Design of a Cost-Effective Biomass Generation System with Storage to Supply Off-Grid African Farms

This paper presents the design for the implementation of a biomass energy generation technique for an off-the-grid 2000 cattle dairy farm Western Cape, South Africa. The technique of anaerobic digestion coupled with a biogas combustion generator and battery storage is used to convert the plant and animal waste into electricity. Various design configurations, load profiles and case studies are simulated using HOMER Pro software including hybridizing biomass with wind and solar resources. The simulation results and analysis shows that a scaled biomass resource anaerobic digester hybridized with other renewable energy sources, and storage is the most cost-optimal and environmentally friendly in the design of biomass energy generating system.