Statistics of the Biomass Committee of the Argentine Chamber of Renewable Energies (Cader) indicate that our country has between 60 and 80 biomass plants, of which 20 are large facilities.
These plants are basically used for the treatment of urban solid waste or organic components, as well as mini-bio digesters or mini-lagoons covered for home consumption. According to a 2015 survey, these initiatives are located mostly in the North of the province of Buenos Aires and in the Litoral region.
In the rest of the country, Jujuy has two wood gasification plants and one for dry biomass pyrolysis; Salta encourages the participatory construction of family biodigesters; in Misiones, forest and refrigeration waste is used; San Juan seeks to do the same with residues of the wine activity; in Mendoza there is a project to generate biogas and solar thermal energy in agricultural concentration markets; Chubut is committed to energy cogeneration from residual wood biomass; Tierra del Fuego is building a plant to recycle and reuse industrial waste; and Tucumán is excited about the transformation of derivatives of sugar production.
One of the most emblematic biomass cases occurs in the province of Córdoba, where an electric power plant based on peanut husk was launched in 2017.
It is an installation that collects and sells 140 thousand tons of peanuts per year and employs 450 people directly.
The plant has a 10 megawatt (MW) steam turbine with capacity to generate 78,840 MW / hour. The company uses 10% of the energy for its operation; 25%, for the process of industrialization of peanuts and the remaining 65% is incorporated into the national electricity network. This amount can supply about 8,000 households per year.
For this process, the peanut shell is collected in cells and from there it is transferred to a boiler where it is burned and transformed into potential steam energy. After transferred to the steam turbine, it is converted into mechanical energy of rotation . With the coupling to the generator, it ends up transforming into electrical energy.
While ensuring that there is still a legislative and financing framework for the sector, the projects for the production of biomass are still growing and will allow a greater generation of clean energy in our country.