IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v16y2024i7p2979-d1369488.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic and Environmental Feasibility of Cogeneration from Food Waste: A Case Study in São Paulo City

Author

Listed:
  • Douglas Eldo Pereira de Oliveira

    (Smart and Sustainable Cities Post-Graduation Program, Nove de Julho University (UNINOVE), São Paulo 01504-001, SP, Brazil)

  • Amanda Carvalho Miranda

    (Technology Center, Agreste Campus, Federal University of Pernambuco, Caruaru 5502-970, PE, Brazil)

  • Milton Vieira Junior

    (Production Engineering Graduate Program, Methodist University of Piracicaba, Piracicaba 13400-390, SP, Brazil)

  • José Carlos Curvelo Santana

    (Department of Industrial Engineering, Polytechnic School, São Paulo University, Av. Prof. Luciano Gualberto, 380-Butantã, São Paulo 05508-010, SP, Brazil)

  • Elias Basile Tambourgi

    (School of Chemical Engineering (FEQ), State University of Campinas, Av. Albert Einstein, 6066, Barão Geraldo, Campinas 13084-970, SP, Brazil)

  • Francesco Facchini

    (Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management, Polytechnic University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy)

  • Raffaello Iavagnilio

    (Department of Mechanics, Mathematics and Management, Polytechnic University of Bari, 70125 Bari, Italy)

  • Luiz Fernando Rodrigues Pinto

    (Smart and Sustainable Cities Post-Graduation Program, Nove de Julho University (UNINOVE), São Paulo 01504-001, SP, Brazil)

Abstract

This paper presents a case study conducted at a food supply centre in a shopping centre in São Paulo city, Brazil. A waste digester was developed based on specifications provided by GE for the generator, and the cost of electricity production from food waste generated in the region was subsequently assessed. Results show that 1,368,750 m 3 biogas was produced for the year, which provided a reduction of 14% of electricity consumption and is equivalent to USD 854 thousand per year. The amount of carbon credits is equivalent to 10,775 metric tons of CO 2 and 51,840 tons of organic waste humus per year. The energy produced by biogas from food waste had a unit cost of 0.10 USD/kWh. At the end of the project, a profit of USD 3.087 million was achieved, which is equivalent to an ROI of 433%. There is a reduction in energy costs by USD 854 thousand per year and a payback of 1.01 years. These indicate that biogas production from food waste is economically viable.

