Combustion of Poultry Litter: A Comparison of Using Litter for On-Farm Space Heating Versus Generation of Electricity John P. Chastain, Ph.D. Professor and Extension Agricultural Engineer School of Agricultural, Forest, and Environmental Sciences Waste to Worth Conference, Denver, Colorado Grand Hyatt Hotel • April 1-5, 2013
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Combustion of Poultry Litter: A Comparison of Using Litter for On-Farm Space Heating Versus Generation of Electricity
http://www.extension.org/67582 This presentation will compare using litter as a replacement for LP gas for on-farm space heating with using litter to generate electricity. The comparison includes heating system efficiency, amount of LP off-set possible, value of plant nutrients in the litter, quantity and value of plant nutrients in the litter ash, impact of brokerage, and costs of producing the energy. It was concluded that using litter on-farm as a source of space heat and using the litter ash as fertilizer could provide a potential value of $48 per ton of litter. However, on-farm combustion of litter to produce electricity resulted in a loss of about - $3/ton of litter. Therefore, if a heating and ash management system can be implemented in a cost-effective manner use of litter to off-set 90% or more of the heating energy requirements would be the better of these two alternatives.
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Transcript
Combustion of Poultry Litter: A Comparison of Using Litter for On-Farm
Space Heating Versus Generation of Electricity
John P. Chastain, Ph.D.Professor and Extension Agricultural Engineer
School of Agricultural, Forest, and Environmental Sciences
Waste to Worth Conference, Denver, Colorado
Grand Hyatt Hotel • April 1-5, 2013
Using Manure For Energy Is an Old Idea
People have used manure as an energy source for thousands of years.
Dried dung was used as fuel for ovens and open fires.
More recently: making biogas from slurries, Combustion in a furnace, or using pyrolysis and exhaust-gas reburn.
Poultry Litter Contains a Significant Amount of Energy
Average HHV = 6202 Btu/dry lb If litter has a moisture content of 24%
the LHV is 4480 Btu/wet lb. Unfortunately we cannot use all of this
heat. No method of heating or generating
electricity is 100% efficient.
How much litter is in one 42’ x 500’ broiler house?
Estimate based on measurements in a SC broiler house.
So for a 6-house farm the litter production
= 846.8 tons/year.
Litter Depth = 5.675 inMoisture Content = 24 %
Bulk density = 28.4 lb/ft3
Floor Area of 1 house = 21000 ft2
Litter volume = 9931.25 ft3
Mass of litter / house = 141.13 tons/yr
Can we burn this litter on-farm to off-set LP gas needs?Will we have enough?
Several groups and companies are developing poultry litter furnaces
Turkey litter in Missouri (on-farm heat)
Broiler litter in Arkansas (Tom Costello, on-farm heat).
American Heat and Power (Habetiz and Echols, power plant)
Ash production if 100% of LPG is off-set (ton/yr) 24.4 147
Plant nutrient yield in ash
P2O5 (ton/yr) 2.20 13.2
K2O (ton/yr) 1.90 11.4
Land area needed if ash is spread based on 89 lb P2O5/ac (acre/yr) 49.4 296
Ash application rate (ton/acre) 0.49
Land area needed if ash is spread based on 45 lb K2O (acre/yr) 84.4 506
Ash application rate (ton/acre) 0.29
What is the value of the ash if spread based on P2O5 for a 6-house farm?
Value of P2O5 = 13.2 ton/year x 2000 lb/ton x $0.69/lb = $18,216/year
Value of K2O = 11.4 ton/year x 2000 lb/ton x $0.50/lb = $11,400/year
Total value = $29,616/year Can this be used for the poultry producer’s
cropping enterprise?
