Introduction of biomass gasification for rural electrification in Cameroon

Abstract

This paper aims at boosting the sustainable use of biomass renewable energy potential in Cameroon to generate electricity especially for its rural communities. In this country, woody biomass resources are primarily used for cooking and heating and we aim to increase its utilization through power generation. For this reason, an experiment using a gasification power generation system which was designed and assembled in Ashikaga University was used. The power generation capacity of this system is 20 kW. It is connected to a gas analyser in order to monitor the generated synthesized gas. The rotary engine which was used in this case was operated at running speed of 2800 rpm under two different woody biomass feedstock methods, which are the close-top and the open-top methods. It was then observed that the close-top operation generated more electric power compared to the open-top operation. During this process, the temperatures at the reduction and oxidation layers were both monitored and higher temperatures were obtained during the close-top operation.