Izmir province biogas potential and its contribution to Turkish economy

The decrease in fossil-based resources in the world and in Turkey, rapid population growth, climatic concerns today, and the acceleration of ever-growing industry and technological developments increase the need for energy. In order to meet this increasing need, the orientation towards environmentally friendly sources, which are renewable energy, is increasing. Biogas, which is the method in which plant and animal wastes are disposed the most, is the most effective of renewable energy sources. The province of İzmir is among the largest provinces of Turkey in terms of agriculture and animal husbandry area and sector. The irrigable agricultural land of 280 thousand hectares in İzmir constitutes 82% of the agricultural areas. There are 54170 animal enterprises in İzmir, where cattle, sheep and poultry farming are intense. 10.75 million tons of wet waste is generated annually from businesses. These wastes cause various problems for businesses. The best solution to the problems is the evaluation of wastes in biogas production. In the calculations made for animal wastes in İzmir, a total of 12,836.649 tons/year of waste is generated. 1,291,163 tons.KM/year of dry matter is obtained from these wastes and 258,232,600 m3/year of biogas is formed from this dry matter. This shows that İzmir has a potential to generate 1.627,777,77 MWh/year electrical energy from animal waste. When the energy equivalent is calculated from 2.699.369 tons/year of waste obtained from plants, it is found as 88.141.699 GJ/year. According to the amount of waste determined in this study, 92% of the waste energy is met from the corn plant grown in İzmir. While the thermal value of approximately 88.15 PJ is generated from vegetable wastes in İzmir, 5.86 PJ energy is generated from animal wastes.