Biogas-to-hydrogen for fuel cell distributed generation using food wastes of the Cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa

This paper presents an assessment of energy, economic and environmental potentials of biogas-hydrogen fuel cell for combined heat and power (CHP) application using the food wastes of the cities of Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa. The biogas generation was estimated using Bushwell’s model and the hydrogen production was determined by biogas steam reforming with water-gas shift reaction. The results show that about 16 - 42 million kg of hydrogen could be produced using food wastes of the case studies which was capable of producing 1.3 TWh of electricity and 867.26 GWh of heat via solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) at a cost of 0.2358 ${\$}$/kWh. The application of SOFC was equally found to have the aptitude to save 4459 million litres of diesel fuel which could amount to 5666.57 million ${\$}$ and also have an emission mitigation of 12037.6 kilotons of carbon dioxide and 32.42 kilotons of carbon monoxide.