Productive Biogas: Current and Future Development

SNV
FACT Foundation

2014

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The domestic biogas experience and expertise of SNV, Netherlands Development Organisation, are widely recognized. Thanks to a vast network of national and international partners like DGIS and HIVOS, and the backing of countless farmers that have chosen to invest into the acquisition of a biogas plant, over 580,000 biodigesters have been installed through SNV’s work in 20 countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America. This has resulted in large and cross-­cutting benefits especially for smallholders and households, especially women. In 2013, it was estimated that 1.3 billion people lived without access to electricity, and that 2.8 billion people did not have access to clean cooking. Energy needs, furthermore, cannot be isolated from other needs. In the face of a growing world population, tied to a widespread depletion and degradation of natural resources, innovative models that address the energy-­ water-­food–climate nexus in a holistic manner must be deployed. Biogas, by tackling energy needs, excessive workloads, nutrient recycling for food production, waste water and air pollution, and greenhouse gas emissions simultaneously, provides such an integrated solution. Building on its prior experience in domestic biogas, SNV, alongside the FACT Foundation and other partners, has committed itself to developing and upscaling the relatively underserved area of “productive biogas”. This is the “missing middle” between growing domestic biogas sectors and increasingly varied large scale industrial biogas applications. Productive biogas schemes are mostly comprised of medium sized biogas plants, serving the productive energy needs of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and communities with no proper grid connection and/or sound waste treatment system. The question that gave rise to this work was as to why no substantial productive biogas sector had developed in any developing country before. Which are the market barriers inhibiting sector growth? Why have productive biogas systems not reached a larger scale? Can productive biogas, particularly those systems that are community owned, be deployed in a sustainable way? When trying to answer these questions, contributors to this book realised there was no significant body of knowledge available on this. The five case studies outlined in this publication, seeking to fulfill these knowledge gaps, provide a detailed description of productive biogas projects led by FACT and SNV in Mali, Uganda, Vietnam, Honduras and Peru. As stated by one of our peer reviewers, they openly list the challenges and lessons learned which others should consider before replication. The five casse demonstrate that porductive biogas is technically and financially feasible, particularly in specialised markets requiring environmental solutions. Productive biogas is viable, provided investment and transaction costs can be tackled with innovative finance mechanisms like carbon finance and are supported by a conducive enabling environment, customer-­ and investor awareness raising, and seek to reach a scaled production in order to reduce unit costs. The result of a close collaboration between SNV and the FACT Foundation, this book can be used by technicians, development practitioners and consultants, local and national governments, or any organisation wishing to start exploiting productive biogas.

Biogas; Estudio de caso; Honduras; Mali; Peru; Uganda; Vietnam;