An aspect of biogas plants at Pabna district in Bangladesh

Global energy requirement is increasing at every moment and to cope up with this dire need, the role of renewable energy is becoming more and more important in the developed as well as the developing countries to meet partially the need of global energy. Bangladesh is an agricultural country. About 85% of total population lives in villages. Resource of commercial fuel is very limited in the country. Due to inefficient way of burning huge quantity of biomass fuels is wasted. In this context biogas technology can play a vital role in conservation of biomass resources. The potential of organic fertilizer and biogas with a number of raw materials available in Bangladesh is 106.89*109 kg/year and 5,628.1mm3/year respectively. On the basis of raw materials around 4 million biogas plants can be constructed. Up to now approximately 23,500 biogas plants are installed in the country. The dissemination rate is very slow. Many biogas plants are not working due to different reasons. It is necessary to ascertain the reality and to give right direction for the future. This study was focused on status of existing biogas plants and identifying the different reasons of failure of biogas plants. The study was carried out at Pabna district in Bangladesh during October, 2004-January, 2005. Till now total 485 biogas plants were constructed in Pabna district by different organizations. Among them a sample of 80 plants were taken for this study. Various types of secondary and primary data were collected for this study. During the study a large number of plants (50%) were found not functioning at all (further on called “failure biogas plants”). A good number of plants (15%) plants were found not well functioning/with many interruptions. About 19% plants were found functioning well with some rare interruptions and some plants (16%) were found functioning continuously. Prospects of bio gas, reasons for failure of biogas plant and ways to improve it are investigated in this st- dy.