A multi-criteria decision support tool for the assessment of household biogas digester programmes in rural areas. A case study in Peru

Laia Ferrer-Martí, Ivet Ferrer, Elena Sánchez and Marianna Garfí

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 2018, vol. 95, issue C, 74-83

Abstract: Household biogas digesters are a sustainable technology that can help rural families of low income countries meeting their basic energy needs and improving their standard of living. However, household biogas digester programmes are often promoted without any systematic planning which might help to overcome several challenges for household digesters dissemination (e.g. lack of stakeholders’ involvement, investment cost, technology reliability and durability, lack of site-specific designs). The aim of this study is to develop and validate, for the first time, a multi-criteria decision support tool for the assessment of household biogas digester programmes in rural areas of Latin America. The method is divided into three decision levels. First of all, the rural communities where household digesters may be implemented are evaluated and prioritized. Secondly, the most appropriate digester model (i.e. masonry or plastic tubular digester) is selected. Finally, the most appropriate household digester design (e.g. volume, materials) is identified considering local conditions and beneficiaries’ needs. For that, a set of technical, environmental and socio-economic criteria were defined and weighted by stakeholders at all the decision levels. Furthermore, the tool was validated using three case studies dealing with the implementation of household anaerobic digesters in rural areas of the Peruvian Andes in order to show how it can assist non-profit organizations designing sustainable and successful biogas digester programmes.

Keywords: Anaerobic digestion; Biogas programme; Decision support tool; Multi-criteria analysis; Renewable energy; Small-scale digester (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032118304970
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:rensus:v:95:y:2018:i:c:p:74-83

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/600126/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 600126/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.rser.2018.06.064

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews is currently edited by L. Kazmerski

More articles in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().