Agricultural farms generate much “by-products” usually called “waste’’. For many agricultural entrepreneurs, managing these wastes is a real headache. However, these wastes are priceless resources often ignored. They help produce energy, in a spirit of environmental sustainability: renewable energy meant for various purposes.
Since its creation in 1985, Songhaï Centre, unconditional supporter of agro-ecology, is fully committed to the development and promotion of decentralized renewable energy. From the simple biogas digester built on Songhaï Ouando site– based on the chinese model– towards the end of the 1980’s, the centre has moved today to an impressive platform of renewable energy: biogas (GGC 2047 model), bio-fuel, gasifier, produced from the wastes of agricultural production and solar energy…
Biogas is used not only for cooking, but also lighting and powering generators. Just as biogas, the final gas produced from the combustion of biomass (wastes from wood, rice, maize, palm kernel, etc.) help power generators that produce electricity used for lighting and starting of engines and heat used on thermal dryers. The same process goes for bio-fuel. Apart from shelling machines and other agricultural machines, bio-fuel can also be used to power car engines, instead of petrol or diesel oil. If the solar energy harnessed by solar panels can help run motor-pumps, light streets and buildings, wind power is not yet there. The local meteorological data recorded using a meteorological device installed, will soon help to set the wind power required to produce this type of energy.
In the long term, Songhaï plans, with other partners, to make its centers, energy production centers, in order to get them totally independent on one hand, and provide energy to the communities on the other hand. Currently, several investments are being made in the sector, in order to reduce bat least by 20%, the use of conventional energy at Songhaï by the end of 2016. To this end, a considerable set of materials has been recently been deployed on Songhai Ouando site: four (4) JEK gasifiers (American model) using biomass and one (1) 50 KW biogas generator. The biogas that will power this generator, as well as that of the 20 KW which will soon arrive, will be produced from the organic matters stored in an industrial digester. To this effect, a big 525m3 hole fully in concrete for the valorization of animal waste, is already built.
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