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4th International Conference on Energy and Environment Research, ICEER 2017, 17-20 July
2017, Porto, Portugal

Feasibility The
study
15th of integrating
International solaronenergy
Symposium into anaerobic
District Heating and Cooling digester
reactor for improved performances using TRNSYS simulation:
Assessing the feasibility of using the heat demand-outdoor
application Kenitra Morocco
temperature function for a long-term district heat demand forecast
OUHAMMOU
a,b,c
Badraa,*, AGGOURa
Mohammedb
a
, FRIMANEc Azddinea c
a
I. Andrić *, A. Pina , P. Ferrão , J. Fournier ., B. Lacarrière , O. Le Corre
Renewable Energy and Environment Laboratory, Faculty of Sciences, Ibn Tofail University. BP. 133, 14 000 Kenitra-Morocco
a
IN+ Center for Innovation, Technology and Policy Research - Instituto Superior Técnico, Av. Rovisco Pais 1, 1049-001 Lisbon, Portugal
b
Veolia Recherche & Innovation, 291 Avenue Dreyfous Daniel, 78520 Limay, France
c
Département Systèmes Énergétiques et Environnement - IMT Atlantique, 4 rue Alfred Kastler, 44300 Nantes, France
Abstract

This paper studies the feasibility of the integration of the solar thermal energy in the anaerobic digestion (AD). In this purpose, a
Abstract model of the digester reactor (V=70 l) coupled with a new design of the solar water thermal system has been
simulation
developed using TRNSYS. The heating is carried out by an exchanger inside of the digester. The thermal performance and
District behaviors
dynamic heating networks are commonly
of the system addressed
under a climatic in theofliterature
condition as investigated.
Kenitra are one of the most effective
It is found thatsolutions
the solar for decreasing
system the
covers 90
%greenhouse gas consumed
of the energy emissions by fromthethe
ADbuilding
during sector. These
the year. systems the
In addition, require high
results investments
show which are returned
a daily temperature fluctuationthrough
of 0.8the
°Cheat
in
sales.
the Due and
summer to the changed
2.3 °C climate conditions and building renovation policies, heat demand in the future could decrease,
in the winter.
prolonging the investment return period.
©The
2017main
Thescope of this
Authors. paper isby
Published to Elsevier
assess the feasibility of using the heat demand – outdoor temperature function for heat demand
Ltd.
forecast. The
Peer-review district
under of Alvalade,
responsibility of thelocated in Lisbon
scientific committee(Portugal),
of the 4thwas used as aConference
International case study.onThe district
Energy and isEnvironment
consisted of 665
buildings
Research. that vary in both construction period and typology. Three weather scenarios (low, medium, high) and three district
renovation scenarios were developed (shallow, intermediate, deep). To estimate the error, obtained heat demand values were
comparedAnaerobic
Keywords: with results fromfeasibility
digester; a dynamic heatsolar
study; demand model,
heating; previously
solar thermal; developed and validated by the authors.
TRNSYS
The results showed that when only weather change is considered, the margin of error could be acceptable for some applications
(the error in annual demand was lower than 20% for all weather scenarios considered). However, after introducing renovation
1.scenarios, the error value increased up to 59.5% (depending on the weather and renovation scenarios combination considered).
Introduction
The value of slope coefficient increased on average within the range of 3.8% up to 8% per decade, that corresponds to the
decrease in the number of heating hours of 22-139h during the heating season (depending on the combination of weather and
Solar energy is the most abundant energy resource with the potential to become a major component of a
renovation scenarios considered). On the other hand, function intercept increased for 7.8-12.7% per decade (depending on the
sustainable global energy solution. The most common use of thermal solar energy has been for water heating
coupled scenarios). The values suggested could be used to modify the function parameters for the scenarios considered, and
systems;
improve thethisaccuracy
use has beendemand
of heat commercialized
estimations. in many countries in the world. Their applications have increased

© 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.
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +212658525092.
E-mail address: baouhammou@yahoo.com; badr.ouhammou@uit.ac.ma
Keywords: Heat demand; Forecast; Climate change
1876-6102 © 2017 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the 4th International Conference on Energy and Environment
Research.
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 Energy and Environment
Research.
10.1016/j.egypro.2017.10.255
 OUHAMMOU Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 402–407 403
Ouhammou Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

significantly, especially in countries with large solar potential.

