Feasibility Study on the Production of Biogas in Dairy Farming

The purpose of this study was to evaluate feasibility study on the development of biogas in dairy farming. In short of the production process, the biogas was produced by utilizing waste from dairy farming industry (i.e. cow’s manure and cassava peel). The production of biogas was analyzed from engineering perspective with several economic evaluation parameters, including gross profit margin, internal rate return, payback period, net present value, and so on. The engineering analysis result showed that the production of biogas is prospective using current technologies. Mass balance calculation showed that 1 kg of cow’s manure supported with 0.30 kg of cassava peal waste from cows’ leftover can be converted into near to 0.20 kg of biogas. Assuming 1700 kg of cow’s manure per month, the production of more than 300 kilograms of biogas can be obtained, showing the excellent prospect for solving the environmental issues in dairy farming industries. In the economic evaluation, the result showed that direct conversion of biogas is not profitable. To confirm the potentiality of the biogas project for being applied in industrial uses, three types of projects were compared, including production of “biogas only”, “fresh milk production only”, and “combination of biogas and fresh milk production”. The result suggested that to get project profitable, the biogas production must be applied with the dairy farming such as milk production. Moreover, the profitability analysis of this “combination between biogas and fresh milk production” is higher than that of “fresh milk production only”. Since the biogas production can give excellent benefit on both profit and solving environmental issues in dairy farming industries, further developments from this study must be done.