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Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

ScienceDirect
Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000
ScienceDirect
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia
Energy Procedia
Energy Procedia 00
141(2017)
(2017)000–000
13–17
www.elsevier.com/locate/procedia

4th International Conference on Power and Energy Systems Engineering, CPESE 2017, 25-29
4th International Conference September 2017,
on Power and Berlin,
Energy Germany
Systems Engineering, CPESE 2017, 25-29
September 2017, Berlin, Germany
Design and TheAnalysis of Integrating
15th International Symposium onthe Solar
District Thermal
Heating energy in
and Cooling
Design and
Anaerobic Analysis
Digester usingof Integrating
TRNSYS: the Solar Thermal
Application energy in
kenitra-Morocco
Assessing
Anaerobic the feasibility
Digester using of usingApplication
TRNSYS: the heat demand-outdoor
kenitra-Morocco
1 1 1 2
temperature function1 for a long-term
B. OUHAMMOU * , M. NACIRI .
1 2
district12heat demand forecast
M.AGGOUR , M. BAKRAOUI
2
,
B. OUHAMMOU *F., KAROUACH M. NACIRI . M.AGGOUR , H. EL BARI , M. BAKRAOUI ,
2 2
I.(1)Solar
Andrić a,b,c
*, A. F. ,KAROUACH
Pina a
P. Ferrão a
, J. , H. ELbBARI
Fournier ., B. Lacarrière c
, O. Le Correc
Team, (2) Biogas Team of Renewable Energy and Environment Laboratory, Physic department, Faculty of Science, Ibn
a Tofail University Kenitra, Morocco
IN+ Center for Innovation,
(1)Solar Technology
Team, (2) Biogas Teamand Policy Research
of Renewable Energy- Instituto Superior Laboratory,
and Environment Técnico, Av.Physic
Roviscodepartment,
Pais 1, 1049-001
FacultyLisbon, Portugal
of Science, Ibn
b
Tofail291
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, University Kenitra, Morocco
Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques et Environnement - IMT Atlantique, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44300 Nantes, France
Abstract
Abstract
The aim of this research was to design a solar heated system to enhance the anaerobic digestion treatment at mesophilic condition
for the
aimUASB
Abstract
The (Up flowwas
of this research Anaerobic
to designSludge
a solarBlanket) digester
heated system system, the
to enhance the anaerobic
solar energy absorbed
digestion by flat
treatment plate collectors
at mesophilic was
condition
transferred
for the UASB to heat
(Upstorage tanks, which
flow Anaerobic Sludgecontinuously suppliedsystem,
Blanket) digester an anaerobic reactor
the solar withabsorbed
energy water at bya maximum
flat plate temperature
collectors wasof
37°C. For
transferred this purpose,
to heatnetworks
District heating we have
storage tanks, developed two models
which continuously
are commonly addressed in for a
supplied70 l bio-digester
an anaerobic
the literature coupled
as one reactor to a solar
with water
of the most thermal system
at asolutions
effective (low temperature)
maximumfortemperature
decreasing ofthe
using the
37°C. ForTRNSYS
thisgas (Transient
purpose, we have System Simulation) platform. Thel bio-digester
thermal performances toand the dynamic behavior of temperature)
the systems
greenhouse emissions fromdeveloped
the buildingtwosector.
models for asystems
These 70 coupled
require high a solar
investments thermal
which are system
returned (low
through the heat
under
using the TRNSYS
climatic conditions ofSystem
the citySimulation)
of Kenitra-Morocco are studied
thermaland the two designs were compared between each other
sales.theDue to the (Transient
changed climate conditions and platform.
building The renovation performances
policies, heatanddemand
the dynamic
in thebehavior of the
future could systems
decrease,
in order
under thetoclimatic
optimizeconditions
the systems of which
the have
city of an excellent thermal
Kenitra-Morocco are performance.
studied and the two designs were compared between each other
prolonging the investment return period.
©
in 2017
order The
to Authors.the
optimize Published
systems by Elsevier
which have Ltd.
an excellent thermal performance.
©The2017main
Peer-reviewThescope ofresponsibility
Authors.
under this paper isby
Published to Elsevier
of assess
the the feasibility
Ltd.
organizing of using
committee the heat2017.
of CPESE demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand
© 2017 TheThe
Peer-review
forecast. Authors.
under
district Published
responsibility by
ofElsevier
of Alvalade, thelocated Ltd.
scientific
in committee of the 4thwas
Lisbon (Portugal), International
used as aConference
case study.onThe Power and Energy
district is consisted of 665
Peer-review
Systems
buildings under
Engineering.
that responsibility
vary in both of the organizing
construction period committee
and typology. of CPESE
Three 2017. scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district
weather
Keywords: Solar thermal collector; solar heating; TRNSYS simulation; anaerobic digester
renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were
Keywords: Solar thermal collector; solar heating; TRNSYS simulation; anaerobic digester
compared with results from a dynamic heat demand model, previously developed and validated by the authors.
The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
1.(theIntroduction
error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
1. Introduction
The value of slope
Solar-based coefficient
renewable increased
energies haveon averagethe
become within
mostthe range ofenergy
abundant 3.8% resource
up to 8% presenting
per decade,itself
that corresponds to the
as a sustainable
decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and
global energy renewable
Solar-based solution. Bioenergy
energies hasbecome
also grown over the last decade as a presenting
result of itself
several aadvances in
renovation scenarios considered). Onhave
the other hand,the most
function abundant energy
intercept increased resource
for 7.8-12.7% per decade as sustainable
(depending on the
biotechnology.
global In the lateBioenergy
1970s, thehas Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed anseveral
anaerobic digestion
coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, in
energy solution. also grown over the last decade as a result of advances and
biotechnology.
improve the accuracy In theoflateheat 1970s,
demand the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed an anaerobic digestion
estimations.

