Life cycle assessment of the biogas plant producing energy for Marmara Region

Abstract

Industrialization and overpopulation have been accelerating global energy consumption, and this situation increases the need for renewable energy sources more and more. In addition to the increasing energy demand, population growth leads to an increase in food consumption. Expired food products have been evaluated with various practices to meet the increased energy demand and to adopt sustainable waste management. For this purpose, many technologies have been developed and some facilities that carry out waste processing and recovery operations have been established. In this study, the transportation of various wastes, mostly expired food waste, into the specified biogas plant in the Marmara Region of Turkey, the energy production from these waste compositions and the utilization options of the produced energy were evaluated by Life Cycle Assessment Methodology. In this sense, the conversion of the produced biogas formed as a result of the anaerobic digestion process into electricity and heat was analyzed, and the utilization options of the produced energy were environmentally evaluated. The environmental performances of the specified biogas plant were determined through two different energy utilization options: on-site energy utilization and energy utilization from the electricity grid and natural gas. Within the scope of energy utilization from the electricity grid and natural gas, the revenues from the sale of electricity and profit margin were considered The results demonstrated that the decrease in the environmental impact categories was observed in the on-site energy utilization option. Furthermore, the entire energy requirements of the specified biogas plant were met by using some of the produced energy within the plant. In this sense, thanks to the on-site energy utilization option, fossil fuel consumption was eliminated, and thus the decrease in greenhouse gas emission was achieved.