The environmental sustainability of biogas production with small sized plant

In the century of the continuous evolution towards new technologies the renewable energy sector play a fundamental role in this direction. Use of these technologies in the small sized farm could help not only the production process but also the economic income of the farm. This paper underlines the availability of three different technologies adaptable to biogas plants for small sized farm. In this study three different technologies have been analyzed in order to present the environmental and economic benefits of these. Based on the use of a bagtank as digester (BT technology), the first technologies is compared with the use of a concrete structure with a storage balloon cover (BC technology), and with the use of a concrete structure as a concrete cover slab (CS technology). Through a streamlined comparative life cycle assessment, the characteristics of the three technologies as far as their environmental performance are analyzed, in order identify the most suitable for small sized biogas plants. © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.