.

• · This organic fertilizer can also profitably be used for forest nurseries, public parks and roadside plantations.

• ·  Organically produced crops and fruits are healthy and nutritious, and have better shelf life as well as higher market value.

• · Demand for organically produce crops are increasing day by day in Bangladesh and elsewhere in the world.

• ·   Both cow dung or poultry slurry can be fitted into the modern soil fertility management popularly known as Integrated Plant Nutrition System, which combines the use of organic and chemical fertilizers.

• ·   Thus the use of slurry from the biogas plants can reduce at least 30% of chemical fertilizers, which may increase acidity/alkalinity in soils and deteriorate their physical conditions.

Table 10. Nutrient and heavy metal content as well as other characteristics of slurry of biogas plants.

The above table shows that slurry is an excellent fertilizing material for land application to improve the physical, chemical and biological conditions of the soil.

Conclusions and Recommendations

• Biogas technology is simple, technically feasible and has been accepted socially by the people in the country.

• This technology recycles decomposable organic resources, conserves biodiversity and ensures appropriate use of biomass.

•  In view of growing energy crisis in the rural Bangladesh, this technology should be promoted with all out efforts by the government agencies, private companies, different NGOs as well as philanthropic organizations without any delay.

• Biogas technology not only provides energy for multiple uses, but also supplies good quality slurry that can be used as organic fertilizer in our hungry soils.

Wheat

Maize

• A biogas plant of 3m3 gas producing capacity run with cow dung releases about 17739 kg slurry per year, which is equivalent to 497 kg urea +2483 kg TSP + 216 kg MOP.

• Slurry supplements soils not only with NPK nutrients but also with secondary and micronutrients, and improves soil conditions conducive to high crop productivity.

• With the organic resources available everyday, it is possible to construct about 400000 biogas plants in the country

• From these plants a huge quantity of organic fertilizer will be obtained for land application and thus the use of chemical fertilizers could be reduced significantly up to 40-50 % or even more.

• The government has been subsidizing heavily urea fertilizer since long and has recently introduced 25% subsidy on imported TSP, DAP and MOP fertilizers.

• Due to high oil prices in the international market and shrinking natural resources for fertilizer production, the prices of the imported fertilizers will continue to increase in coming years.

• Under such situations, in order to harness the immense potential opportunities of biogas technology, the government should come forward and provide at least, if not more, 25% subsidy to biogas programs

• This will encourage private companies/NGOs that are engaged in promoting biogas technology for solving growing fuel crisis in rural households.