Bioenergy, on the other hand, is another source of renewable energy that has gained momentum due to several
advances in biotechnology during the last decade. In late 1970, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA)
first developed a solar powered anaerobic digestion system to improve thermal efficiency of the digestion [1]. Since
then, several studies were conducted and focused on further improving the thermal efficiency of anaerobic digestion.
Hills and Stephens studied the feasibility of using solar energy to heat a mesophilic CSTR (continuous stirred-tank
reactor) anaerobic digester [2]. Alkhamis and his colleagues designed and operated a lab scale digester with a fl at
plate solar collector as the heater in Jordan [3]. Axaopoulos et al. developed a mathematical model for the
simulation of a swine manure reactor heated with solar energy [4]. However, using anaerobic digestion as an energy
storage unit to store solar energy has not been comprehensively and thoroughly studied to date [5].
In this paper, the feasibility study of using the solar thermal energy to heat a mesophilic digester was
investigated. The proposed designs have been developed by using the TRNSYS environment in order to provide a
tool for assessing the thermal performance of the system. The simulations programs were run for a one-year period
using hourly climatic data including ambient air temperature, total solar irradiance, wind speed and humidity. The
rsults of the feasibility study indicate that the solar system is highly satisfactory (90%) to integrate the solar thermal
into the anaerobic digestion.

Nomenclature

Ac Aperture area of a single collector module

Cp Specific heat of collector fluid
FR Overall collector heat removal efficiency factor
G Solar irrandiance
M Masse
ms Flowrate at use conditions
NG Number of the glass cover in the collector
Ns Number of identical collectors in series
Ta Ambient temperature
Tin Temperature input of the exchanger
Tp Absorber temperature
Tr Bioreactor temperature
Ts Storage temeprature tank
Qu Energy rate produce by the solar collector
UL,j The top loss coefficient

2. Description of the system

The solar system proposed to heat the anaerobic reactor contains two big hydraulic circuits as illustrate in the
Fig. 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 as shown in Fig. 2. 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
404 OUHAMMOU Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 402–407
Ouhammou Badr et al./ Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

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.

Fig. 1. The design of the solar system coupled with the Anaerobic Digester

3. Results and discussion

Energy needed by the bioreactor is mainly thermal energy to heat the feed and maintain mesophilic condition of
bioreactors. Results of this study indicate that solar energy is very important to use it for heating requirements of
bio-digester waste reactors.

3.1 The variation of operating temperature of anaerobic digester

The solar radiation which our simulation was run with are illustrate in the Fig. 2 for the cloudy and summer days.
The solar radiation for the winter day is very low and poor that mean that solar energy is not enough for heating
the anaerobic reactor, in contrary for the summer day it’s same that the solar system (solar energy) can be pass the
needs for heating the bio-digester.
Winter day
1200
Summer Day

1000

800
G (W/m )
2

600

400

200

6 8 10 12 14 16 18
Time (hr)

Fig. 2. Solar radiation from the site of Kenitra for the two typical days

The Fig. 3 shows the variation of the temperature during the typical summer and winter day. It’s clear that the
temperature is very stable and it’s satisfied the mesophilic condition for the anaerobic digestion. The small standard
deviation of the manure temperature inside the digester is directly affected by the ambient air temperature, the solar
irradiance, the wind speed and humidity.
The small daily fluctuation of the manure temperature in the digester and its occurrence result mainly from the
operation of the solar collectors and the time swine manure enters the digester as it is illustrated in the Fig. 4. The
 OUHAMMOU Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 402–407 405
Ouhammou Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

variations of corresponding operating temperature of anaerobic digester for these time periods are shown in Fig. 9.
The maximum temperature fluctuation during this time period is less than 0.8 C, which is too small to influence the
microbial activity [12].
40
Tdigester, summer
35

30 Tdigester, winter
Temperature (°C)

25
Ta, summer
20

15
Ta, winter
10

0 5 10 15 20
Time (h)

Fig. 3. Temperature distribution inside the bio-digester and ambient temperature for the tow typical days

4500 Solar radiation

45
Temperature inside the digester
Ambient Temprature
4000 40

3500
35

3000
30

Temperature (°C)
G (kJ/hr.m )

2500
2

25
2000
20
1500
15
1000

10
500

5
0
740 1480 2220 2960 3700 4440 5180 5920 6660 7400 8140 8880
Time (hr)

Fig. 4. The Variation of the digester temperature and the climatic condition (solar radiation, ambient temperature) during the year.

