Case study on a selected site in Bishoftu, Ethiopia

Sudden change on earth’s climate, which is a result of an increase in CO2 in the atmosphere, is mainly caused by burning of fossil fuels for various energy services. However, for the energy services to be favourable to the environment, there should be a balance with the environmental protection, and we can call that “Sustainable Innovative Development”. “EXPLORE Polygeneration” initiative will serve as an important tool to promote the application of renewable technologies extending to the future sustainable energy engineering field. This paper is intended in investigating a suitable fuel supply for the microturbine based micro CHP system available at the Division of Heat and Power Technology, KTH, Sweden; for a site called “Alema Farm PLC”, Bishoftu, Ethiopia. Though there is a large biomass energy resource and a huge potential to produce hydroelectric power in Ethiopia, the modern energy sector is very small and the energy system is mainly characterized by biomass fuel supplies and household energy consumption. The nation’s limited biomass energy resource is believed to have been depleting at an increasingly faster rate. Of the many and surplus amount of renewable energy resources available in and around Alema Farm PLC, poultry litter and pig’s manure are selected to be the two main energy sources for the CHP system available in the lab, after passing through different conversion techniques. However, after considering some basic properties like: Energy content and Bulk Density of the fuel, Moisture content , Ash characteristic, Tar content, Fuel logistics, Local storage, Fuel feeder system, and Magnitude of GHG Reduction; poultry litter is found to be the most convenient to produce a syngas with a Downdraft atmospheric gasifier available in the HPT lab. Finally, For the problems caused by the nature of the poultry litter by itself and the methods used in the conversion process, the 40 TRIZ principles of TRIZ inventive principles is used and some major points are recommended.