Increased Services from the Cane Sugar Industries: Poly-generation of Heat, Power and Bio-fuel (A Case Study at Finchaa Sugar Factory)

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Date

2014-11

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Addis Ababa University

Abstract

Price of sugar in the world market is very volatile and in most cases is below the cost of production. Moreover, sustainability of the sugar industries is becoming even worse with increasing petroleum price which is resulting in high rate of cost of sugar production. This could, however be reduced, by a number of methods that would increase revenues for non-consumable products derived from cane. Bagasse, which is the fibrous material found after the cane crushing process is one of the by-products of the cane sugar industry with almost zero fuel cost. Historically, it is used in sugar industries for generating power to fulfill steam and electricity requirement of the mills. Cogeneration is the simultaneous production of electric and thermal energy from a single energy system and source. It is also known as combined heat and power (CHP) technology. Cogeneration can be based on a wide variety of fuels; however, in the sugarcane growing countries, cogeneration from bagasse is becoming increasingly important. In this study, investigation result of the potential of co-generation process of the Ethiopian sugar industry for power generation is outlined, through analysis of a selected typical sugar mill Finchaa Sugar Factory (FSF) among the existing three sugar mills in the country and by making reference to different project case studies in different countries where the potential of the cane sugar industry has been given a boost. The data in relation to the cane and bagasse utilization as well as turbine and boiler specification is directly obtained from FSF. The strategy used for the analysis is bagasse drying technique and RETScreen software is used for simulation purposes by changing the existing back-pressure turbine through the high pressure boiler-turbine configuration. The result from the study shows that by reducing the moisture content of bagasse up to 20 %, we are able to generate 6,311.45 Mwh of excess electrical power which could be used to supply the irrigation pump stations of the factory, part of the residences of factory and the nearby villages, where currently there is no supply of electrical power from the national grid. The cost of energy is also computed and found to be around $0.017/kwh. The simulation result also shows that through changing the existing medium pressure turbine of the factory by the high pressure, we can generate 48,279 mwh of electrical power which could be exported to the national grid while simultaneously providing 145,872.8 excess bagasse which could be pelletized and exported to foreign countries where it is used as a useful fuel for cooking gazes as well as generating electrical power. Polygeneration of Heat, Power and Bio-fuel: A case study at Finchaa Sugar Factory AAU , AAIT , M.Sc. Thesis by Binyam Semret , Advisor :- Dr. Getachew Bekele Page VII Keywords: Bagasse, Boiler, Cane Sugar, Co-generation, Power, Pellet, RETScreen, Turbine

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Keywords

Bagasse, Boiler, Cane Sugar, Co-generation, Power, Pellet, RETScreen, Turbine

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