Bagasse Electricity Potential of Conventional Sugarcane Factories

Sugar industries have huge potential to contribute to the sustainable energy transition through electricity generation and production of biofuels. Sugar-producing countries generate huge volumes of sugarcane bagasse as a byproduct of sugarcane production. In this study, the performance of an operating traditional sugar factory is analyzed for electricity generation and export potential. The study presents characteristics and energy potential of modern and traditional sugar factories. The challenges facing a traditional sugar mill are inefficient boilers, less efficient and back pressure steam turbines, and wasteful and inefficient use of steam turbine drives as prime movers instead of modern electric drives for the mills and cane knives. Others are the use of inefficient and energy intensive cane mill rollers instead of the diffusers which have low energy requirements. It was demonstrated that the cogeneration potential of sugar factory is quite significant but currently underutilized. Sugar factories can make significant contribution towards mitigation of greenhouse gas emission mitigation through supply of green electricity to the public grid. The study showed that the factory uses very old and inefficient boilers aged over 39 years which contributes to poor performance and low electricity generation capacity. Modernization is required to increase the generation and electricity export capacity through investment in new and modern high-pressure boilers, replacement of inefficient back pressure boilers (BPSB) with more efficient condensing extraction turbines (CEST), and reduction of factory steam consumption by electrification of mills and cane knife turbine drives among other measures. This study showed that the 3,000 TCD factory can invest in a 15 MW power plant based on current average factory performance indicators and more if the throughput and overall performance is close to design parameters.