When analysing biogas projects, one considers as very important the cost of installations and equipment, the selling price of the biogas, biomethane or electrical energy produced, the costs and/or revenues of waste management, as well as the other operating costs … So far so good, but it seems to me that often one of the most important factors of biogas plants is little analysed: the reliability of assets.
When you design, build and operate an industrial facility where waste is part of the process, the reliability of the installation plays a very important role and will ultimately be decisive in the economic profitability of the project and even more so in its overall sustainability.
Why is asset reliability so important in a biogas plant?
- Continuity in the supply chain. A waste and biogas plant needs to be able to guarantee to the producers of the waste, farmers, ranchers, industrialists, operators of ESA, etc., that the entry of these wastes is not conditioned by an unavailability of the equipment. Having to ask producers to accumulate these materials at source or have to activate alternative ways of managing these wastes can mean significant economic and environmental impacts.
- Environmental impact: Additionally to extract the maximum potential of biomethanization from waste, as well as avoid problems of odors and other vectors with negative impacts for nearby populations and nuclei, We must ensure a constant and stable transfer of these wastes within our facilities, thus avoiding accumulations of these wastes or intermediate products in the facility.
- Stability of biological processes: The core of the process in a biogas plant are biological processes, especially anaerobic digestion is a process that requires as stable operating conditions as possible and with changing conditions, in particular load with controlled and gradual variations. A digester not fed for a few days, followed by a point overfeed can at best cause an imbalance in the process and may lead to a destabilization or blockage of the digester with a very important impact on the production process.
- Production guarantee: Like any industrial process, the final product, in this case biogas, or its derivatives such as biomethane or electrical and/or thermal energy must be able to offer high guarantees of continuity so that they have the value required. When one trades a value in the sale of the generated resources, the guarantee we can give on the continuity of its production will have an important weight in that value, and it will avoid penalties or other negative impacts.
Reliability as a pivot in asset management in biogas plants
All these aspects eventually converge into the concept of reliability, a key concept on which much of our facility’s Asset Management hinges.
When you want to apply to your projects and facilities appropriate standards in asset management, the main objective pursued is the management of the risks inherent in that installation, economic and financial risks, but also and in this type of project equally important, the environmental risk and reputational risk.
When using ISO 55001 Asset Management systems we must quantify the inherent risks, two variables come into play: the severity of the impact produced by the failure of an asset and the frequency with which this asset fails, said inversely, that reliability gives us that asset.
Reliability derives from trust, the confidence that must give us the equipment that make up these waste and biogas facilities.
Reliability, in my opinion, worthy of a little more attention when we analyze our waste and biogas projects, a bet on the reliability of facilities, with the acquisition of solid, robust equipment, with well-limited costs and maintenance times, will no doubt provide an adequate return to our project, while reducing the risks involved.
Jordi Fontana, Head of Business Strategy, Waste and Biogas at Protech Continental.