What would the savings be if litter replaced LP? – Scenario 1: Use ash on own land. LP gas for a 6-house farm = 30,240 gal/year Assume price is $1.90/gal Value of LP savings = $57,456 However all N was lost in the litter that was burned
– 780.4 tons burned. PAN = 44 lb PAN/ton @ $0.71/lb N-lost was worth $24,380 P & K Value = $29,616/year Net gain = $62,692/year (LP saved – N lost + P&K)
What would the savings be if litter replaced LP? – Scenario 2: No land - brokerage LP gas for a 6-house farm = 30,240 gal/year Assume price is $1.90/gal Value of LP savings = $57,456 Brokerage payments lost on the 780.4 tons burned. Litter price = $15/ton Loss of Brokerage Payment = $11,706 P & K Value = ($29,616/year x 0.33) = $9,773 Net gain = $55,523/year (LP saved – Loss + P&K/3)
The big questions is… Can annual savings of $55,523 to $62,692
per year pay for the heating system fast enough?
Cost to produce an LPG Eq. is about $0.55 to $0.65/LPG Eq. in other systems studied.
Assume we can make a LPG Eq. for $0.65. 30,240 gal LPG Eq. x $0.65 = $19,656/year Annual savings is closer to $35,867 to
$43,036 per year.
Value per ton of litter Burned 780.4 tons of litter Annual savings $35,867 to $43,036 per
year. Value of litter =$46 to $55/ton
Electricity use based on data collected on SC broiler farms
Cost per kWh = $0.077 to $0.122
kWh Use Rate = 2326 kWh/1000 ft2/yrkWh Use / house = 48846 kWh/yr
kWh Use / 6-house farm = 293076 kWh/yr
Can litter be burned to generate electricity?
Yes – but may not be cost-effective on-farm
Need a steam boiler and turbine. Cost to produce a kWh is high for small units.
Smallest units are on the order of 1000 kW.
Average overall efficiency for coal-fired, steam power plants in the US is 32%. (Beer, 2012)
Most of the energy in the fuel is lost as heat.
To run a 1 MW plant requires (Chastain et al., 2012)…
Biomass fuel feed rate = 2381 lb litter /hr Need 10,429 tons of litter / year! Gross energy production
= 8,759,891 kWh/year Gross kWh/ton of litter = 840 Need 74, 42’ x 500’ broiler houses
Net kWh for a 1 MW plant (Chastain et al., 2012)…
Gross energy production
= 8,759,891 kWh/year Gross kWh/ton of litter = 840 Need 74, 42’ x 500’ broiler houses Electrical use by houses
= 3,614,604 kWh/year Net energy to grid = 5,145,287 kWh/year Net kWh/ton of litter = 493 (59%)
So only 590 kW of a 1000 kW power plant would be available to supply energy to something besides the farms that generate the litter.
Not horrible, but needs to be considered!
Nothing is 100% efficient!
Makes co-firing of coal & litter look attractive.
A 1 MW litter powered plant will produce…
1957 tons of litter ash. 176 tons of P2O5.
152 tons of K2O Using our previous price assumptions the ash
has a value of at least $394,880. Seems like a larger power plant would be
needed to justify construction of a fertilizer plant.
Results for a Single Farm with Best Assumptions 1 broiler house can support 13.5 kW. A 6-house farm could operate a 80 kW generator. The on-farm generator could produce 711,312
kWh/year 293,076 kWh per year could be used on-farm. Excess would be 418,236 kWh/year Potential value = $0.12 x 293,076 + $0.045
x 418,236 = $53,990/year
Are you lowering your costs in this case? Value of electricity = $53,990/year The lowest price to produce a kWh in this system is
about $0.08/kWh. Lowest cost to produce = 711,312 kWh/year
x $0.08/kWh = $56,905 /year Are you making money for your trouble? No. Loss of at least $3000 / year or $3.54/ton of
litter (-$3000/846.8 tons/year).
Conclusion Using litter for heating is the only on-farm
alternative that makes sense at this time. Value of litter (100% use) will range from $46 to
$55/ton Matching heat demand is tough and will prevent
100% utilization of litter for combustion. Need large scale to be in the electric power business. Key is to understand cost to produce energy on farm