Towards decentralized biogas generation: building community scale biogas reactors

This paper describes effort on the newly funded British Council project “Community Scale, decentralised Anaerobic Digestion for energy and resource recovery”. The aim of the project is to establish a network of small, community scale digesters both in Thailand and UK, for decentralised biogas generation from locally available wastes. We are especially focusing on food waste. The pilot digesters are paired with instruments for remote autonomous monitoring of biogas quality and conditions within the reactor (pressure, humidity). The data from networked reactors are collected on a single web portal, enabling remote monitoring. This reduces the need for trained personnel to be present at all times at each site. Reactor design is also described and the potential benefits and challenges are discussed.