Generating Renewable Electricity from Food Waste

¹ School of Housing, Building and Planning, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Penang, Malaysia
² Faculty of Architecture, Planning and Surveying, UiTM Perak, Seri Iskandar Campus, 32610, Seri Iskandar Perak, Malaysia

Abstract

Mini biogas power plant (MBPP) was first used and launched in Malaysia by Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM). USM with the collaboration with Enerbon Sdn Bhd had set up this mini biogas power plant as an education and research and development tools to professionals and researchers and at the same time giving opportunities to people who are interested with this system to witness and experience it themselves by looking at how this mini biogas power plant works. There are 2 main objectives of this study being carried out; firstly to determine whether food wastes (canteen and cafeterias wastes) can produce methane gas (biogas) that can generate heat and electricity and secondly to establish how much methane gas (biogas) can be produced with the certain amount of the feedstock. It should be pointed out that this MBPP can generate 600kW electricity per day as this system can generate electricity about 25kW/h. The methane produced per day is approximately 180 cubic metres. The higher the wastes, the higher the amount of methane gas produced. The cow dung is used to increase the bacteria in the tank; the methane gas production will be higher if the bacteria breed.