Locating a power plant with biogas feed obtained from anaerobic digestion of animal manure (Case study: Southeast of Khuzestan province)

Anaerobic digestion, in addition to producing biogas, can minimize the environmental problems of animal manure and produce high-quality fertilizer. Finding suitable places for the construction of anaerobic digestion reactors is essential for the sustainable development of these types of power plants. Locating the biogas production site is a complex process with different and sometimes contradictory criteria including environmental, economic and technical criteria from which the location-related factors play the main role. The integration of geographic information systems (GIS) with multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) provides a powerful tool that can be useful in locating biogas power plants.

In this study, spatial and non-spatial data were integrated with geographic information system in order to determine the optimal places for installing anaerobic digesters of livestock and poultry waste in the southeast of Khuzestan province. Data related to the type and number of livestock and poultry were collected separately from the Ministry of Agriculture. The location of livestock farms and chicken farms was determined using the GPS system. Livestock and poultry raised in the traditional way in the villages were not taking into account due to the problems of collecting manure and lack of economic justification. In order to determine the evaluation criteria and score them, similar studies, rules and guidelines, as well as the Delphi technique were used. 14 sub-criteria were evaluated in three main environmental, social-safety and topographical groups. Land suitability layers for the construction of anaerobic digestion reactors were prepared from the perspective of all sub-criteria in the GIS environment. In order to simplify calculations and easier weighting of criteria and sub-criteria to obtain the final result, some layers of criteria were combined. In this way, 14 layers were combined and overlapped until 7 layers of final criteria were formed. Since the spatial potential layer of biogas production is the main criterion and has the main effect on the suitability of land for the construction of a power plant, and on the other hand, it has no essential relationship with other criteria, it was valued separately. Roads and residential areas were also valued separately due to the greater importance of lower transport costs, accessibility, reducing transport time and losses, as well as environmental, health and safety impacts. The overall layer of surface water was obtained by multiplying the four layers of land suitability considering the sea, river, wetland and flood prone areas. Sensitive areas including forest, agriculture and protected areas were also considered in an exclusive layer. The other two layers were the combination layer of slope, height and fault, and the combination of railway lines and high voltage power lines. These layers were weighted using pairwise comparisons and hierarchical analysis method. The final layer of land suitability for the construction of anaerobic digesters and power plant was created by overlapping all the criteria layers based on the obtained weight.

The findings showed that anaerobic digestion of livestock and poultry wastes in the region has a potential to produce 7.25 million m3/year of biogas. Cow and chicken excrement have the largest share with 51.32 and 29.34 percent, respectively. The restriction layer showed that 73.28% of the area is unusable due to one or more restrictions. The results also showed that "regional biogas production potential" and "access to roads and energy consumption centers" are respectively the most effective factors in determining the appropriate location for the power plant. Finally, using spatial analysis in ArcGIS environment, the studied area was classified into five suitability levels: "unsuitable", "weak", "moderate", "suitable" and "very suitable". Based on this, 73.28% of the studied area was completely unsuitable and only 1.68% of the studied area was very suitable for the construction of a power plant.  But in almost all the studied areas, there was enough land with suitable or very suitable conditions to build a biogas plant.

In the studied area, lands with suitable conditions for the construction of a power plant from animal waste using anaerobic digestion technology were identified. There is a suitable distribution of "suitable" or "very suitable" levels in the study area for the construction of a biogas power plant. The findings of this study can be a guide for those in charge to make a decision for the construction of a power plant.