A Techno-Economic Comparison of Biomass Thermo-Chemical Systems for Sustainable Electricity in Nigerian Rural Areas

Biomass thermo-chemical systems (BTCS) source remains one of the means of providing sustainable electricity to rural areas in developing nations. Due the dwindling power generation and supply in Nigeria representing between 10 and 34%, the rural communities are mostly affected in their socioeconomic activities. Given the massive biomass resources in Nigerian rural areas, it is feasible to provide sustainable electricity to these communities through BTCS. However, cost has been found to be a major constraint in adopting BTCS. The research works that underpin this paper aim to assess the economics of BTCS in generating sustainable electricity in Nigerian rural areas. Whole Life Costing (WLC) approach has been used to evaluate and optimise various capacities of BTCS. The findings reveal that the cost/kW of system capacities between 150kW to 10kW for combustion and gasification systems, range between US$1427-2,249 and US$1,280-2,489 respectively. The WLC/kWh of generating electricity from the same set of technologies, in order of system capacities above, ranges between US$0.041-US$0.37 and US$0.015-US$0.11. This is considered under 8, 12 and 16 operational hours, without and with Feed-in-Tariff (FIT) incentives. All scenarios evaluated are cost competitive with existing fossil fuel (FF) electricity sources in the country at US$0.13/kWh, except the 50kW combustion system, with and without FIT that exceeds the current electricity tariff in Nigeria