ACTA SCIENTIFIC MICROBIOLOGY (ISSN: 2581-3226) Volume 2 Issue 10 October 2019 Techno-Economic Feasibility of Biogas Plants in Pakistan Muhammad Irfan Fareed 1 *, M Anees Ur Rehman 2 , Shahmir Ahmad 1 and Iqra Ghaffar 3 1 School of life Sciences, Unicersity of Science and Technology of China, China 2 Centre for Energy Systems (CES); National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST) H-12, Islamabad, Pakistan 3 Department Sci-Tech Communication, Unicersity of Science and Technology of China, China. *Corresponding Author: Muhammad Irfan Fareed, School of life Sciences, Unicersity of Science and Technology of China, China. Research Article Received: July 24, 2019; Published: September 20, 2019 Abstract Keywords: Fixed Dome; Floating Drum; IRR; NPV; Payback Introduction Major portions of population in Pakistan do not have access to natural gas for household needs. Most of this population is residing in rural areas and utilizes wood, cow dung and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) for meeting their cooking requirements. The utiliza- tion of these fuels is uneconomical, time consuming, unhealthy and have bad impacts for decreasing social standards of life. The current study quantifies the benefits obtained by replacing wood and LPG through biogas. The research investigates the better type of digester, capacity of the digester and fuel substitution (through biogas) in terms of economic benefits. The results indicate that fixed dome digesters have better benefits than floating drum digester.While the capacity of fixed dome digester that will give shortest payback period will 6m 3 among 4m 3 and 6m 3 . LPG replacement by biogas is most economical among base case fuels utilized in rural areas of Pakistan. Replacement of LPG fuel by biogas using fixed dome digester of 6m3 capacity will result in most beneficial project for having internal rate of return (IRR) and payback period of around 100% and 1 year respectively. Pakistan is among those countries where energy crises are among major national issues. 55% households have electricity while only 18% have gas access respectively. Per capita energy supply is very low. 68% of country’s population lives in rural areas where energy related issues are critical. They are using biomass such as firewood, animal and agricultural wastes to meet their needs [1]. The majority of the rural population uses firewood and other biomass fuels for cooking and heating while kerosene is used for lighting. Biomass has always been neglected in national energy planning and energy infrastructure. The negligence of biomass in energy planning has given rise to deforestation, loss of bio-diversi- ty and negative health [2]. Inefficient utilization of biomass has moved rural population down the energy ladder especially women. Large fraction of rural population has exposed to unclean fuel and hazardous indoor air pollution [3]. Social life has been disturbed due to hours of extra work in searching, bringing and using this fuel. Burning of solid fuel in such a large fraction is creating environmental problems [4]. Utilizing massive quantities of biomass is contributing to en- vironmental pollution and increasing concentration of suspended particulate matter (SPM). Burning of solid fuel is one of major source for increasing SPM in environment [5]. Pakistan Environ- mental Protection Agency (Pak-EPA) recorded the air quality data by monitoring stations in five cities which shows high concentra- tion of SPM. The level of SPM below 2.5 micron in these cities is shown in figure 1 [6]. Figure 1: Annual mean value of SPM (pm 2.5) for different cities of Pakistan. There are many semi urban areas in Pakistan which have high population density and do not have availability of natural gas dis- tribution network. Figure 2 shows that there is an increasing gap between supply and demand for natural gas [7] which eliminates Citation: Muhammad Irfan Fareed., et al. “Techno-Economic Feasibility of Biogas Plants in Pakistan". Acta Scientific Microbiology 2.10 (2019): 85-90. DOI: 10.31080/ASMI.2019.02.0377