© 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

* Corresponding
Peer-review author.
under Tel.: +212658525092
responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and
E-mail
Cooling. address: [email protected]
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +212658525092
[email protected]
E-mail address: [email protected]
[email protected]
Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of CPESE 2017.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the organizing committee of CPESE 2017.

1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Peer-review under responsibility of the Scientific Committee of The 15th International Symposium on District Heating and Cooling.
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Power and Energy
Systems Engineering.
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.11.004
14 B. Ouhammou et al. / Energy Procedia 141 (2017) 13–17
B. OUHAMMOU et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

station using solar energy. This technique helps improve the thermal efficiency of digestion, since temperature is an
important factor that affects the performance of this digestion. As a result, biogas plants without a heating system
can only be operated in warm areas throughout the year. In other regions, for example in Kenitra, the biogas plant
requires a heating system. However, several research studies have been carried out in this direction. Su, Su et al. [1]
who used a 2-meter collector-type U-type solar collector to meet of the heat demand of a 6 m3 digester only for the
month of October. The collector was to operate 8 hours per day. The use of parabolic solar concentrators as a heat
source for the production of biogas has been studied by D. Zhang et al [2]. A new integrated solar heating biogas
fermentation system with a phase change thermal storage device for cold rural areas in China was introduced by
Tian et al. [3]. They proposed a heat storage system on hot sunny days to replenish heat losses in winter. Also,
Axaopoulos et al. [4] investigated the solar- heated anaerobic digestion of swine manure. The solar heated system
that was employed consisted of a digester covered with flat-plate solar collectors, which were connected to heat
exchanger immersed in the manure. El-Mashad et al. [5] have studied the anaerobic digestion of cattle manure by
two different types of completely stirred, thermophilic, anaerobic reactor systems.
In this work, the analysis study of the use of solar thermal energy to heat a mesophilic digester was carried out.
The aim of this work is to compare between two optimized design which developed by using TRNSYS platform and
chose the best system which can cover almost all need heat energy of the bio-digester. The result showed that the
design 2 is powerful than the first design [6], i.e, the system 2 cover almost 100 % in all period of the year, in the
contrary the first design occupied 87% for all year.

