Community Biogas

The large quantities of cow-dung and other organic waste in rural areas can be used to produce significant amounts of biogas in an organised way. Generation of biogas in this way or “biogas farming” has the potential to counter the rising prices of crude oil and could emerge to be an alternative to fossil fuels whose stocks will soon be depleted.

Salasar Agrotech Pvt. Ltd. developed the Balaji biogas plant which is a good example of hydraulic biogas system. This plant is made with the help of a steel mould, and by concreting the complete plant in sections. This modular construction approach means a series of identical biogas plant can be produced in a relatively short time frame.  

The viability of a particular community biogas plant design depends on the particular environment in which it operates and the Chinese and other Indian systems mentioned earlier can be scaled up to cater for a small community needs. 

There is also benefit when considering systems of this size to consider alternative routes, which may in the future be more appropriate. For instance, gasification using biomass (wood, waste from crops, vegetable, etc.) is heated in an air-lean environment to produce a gas which can then be used to run engines. Apart from running engines to generate electricity, Gasifiers can also power vehicles like cars and trucks.

In designing a community system the reliability of the system depends on providing adequate supplies of feedstock to keep the plant operative. If the physical resources are not constantly available, a backup source of fuel (for cooking stoves etc) should be included as additional costs to the overall biogas system. 

Although there are a number of large biogas plants in various countries few can be said to be a truly community plant. One Indian ‘mini’ community system was operated between 1969 and 1970 in Khiroda Panchayat, near Bhusaval, Maharashtra. 

The idea of community plants provides the potential to bring the benefits of biogas systems within reach of the poorer sections of the rural population. Unfortunately, most cooperative ventures seem to only succeed when there is positive leadership (individual or institutional) and once cooperation is absent, a system will soon fail.