Electricity production from biogas in Serbia assessment of emissions reduction

Abstract

Biogas represents a promising source for the production of clean energy. The objective of this paper was to quantij5; the potential for the reduction of emissions to the environment during the production of electricity from biogas in comparison with environmental effects of the production of the same amount of electricity from fossil resources (coal from Kolubara basin and natural gas). Basis for comparison of environmental impacts in this work was the annual production of electricity in biogas plants of the total capacity of 80 MW This study has shown that the annual production of electricity from biogas power plants of 80 MW results in: substitution of up to 840 kt of coal from Kolubara basin and 123.2 million m(3) of natural gas; reduction of greenhouse gases emissions in the range of 491.16 kt to 604.97 kt CO2eq, depending on the energy efficiency of the process of electricity production from biogas; reduction of greenhouse gases emissions up to 92.37 kt CO2eq compared to the use of natural gas for electricity generation.