2. System description

2.1 System 1 (Design 1)

The solar system proposed to heat the anaerobic reactor contains two big hydraulic circuits as illustrate in the figure
1. The first one called Primary circuit and other called Secondary circuit; the primary circuit is responsible to
produce the energy during the day from the solar radiation. The components of the first circuit are: Flat plate
collector, circulator, tank storage and unit of the differential controller. The components of the secondary circuit are:
a second tank storage, pumps, and anaerobic digester equipped with a pump for adding the influent (input of the
influent). The energy produced by the solar thermal collector was stored in the tank storage (primary hydraulic
circuit); in purpose to heat the digester in a continuous manner, a part of the energy used directly to heat the digester,
the other quantity of energy was stored in the second tank storage, and when the temperature in first storage was less
than temperature inside the reactor the second tank storage start to maintain the heat of the digester.
The temperature control in the reactor was carried out through unit of the differential controller. The digester
contains two inlets and two outlets, it should note that the heating reactor carried out through an internal heat
exchanger. It should note that the pump 2 and 4 functioned only when the primary circuit was stopped, e.g, the
production of the hot fluid was off, that means when the first circuit was heating the digester the second storage was
out of function and that in the night the second circuit started to heat the digester and automatically the first circuit
was off. The base system used electric heating in tank storage 1 to provide all of the energy needed to meet the load
requirements. The set point temperature for the upper auxiliary heater was 37°C with a dead-band temperature of
2°C. Therefore the heater would turn on when the water that was at the height of the thermostat fell to 35°C and
would remain on until the set point temperature was reached.
 B. Ouhammou
B. OUHAMMOU et al. / Energy
et al. / Energy Procedia
Procedia 141000–000
00 (2017) (2017) 13–17 15

Figure.1 : The first design of the solar system for heating the bio-digester

2.2 System 2 (design 2)

The system is always composed of a primary circuit but this time it differs from the first system, in addition to the
components of the first system at this level (primary circuit) an external heat exchanger is added.
An outlet from the exchanger connected to the storage tank 1 which is directly connected to the digester, that is to
say, this reservoir is connected to the digester, all the time, in the contrary, the first system, there are two reservoirs
which participate in the heating of the digester. The return of the hot fluid (at the outlet of the digester) is connected
to the storage tank 2, this second tank connected to both the reservoir 1 and the cold side of the heat exchanger and
making up the second circuit as illustrate in the figure 2.

Figure.2 : The Second design of the solar system for heating the bio-digester

3. Results and Discussion

The values of the solar radiation and the ambient temperature for the chosen site (34 ° 15'39 N and 6 ° 34'48 "W)
were generated by METEONORM software. On the basis of this result we selected the 1st January as the cloudy day
of the year and 21 July as the sunniest day of the year as illustrate in the figure 3.
 B. OUHAMMOU et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000
16 B. Ouhammou et al. / Energy Procedia 141 (2017) 13–17

W in te r d a y
1 2 0 0
S u m m e r D a y

1 0 0 0

8 0 0

G (W/m )
2
6 0 0

4 0 0

2 0 0

6 8 1 0 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8
T im e (h r)

Figure. 3: Solar radiation from the kenitra site (34 ° 15'39 N and 6 ° 34'48 "W) for two typical days.

3.1 Variation of operating temperature of Anaerobic Digester

The figure 4.a and 4.b shows the variation of the temperature during the typical summer and winter days. It’s clear
that the temperature is very stable and it’s satisfied the mesophilic condition (35°C- 40°C) for the anaerobic
digestion for both systems.

40
T d ig e s te r, s u m m e r
35

30 T d ig e s te r, w in te r
Temperature (°C)

25

T a, sum m er
20

15
T a , w in te r
10

0 5 10 15 20
T im e ( h )

a)

4 5
T
4 2 T d ig e s t e r - w in t e r
d ig e s t e r - s u m m e r

3 9
3 6
3 3
3 0
Temperature (°C)

2 7
T a -s u m m e r
2 4
2 1 T a - w in t e r
1 8
1 5
1 2
9
6
3
2 4 6 8 1 0 1 2 1 4 1 6 1 8 2 0 2 2 2 4
T im e ( h r )

b)
Figure.4: Temperature Distribution inside the bio-digester and ambient temperature for the tow typical days, a) Design 1, b) Design 2.

