ABOUT 16 per cent of the manure effluent of the Australian pig herd is now directed to biogas systems, equating to 29pc of the herd housed in conventional sheds at piggeries larger than 500 sows, farrow-to-finish, which is the cut-off for feasibility of these systems.
Before the Pork CRC’s Bioenergy Support Program started in 2012, manure from only about 2pc of the national herd was directed to biogas systems.
According to Alan Skerman, Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, and Dr Stephen Tait, University of Queensland (now at University of Southern Queensland), the program’s positive impact on biogas adoption has been substantial.
Pork producers with biogas systems now benefit from reduced odour, save on energy costs, sell excess biogas-derived electricity to the supply grid and sell Australian Carbon Credit Units and renewable energy certificates. Capital expenditure payback periods of less than three years have been realised.
Since 2012-13, when the Emissions Reduction Fund started, 372,143 Australian Carbon Credit Units have been issued to piggery biogas projects, valued at an estimated $4 million of carbon credit sale value to participating producers.
A Pork CRC supported life cycle assessment by Stephen Wiedemann of Integrity Ag Services has predicted that greenhouse gas emissions of Australia’s pork production could fall from 3.6 kilograms in 2010 to nearer 1.3kg of CO 2 equivalents per kilogram of pork produced by 2020-21.
Pork CRC’s Bioenergy Support Program has been a producer-steered technical support program to enable biogas adoption across the Australian and New Zealand pork sectors.
The program conducted industry-tailored research to provide technical know-how for producers, industry service providers, consultants and regulators to assist in the planning, design, construction, commissioning and operation of piggery biogas systems.
The research and technical support of the program drew heavily on contributions by Pork CRC biogas demonstration piggeries, established as part of the BSP initiative.
A recent national piggery biogas survey provided useful data on present and future biogas adoption interest and statistics, which indicated considerable ongoing interest in biogas benefits, including from smaller piggeries.