Determination of methane emissions from biogas plants, using different quantification methodsShow others and affiliations
2022 (English)In: Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, ISSN 0168-1923, E-ISSN 1873-2240, Vol. 326, article id 109179Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]
Reliable and comparable quantification methods are needed for assessing the effectiveness of the biogas production and utilisation process in mitigating methane (CH4) emissions as well as improving the database for emission inventories. The objective of this study was to compare and validate CH4 emissions quantified at two agricultural biogas plants, for up to three days, using diverse on-site (two teams) and off-site methods (three teams), including differential absorption lidar (DIAL), tracer gas dispersion (TDM) and inverse dispersion modelling (IDM). For plant 1, with a constant combined heat and power (CHP) load, the average emission factor varied from 0.3% CH4 (on-site approaches) to 1.2% CH4 (off-site approaches). On-site approaches underestimated overall emissions due to many small (unquantified) CH4 leakages. All methods observed comparable average emission factors for plant 2, ranging between 1.9 and 2.2% CH4. In this case, the majority of emissions emanated from just a few sources. However, correcting the significant influence of the varying CHP load during the measurement campaign revealed significant differences between TDM and IDM (DIAL did not participate). It was demonstrated that TDM and IDM could recover the emission rate from a known point source (controlled release of CH4 via a small diffuser) within an accuracy of 93 ± 15% (TDM) and 92 ± 17% (IDM) under favourable and similar conditions.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Elsevier B.V. , 2022. Vol. 326, article id 109179
Keywords [en]
Anaerobic digestion, Backward Lagrangian stochastic, Emission monitoring, Ground-based remote sensing, Inverse dispersion modelling, Tracer gas dispersion
National Category
Earth and Related Environmental Sciences
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:ri:diva-60601DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2022.109179Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85139044411OAI: oai:DiVA.org:ri-60601DiVA, id: diva2:1704650
Note
Funding details: 852046; Funding details: 22403215, 22405015; Funding details: Bundesministerium für Klimaschutz, Umwelt, Energie, Mobilität, Innovation und Technologie; Funding details: Energimyndigheten, 41867-1; Funding details: Universität für Bodenkultur Wien, BOKU; Funding text 1: This study was funded within the joint program ERA-NET Bioenergy (project ‘MetHarmo’ – European harmonisation of methods to quantify methane emissions from biogas plants) by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Germany (funding program “Nachwachsende Rohstoffe”, support codes: 22403215, 22405015), the Austrian Federal Ministry of Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology (funding program “Klima- und Energiefonds – Energieforschung (e!MISSION), project no.: 852046), as well as the Swedish Energy Agency (project no.: 41867-1). We would like to express our particular gratitude to Dr Tina Clauß (formerly employed at DBFZ – Deutsches Biomasseforschungszentrum gemeinnützige GmbH) for leading and conducting the measurements during this research project. We gratefully acknowledge the participation of the two biogas plants studied in terms of site access and information provided. Special thanks go to Angela Vesenmaier and Reinhold Ottner for their assistance during the measurement campaigns and data analyses. Open access funding was provided by the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (BOKU).
2022-10-192022-10-192025-09-23Bibliographically approved