Investigation On The Utilization Of Slaughter Waste Potential Towards Energy Self-Sufficiency At Kumasi Abattoir Company Limited In Ghana

Abstract

Biogas, a sustainable renewable energy form, is at a starting point of market development in Ghana. Due to its economic growth and development of the regulatory environment, the Ghanaian renewable energy sector is attractive for foreign companies from the sector interested in investing in Sub-Saharan Africa. As a result of the present day energy situation, characterized by grid instabilities and increasing power prices, commercial and industrial producers from the agricultural industries look for alternative solutions to secure constant energy supply to avoid production loss and to reduce energy costs. The installation of biogas plants on production sites is one of the most attractive solutions. It enables producers to dispose off agricultural waste, generate electricity for selfconsumption, use residues as fertilizer and feed-in energy surpluses to the grid at the same time. Currently, large volumes of Ghanaian slaughterhouse solid and liquid waste are disposed off improperly, causing serious environmental pollution problems, as well as energy and fertilizer losses. Using advanced and recent technologies it is feasible to use anaerobic digestion technology to produce methane and valuable agricultural soil nutrients in addition to treatment of waste generated by slaughter houses. This study assesses the energy recovery potential towards energy self-sufficiency, from anaerobic digestion of the organic industrial by-products of livestock slaughtering located at the Kumasi Abattoir Company Limited in Ghana. The investigative approach to data collection was adopted in combination with desk research and other strategies. Waste material generated was estimated based on calculations by Ulrike et al. (2014). The Kumasi abattoir slaughters about 241 cattle, 134 sheep/goats and 26 pigs per day. This leads to a daily consumption of 1,305 kWh of electricity and 386 kg of LPG respectively. The results show that on the average, the quantity of waste produced daily (7.6 ton/day) represents a potential of 200.41 m3 of Methane (CH4) per day, covering the daily demand of 57% of electricity, or 47% of Liquefied Petroleum Gas respectively.