Artite Pattanapongchai and Bundit Limmeechokchai

pp. 705 - 715

Abstract

Thailand is currently the world’s fourth largest producer of crude palm oil. The palm oil mill effluent is proposed to be
used for biogas production. A value added option is then proposed by increasing thermal efficiency of the biogas by removing
CO₂
 content and increasing the percentage of methane, consequently turning the biogas in to green gas. In this study, the
biogas and upgrading process for electricity generation with the subsidy or adder in the long term planning is presented. This
analysis uses the MARKAL-based least-cost energy system as an analytical tool. The objective of this study is to investigate
upgrading biogas with a selected water scrubbing technique featuring least-cost energy planning. The co-benefit aspect of
biogas and biogas upgrading project is analyzed by given an adder of 0.3 Baht/kWh. The target of total electricity generation
from biogas is 60 MW in 2012. The result shows that green gas will account for approximately 44.91 million m³
 in 2012 and
increase to 238.89 million m³
 in 2030. The cumulative CO₂
 emission during 2012-2030 is 2,354.92 thousand tonnes of CO₂
.
Results show that under the given adders the upgrading project is competitive with the conventional technologies in electricity generation planning.