Pig waste become renewable energy!

The Robina Farm at Barangay Tartaro, San Miguel Bulacan (My Home town) will be converting their waste into renewable energy. Organic wastes are converted into fuels, energy and value-added by products to provide significant profits.

The project is being done by PhilBio and is called  ”Robina Farm 12 Waste-to-Energy Project (ADSW RP 2020) “.

The project is developed by Philippine Bio-science Co are anaerobic digestion swine wastewater treatment projects at 4 different locations. The project activity is to manage the farms waste, treat wastewater by reducing the organic load, capture biogas and generating power. The power generated will be sold to the local grid and thus by producing energy by capturing methane contribute the GHG reduction

Imagine, that stinky pond full of pig wastes converted into fuel! WOW! Now how will they do that?

PhilBIO proposes an alternative manure waste management system to recover methane gas emissions as an alternative to the current open lagoon systems. Wastewater treated in these lagoons is often at an ambient temperature of around 35ºC, and under anaerobic conditions. The result of this is that biogas methane is emitted continuously from lagoons as can be seen in this typical farm lagoon system image.

Through its engineering product, the CIGAR®, the biogas recovered from each farm will be used to provide fuel for each farm’s on site electric power plant.

The CIGAR® breaks down organic contaminants through a three-step biological process where wastewater is treated in the absence of oxygen. The wastewater is stored in the reactor for at least 30 days where specialized bacteria consume the waste and release methane that is utilized as biogas for on-site electricity generation.

The retention time will allow the accumulation of biogas prior to the commissioning of the power plant. The stored biogas in the CIGAR® will be used to start-up the biogas engine, eliminating the need to use grid-fed electricity or diesel fuel during start-ups.

This project is excpected to convert 5,800 tonnes of CO2e every year for 7 years with a total of 40,000++ tonnes of CO2e for the whole duration of the project! Talk about saving mother earth!

This project is expected to produce 1 mega watt of electricity.. Enough to light up an entire village or town?