Energy Research and Development Center (ERDC)
There are five main units under ERDC
2. Biomass (briquettes)
3. Solar energy
4 .Wind energy
5. Biogas
Biogas projects and training in Ndejje University
123Teaching programs in Biogas
A. There is a course unit called “Renewable energy” offered to all undergraduate Engineering students (in Civil, Electrical, Mechanical and Chemical Engineering) in their third year. This course has extensive focus on biogas systems, including design, construction, operation and maintenance.
B.In addition, Civil Engineering students take another course unit Environmental Engineering I, which is offered in third year, semester 2. They study solid wastes and human wastes management technologies. One of the technologies used is anaerobic digestion, used to produce biogas.
C.Students also cover details of processes of anaerobic digestion in the digesters, design and operation of different types of digester technologies.
D.The undergraduate students take group design projects in their third year, semester 2, where they apply theoretically taught principles to come up with Engineering designs. There have been a number of groups working on the design of biogas systems, including, but not limited to; Design of bio-latrines (toilets connected to biogas digesters).
E.Fourth year undergraduate students do a research project in their fields of interests. We have had some students doing research in biogas. However, there are challenges/limitations associated to carrying out a number of experiments in feedstock characterization. Ndejje has been getting assistance from partners.
F.Third year group design and fourth year research projects has been purely academic work, done to learn the design and research principles.
G.we have received support from GIZ to purchase required equipment to help in characterization of digester feedstock and to perform a number of practicals in biogas, including gas quality and quantity measurements,
Plans in Biogas teaching, research and project development
Plan One
Plan Two
Plan Three
I. Three digesters will be set-up for small-scale controlled testing. Each digester will have a different output, resulting in different gas qualities and gas production. It will be used to establish relationship between the gas quality and the different inputs.
II. The biogas lab will be placed next to briquette workshop, the cook-stove lab and the floating drum biogas plant. Having all of them in on place will avail a demonstration and research place for integrated renewable energy development.
III. Next to the digesters there would be multiple possibilities for doing research on the characteristics of the digester. For example: each digester can be attached to a gas cleaning unit. This will enable research on improving the quality of the biogas We will continue developing community-based skills development and participatory biogas projects along the models that have been used in developing briquettes production. We look for partners to develop programs of upscaling and commercializing biogas production at community levels. Already, a sufficient level of upscaling and commercializing has been attained in the briquettes production.
Small Carboniser
Community Outreach Briquettes Training
