MENG 413- Assignment IV

Biomass, Photovoltaic and Storage

1. A farmer with 50 pigs proposed to use biogas generated from their wastes to power the
farm’s motor car, which runs on average 20 km/day with a petrol consumption of 10 km/L;
calorific value of petrol being 34 MJ/L.
i) Discuss the feasibility of doing this.
ii) List benefits from this conversion.

2. An Egyptian farmer owns 8 dairy cows(average wt 500 kg) and 4 fattening ones(beef steer
with average wt. 300 kg). He employs bottled Butene gas for cooking; the charge of each
new bottle being 10 kg of gas, with a calorific value of 48.8 MJ/kg. Due to the occasional
shortage of bottled gas and the transportation costs and troubles, he is considering building a
biogas digester to supply his cooking needs and sell the extra output to his neighbors.
i) calculate the number of bottles he can replace a month, and estimate how many
households can benefit from his digester, given that the typical household uses 2
bottles a month
ii) what is an appropriate digester size for him, assuming a retention time of 15 days
when digester temperature is at ground temperature(280C)
iii) If the retention time drops to 8 days when the digester temperature is raised to
350C , using biogas for external heating; estimate the digester size in this case and
comment on the economic viability of this modification.

3. i) Write down a balanced chemical equation for the conversion of sucrose(C12H22O11) to

ethanol (C2H5OH). Use this to calculate how much ethanol could be produced from one ton
of sugar, given that in practice only 80% of the theoretical limit is achieved.
ii) Fiji is a small country in the South Pacific, whose main export crop is sugar. Fiji
produces 300,000 t/y of sugar, and imports 300,000 t of fossil petroleum fuel. If all this sugar
were converted to ethanol, what proportion of petroleum imports would it replace?

4. What is the best fixed orientation for power production from a photovoltaic module located
at South Pole?

5. A small household-lighting system is powered from a nominally 8 V(i.e. 4 cells at 2 V)

storage battery having a 30 Ah supply when charged. The lighting is used for 4 h each night
at 3 Amps.
Design a suitable PV power system that will charge the battery from an arrangement of Si
solar cells, given that each cell produces a maximum current of ~ 3 amps at peak input.
i) How will you arrange the cells within the modules.
ii) How will the modules be connected.
 iii) How will you test the circuit performance.

6. Given the following characteristics for a PV 36 cell module:

I(amps) V(volts) G(kW/m2) I(amps) V(volts) G(kW/m2) I(amps) V(volts) G(kW/m2)
0.6 0 0.2 1.2 0 0.4 1.8 0 0.6
0.6 11 0.2 1.2 11 0.4 1.8 11 0.6
0.42 14 0.2 1.1 14 0.4 1.65 14 0.6
0.28 15 0.2 0.9 15 0.4 1.475 15 0.6
0 15.6 0.2 0 16.25 0.4 0 17.3 0.6

I(amps) V(volts) G(kW/m2) I(amps) V(volts) G(kW/m2)

2.4 0 0.8 3 0 1
2.4 11 0.8 3 11 1
2.25 14 0.8 2.85 14 1
2.05 15 0.8 2.65 15 1
0 17.5 0.8 0 17.6 1
and that maximum power output for different G(kW/m2) occurs at following current, I(amps) and
V(volts):
G(kW/m2) 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
I (amps) 0.55 1.1 1.65 2.2 2.8
V(volts) 12.8 13.5 14 14.35 14.7
i) Draw the PV characteristics for the given 5 values of G
ii) Deduce the total daily PV output when connected to the load through a MPPT device,
given that the solar radiation follows the following profile:
tsol < 6 : G= 0; tsol > 18 : G= 0
6 < tsol < 18 : G = sin(π [tsol -6]/12), where tsol(h) and G(kW)
iii) Deduce the same when connected to a battery with a near constant terminal voltage of 14
Volts.

7. Deduce the total daily power output from the PV module of ex.6 when :
i) it is connected to a resistor of resistance 6 Ohm
ii) it is connected to a resistor of resistance 10 Ohms
iii) what do you deduce from i) and ii)

8. A passenger bus used in Switzerland derived its motive power from the energy stored in a
large flywheel. The flywheel was brought up to speed, when the bus stopped at a station, by an
electric motor that could be attached to the electric power lines. The flywheel was a solid steel
cylinder of mass 1000 Kg, diameter 180 cm and would turn up to 3000 rev/min.
a) At its top speed, what was the kinetic energy of the flywheel?
b) If the average power required operating the bus was 20 kW, what was the average time
between stops?
c) what are the advantages and disadvantages of using this system?
9. Calculate the energy flows in the following cases:
i) About 30 million barrels of oil per day being shipped out of the Persian Gulf area ( 1 barrel
= 160 litre)
ii) The TAP crude oil pipeline from Iraq to the Mediterranean carries about 10 million tons of
oil per year
iii) A family of four in a household uses (for cooking) one cylinder of LPG (gas) (13 kg) per
month
iv) The same family runs a car that covers 8000 km/y, with a petrol consumption of 7 km per
litre
v) A villager of Papua New Guinea takes 2 h to bring one load of 20 Kg wood from the bush,
carrying it on her back.
vi) A 40-Litre car fuel tank being filled from empty in 2 min.

10. A steel pipeline of diameter 30 cm carries methane gas (CH4). Recompression stations are
sited at 100 km intervals along the pipeline. The gas pressure is boosted from 3 to 6 MN/m2 at
each station. (These are typical commercial conditions). Calculate:
a) the mass flow
b) the energy flow.
hint: make a first estimate of f, assuming R is high enough. Then find and check for
consistency, iterate if necessary. Viscosity of methane at these pressures is µ = 10 x 10-6 Ns/m2