3.2 Energy demand of bioreactors

Energy needed by the bioreactor is mainly thermal energy to heat the feed and maintain mesophilic condition of
bioreactors. The amount of the energy was varied with season changes.
9000 Energy demand by Digester
Energy Produced by Solar collector Solar production
Energy storage
8000
Auxiliary Energy
7000
Energy of Storage 1
6000
Energy (kJ/hr)

5000

4000 Energy demand by AD

Energy of storage 2
Auxiliary Energy
3000

2000

1000

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24
Time (h)

Fig. 5. Digester energy needs, Production solar and Auxiliary for a typical winter day

10000 Energy need by digester Solar production

Solar Production Tank storage 2 Tank storage 1

Energy of the storage 1

8000 Energy of the storage 2

Energy demand by AD
Energy (kJ/hr)

6000

4000

2000

0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32
Time (hr)

Fig. 6. Digester energy needs, Production solar and Auxiliary for a typical summer day
The Fig. 5 and 6 shows the daily energy demand of the bio-reactor as well as the energy produce by the solar
collectors during a typical winter and summer day. Also, the energy stored in the two tank storage.
406 OUHAMMOU Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 402–407
Ouhammou Badr et al./ Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

The average Energy needs of the bio-reactor are estimated around 2 MJ/hr; the average ambient temperature and
the solar irradiances are 9 °C and 500 W/m2 30 °C and 1200 W/m2 respectively for the winter and summer day. It’s
obvious that, the solar system as doubt to cover all the energy needs of the bio-digester, for that, and as it’s illustrate
in the Fig. 6; in the afternoon the solar system might cover the demand of the anaerobic digestion until the midnight,
and the period 24 h to 8 h, the solar system can’t satisfy the energy demand; for this reason, the control differential
unit launch the auxiliary energy. In the winter day, the solar system, achieve a production around 8 (MJ/hr); and the
first storage Tank (6 MJ/hr); as mentioned before, one part of the energy produce stored in the Tank 1 left to heat the
anaerobic digester (direct utilization) and other quantity stored in the second tank storage for the night utilization
(3,5 MJ/hr). The solar system production in the summer day exceed 10 MJ/hr, and it’s very clear that the present
design of the solar system can cover the energy needs of the Anaerobic digester in the summer period as it’s
illustrate in the Fig. 6. On the other hand, the energy stored in the second storage tank which responsible for heating
the bio-reactor , is almost equal to the energy production of the solar system in the case of the winter period, that
mean the Second storage cover all night utilization without auxiliary energy.

3.3 System evaluation

Based on the simulation which is based on the mathematical model mentioned previously, the corresponding
solar production, Auxiliary energy, solar irradiance and ambient temperature are listed in the Table 1.

Table 1. Average Value of the parameters in each Month

Month Q u (kWh) Q aux (kWh) G (W/m2) Ta (°C) Q total (kWh) Solar Fraction (%)

Juan 78 18 446 12 95 62
Feb 81 10 563 13 103 82
Mar 124 0 784 15 124 100
Apr 140 0 968 16 140 100
May 142 0 1076 18 142 100
Jun 190 0 1157 21 190 100
Jul 245 0 1169 22 244 100
Aug 232 0 1062 23 232 100
Sep 174 0 851 21 174 100
Oct 140 0 657 19 140 100
Nov 106 2 501 15 108 95
Dec 78 10 416 13 89 77

The capabilities of the solar system is powerful in the summer month, and good enough in the winter period, that
means, 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 11 hours in the contrary 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 in
addition of the ambient temperature as illustrate in The table 1. On the other hand, the solar system produces about
1744 kWh/an, which represent 90 % of all energy production.

4. Conclusion

A simulation model for a new design of the solar thermal system coupled the anaerobic digestion bioreactor has
been carried out with TRNSYS under typical climatic condition in Kenitra in the-west of Morocco and lead to the
following conclusion:
 OUHAMMOU Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 136 (2017) 402–407 407
Ouhammou Badr et al. / Energy Procedia 00 (2017) 000–000

 The results obtained show that solar energy is a highly desirable alternative for biogas reactor;
 Solar system occupied 90 % for all heating needs of the bio-digester during year and 70 % in the cold month;
 Solar system satisfied the mesophilic condition of the digestion anaerobic which the fluctuation of the
temperature are between 35-37 °C

Acknowledgements

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

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