Viability of biogas on medium-scale piggeries

Biogas is a renewable source of energy that can be produced and captured from piggery effluent and can be used as an energy source to generate electricity, for heating and cooling, or can be purified into biomethane for higher-end users.

To date, biogas use on-farm has been considered most economical for larger piggeries (1000+ sows farrow-to finish). This project sought to explore the biogas at a medium sized piggery, by conducting a real case study on a 535-sow farrow-to-finish piggery in Victoria, Australia.

Additionally, the project explored three hypothetical scenarios for biogas use and provided estimated costs and payback periods for these.

Value for producers:

• Explores the real feasibility, costs, and benefits associated with a biogas system on a medium-sized piggery.
• Provides alternative uses for biogas, allowing for more flexible systems.
• Improved social license due to odour reduction and sustainable farming practices.

Recommendations:

• For the 535-sow piggery real case study, the capital investment was $615k, with an estimated payback period of 6.3 years.
• Hypothetically, using spent litter to produce biogas requires a capital investment of $626k and has an estimated payback period of 7.1 years.
• Hypothetically, using biogas to power a unit that cools drinking water requires a capital investment of $658k, and has an estimated payback period of 6.4 years.
• Hypothetically, using excess biogas to produce biomethane and bio-CO2 requires a producer capital investment of $2.4 million, and a third party capital investment of $3.3 million, and has an estimated payback period of 4.5 years.