Renewable energy potentials of the municipal solid waste generated in Gombe-Metropolis

Abstract

An investigation to determine the renewable energy generating potentials of the municipal solid waste in the Gombe metropolis was conducted in an effort to harness the growing quantity of solid waste generated in the metropolis. The American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM D3172 and ASTM D3176) were used to determine the potential energy stored in the municipal solid waste samples collected from INEX cleaners and GOSEPA dumpsites using physical, proximate, and ultimate analysis model equations, (2.0-2.4). While the percentage of carbon and hydrogen contents of the sampled solid waste was determined using Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) model equations 1 and 2 using proximate analysis results. The energy recovery potentials of the two dumpsites that were studied show that a total of 439,577 kWh/day of electricity can be generated from both INEX (361,963.2kWh/day) and GOSEPA (77,613.8kWh/day) by burning 909.13kWh/tones of solid waste with INEX having (509.88kWh/tones) and GOSEPA (399.25kWh/tones) which translate into generating 18,315.7kW of energy, with INEX  producing (15,081.8kW) and GOSEPA (3,233.9kW), and based on the average household electricity consumption of 1,095kWh/year in Gombe metropolis, and assuming no energy loss, the total electricity generated could supply about 33,045.28 households with electricity daily. The investigation recommends that incineration of the municipal solid waste to generate energy should be considered as an alternative to landfilling in open dumpsites/open burning at our dumpsites, so as to mitigate the effect of climate change, and also address the missing link for sustainable solid waste management in Gombe-metropolis. The investigation also recommends that the Gombe State government should try and establish Gombe Power Holdings Company that would utilize the quantum of municipal solid waste that is generated in Gombe-metropolis to provide more electrical energy in the State for the growth of small and medium scale enterprises/companies.