3.2 System Evaluation

As illustrate in the figures 5.a and 5.b, the capabilities of the solar system are powerful in the summer month, and
good enough in the winter period for the first system but it’s excellent for the second design. That due to the
operation time in the summer is obviously longer than that in the winter, e.g, in the summer the solar system work
(produce) around 10 hours in the contrary 6-7 hours in the winter, also that due to the high/low solar irradiance
which achieved 1200 W/m2 and between 400-700 W/m2 in the summer and winter respectively. Moreover, the
second system can cover almost all need of energy for heating the digester during the year which reach 536 kWh for
the cold period in the contrary the first system reach 340 kWh for the same period. That mean the second design
cover around 95 % of all needs and 87% for the first design as illustrate in the Figure 5.
 B. OUHAMMOU et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000
B. Ouhammou et al. / Energy Procedia 141 (2017) 13–17 17

700 T o ta l E n e rg y
A u x ilia r y E n e r g y
600 S o la r s y s te m p r o d u c tio n

500
Energy (kWh)

400

5%
300 10 % 8 %

200

100

0
Juan Feb M ar Apr M ay Jun Jul Aug Sep O ct Nov D ec

a)

500 120

450 S o la r s y s te m P r o d u c tio n 110

Energy (kWh)
A u x ilia r y E n e r g y 100

400 T o ta l E n e r g y 90

N ov

350
Energy (kWh)

300

250
1 7 ,6 % 5%
200 38% 23%
150

100

50

Jan Feb M ar Apr M ay Jun Jul Aug Sep O ct N ov Des

b)
Figure.5: Average Value of the parameters in each Month for each system ((a) System 1; (b) system 2).
4. Conclusion
A new design of an anaerobic digestion bioreactor coupled to solar thermal was carried out on the basis of two
typical days representing favourable and unfavourable days. A simulation model for the bio-digester was developed
with TRNSYS environment under the typical climatic conditions of the city of Kenitra in the North-West of
Morocco. Moreover, the second design of the solar system provides 94 % of the heating needs of the bio-digester
during the year, of which 100% in summer and 88% during cold months in the contrary of the first design which
cover only 70% in the cold period.

Acknowledgment

This work was supported by the Institute of Research on Solar Energy and Renewable Energies of Morocco
(IRESEN) as part of the Inno Project Solar Thermal-Biomass 2014.

References

[1] Y. Su, R. Tian, X. Yang, Research and analysis of solar heating biogas fermentation system, Procedia Environ. Sci. 11 (2011) 1386–1391.
[2] D. Zhang, L. Qiu, Y. Deng, Research of parabolic trough solar concentrators heating system applied in biogas engineering, Journal of
Northwest A&F University (Natural Science Edition) 29 (5) (2011) 85–90 (in Chinese).
[3] Y. Lu, Y. Tian, H. Lu, et al., Study of solar heated biogas fermentation system with a phase change thermal storage device, Appl. Therm. Eng.
88 (2015) 418–424.
[4] Axaopoulos, P., Panagakis, P., Tsavdaris, A., Georgakakis, D., 2001. Simulation and experimental performance of a solar-heated
anaerobic digester. Solar Energy 70, 155–164.
[5] El-Mashad, H.M., van Loon, W.K.P., Zeeman, G., Bot, G.P.A., Lettinga, G., 2004a. Design of a solar thermophilic anaerobic reactor for
small farms. Biosystems Engineering 87, 345–353.
[6] OUHAMMOU. B, AGGOUR. M, FRIMANE. A, 2017. Feasibility study of integrating solar energy into anaerobic digester reactor for
improved performances using TRNSYS simulation: Application kenitra Morocco. Energy Procedia, EGYPRO_32958