Your choices:
1 Process heat (> 1000 °C); 2 Biomass (digestible sludge); Fuel: gaseous
| What is your resource? | What do you want to deliver? | What is the service the customer wants? |
| 2 Biomass (digestible sludge) | District cooling | Comfortable indoor climate |
| Biomass (fermentable sludge) | District heating | Electricity |
| Biomass (solid) | Electricity | Process cooling (< 0 °C) |
| Geothermal | Fuel: Gaseous | Process heat/steam (50 - 150 °C) |
| Sunshine | Fuel: Liquid | Process heat (150 - 1000 °C) |
| Water | Fuel: Solid | 1 Process heat (> 1000 °C) |
| Wind | Local cooling (ind. house) | Transport |
| Residual oils/fats etc | Local heating (ind. house) |
Selecting digestible sludge as the primary source for – say – a glass tank or a reheating furnace at a rolling mill is the same as selecting a gaseous fuel.
Production of biogas through anaerobic digestion (AD) of animal manure and slurries as well as of a wide range of digestible organic wastes, converts these substrates into a renewable energy carrier and offers a natural fertiliser for agriculture. At the same time, it removes the organic fraction from the overall waste streams, increasing this way the efficiency of energy conversion by incineration of the remaining wastes and the biochemical stability of landfill sites.
Various types of feedstock can be used for the production of biogas: animal manure and slurries, crop residues, organic wastes from dairy production, food industries and agro industries, wastewater sludge, organic fraction of municipal solid wastes, organic wastes from households and from catering business as well as energy crops. Biogas can also be collected, with special installations, from landfill sites.
The gas produced can be upgraded to transport fuel quality or to SNG (substitute natural gas) quality and fed to the European gas grid. By that, biogas is accessible to any customer who has access to the gas grid.
Since biogas of SNG-quality is indistinguishable from the fossil gas distributed via the gas grid, the end user will see no change at all in the process control and behaviour.