Suggested Citation

  • Douglas Eldo Pereira de Oliveira & Amanda Carvalho Miranda & Milton Vieira Junior & José Carlos Curvelo Santana & Elias Basile Tambourgi & Francesco Facchini & Raffaello Iavagnilio & Luiz Fernando Rod, 2024. "Economic and Environmental Feasibility of Cogeneration from Food Waste: A Case Study in São Paulo City," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-17, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:7:p:2979-:d:1369488
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/7/2979/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/7/2979/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Li, Wei & Guo, Jianbin & Cheng, Huicai & Wang, Wei & Dong, Renjie, 2017. "Two-phase anaerobic digestion of municipal solid wastes enhanced by hydrothermal pretreatment: Viability, performance and microbial community evaluation," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 189(C), pages 613-622.
    2. Giovanni Bianco & Barbara Bonvini & Stefano Bracco & Federico Delfino & Paola Laiolo & Giorgio Piazza, 2021. "Key Performance Indicators for an Energy Community Based on Sustainable Technologies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-14, August.
    3. Dalke, Rachel & Demro, Delaney & Khalid, Yusra & Wu, Haoran & Urgun-Demirtas, Meltem, 2021. "Current status of anaerobic digestion of food waste in the United States," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    4. Ogejo, J.A. & Li, L., 2010. "Enhancing biomethane production from flush dairy manure with turkey processing wastewater," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 87(10), pages 3171-3177, October.
    5. Jan Drofenik & Danijela Urbancl & Darko Goričanec & Zdravko Kravanja & Zorka Novak Pintarič, 2023. "Food Waste to Energy through Innovative Coupling of CHP and Heat Pump," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-18, April.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Luz, Fábio Codignole & Cordiner, Stefano & Manni, Alessandro & Mulone, Vincenzo & Rocco, Vittorio, 2017. "Anaerobic digestion of coffee grounds soluble fraction at laboratory scale: Evaluation of the biomethane potential," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 207(C), pages 166-175.
    2. Jake A. K. Elliott & Andrew S. Ball, 2021. "Selection of Industrial Trade Waste Resource Recovery Technologies—A Systematic Review," Resources, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-22, March.
    3. González-Fernández, Cristina & Molinuevo-Salces, Beatriz & García-González, Maria Cruz, 2011. "Evaluation of anaerobic codigestion of microalgal biomass and swine manure via response surface methodology," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 88(10), pages 3448-3453.
    4. Nicola Blasuttigh & Simone Negri & Alessandro Massi Pavan & Enrico Tironi, 2023. "Optimal Sizing and Environ-Economic Analysis of PV-BESS Systems for Jointly Acting Renewable Self-Consumers," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(3), pages 1-25, January.
    5. Abdulkhani, Ali & Alizadeh, Peyman & Hedjazi, Sahab & Hamzeh, Yahya, 2017. "Potential of Soya as a raw material for a whole crop biorefinery," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 1269-1280.
    6. Ilaria Marotta & Francesco Guarino & Sonia Longo & Maurizio Cellura, 2021. "Environmental Sustainability Approaches and Positive Energy Districts: A Literature Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-45, November.
    7. Esther Landells & Anjum Naweed & David H. Pearson & Gamithri G. Karunasena & Samuel Oakden, 2022. "Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Using Post-Kerbside Organics Treatment Systems to Engage Australian Communities with Pro-Environmental Household Food Waste Behaviours," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-17, July.
    8. Ayodele, T.R. & Ogunjuyigbe, A.S.O. & Alao, M.A., 2017. "Life cycle assessment of waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies for electricity generation using municipal solid waste in Nigeria," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 201(C), pages 200-218.
    9. Daniele Menniti & Anna Pinnarelli & Nicola Sorrentino & Pasquale Vizza & Giuseppe Barone & Giovanni Brusco & Stefano Mendicino & Luca Mendicino & Gaetano Polizzi, 2022. "Enabling Technologies for Energy Communities: Some Experimental Use Cases," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(17), pages 1-26, August.
    10. Monika Šabić Runjavec & Marija Vuković Domanovac & Ante Jukić, 2023. "Application of Industrial Wastewater and Sewage Sludge for Biohydrogen Production," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(5), pages 1-15, March.
    11. Darmawan, Arif & Budianto, Dwika & Aziz, Muhammad & Tokimatsu, Koji, 2017. "Retrofitting existing coal power plants through cofiring with hydrothermally treated empty fruit bunch and a novel integrated system," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 204(C), pages 1138-1147.
    12. Deng, Yawen & Ng Tsan Sheng, Adam & Xu, Jiuping, 2023. "Authority-enterprise equilibrium based mixed subsidy mechanism for the value-added treatment of food waste," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    13. Brémond, Ulysse & de Buyer, Raphaëlle & Steyer, Jean-Philippe & Bernet, Nicolas & Carrere, Hélène, 2018. "Biological pretreatments of biomass for improving biogas production: an overview from lab scale to full-scale," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 583-604.
    14. Jan Drofenik & Danijela Urbancl & Darko Goričanec & Zdravko Kravanja & Zorka Novak Pintarič, 2023. "Food Waste to Energy through Innovative Coupling of CHP and Heat Pump," Energies, MDPI, vol. 16(8), pages 1-18, April.
    15. Theresa Menzel & Peter Neubauer & Stefan Junne, 2020. "Role of Microbial Hydrolysis in Anaerobic Digestion," Energies, MDPI, vol. 13(21), pages 1-29, October.
    16. Hosseini Koupaie, E. & Lin, L. & Bazyar Lakeh, A.A. & Azizi, A. & Dhar, B.R. & Hafez, H. & Elbeshbishy, E., 2021. "Performance evaluation and microbial community analysis of mesophilic and thermophilic sludge fermentation processes coupled with thermal hydrolysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 141(C).
    17. Erika Marsillac, 2021. "Supporting Renewable Energy Market Growth through the Circular Integration of End-of-Use and End-of-Life Photovoltaics," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-9, September.
    18. Anne Immonen & Maria Kopsakangas-Savolainen, 2022. "Capturing Consumers’ Awareness and the Intention to Support Carbon Neutrality through Energy Efficient Consumption," Energies, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-27, May.
    19. Mao, Chunlan & Wang, Yanbo & Wang, Xiaojiao & Ren, Guangxin & Yuan, Liuyan & Feng, Yongzhong, 2019. "Correlations between microbial community and C:N:P stoichiometry during the anaerobic digestion process," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 174(C), pages 687-695.
    20. Kyle McGaughy & Ahmad Abu Hajer & Edward Drabold & David Bayless & M. Toufiq Reza, 2019. "Algal Remediation of Wastewater Produced from Hydrothermally Treated Septage," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(12), pages 1-8, June.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:7:p:2979-:d:1369488. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.