Biogas Bid Specification
Dear Theo and Raphael,
Thanks for your work.
The specifications of a continuous feed system, primarily grass clippings, 1-5kW continuous power and cooking for 12 people in the temperate (continental USA) climate zone should be enough as far as the initial specification. Let me know if you need anything more.
The way I see this evolving is probably that we have to pay dearly for a subject matter expert to design a system. There are many plans out there, but I haven't yet seen a single plan for the scale we want, that also includes integration with a natural gas engine to produce electricity. This is complex engineering because of the details involved, and I do not expect that we will find one available unless we talk to a person who actually built them.
Biogas digester systems are economically competitive. They are not in wider use because of the significant design costs. That is the whole point of our effort: to make an industrial-quality biogas plant open source. If this were already open source, they would be widely replicated. It's easy to replicate a small, cimple system. But our goal is to take it to the next level of engineering rigor - so that maintenance is minimal and function is year-round and robust.
So to clarify, the goal in my view is identifying a subject matter expert who can design and oversee the build of our system. I don't expect that to be a volunteer, though that is a possibility.
It would be optimal if you guys could:
- Identify such a subject matter expert
- Talk to them and assess their compliance with open source, as well as scalability/modularity of design
- Assess their ability to deliver
- Assess the cost of their design services
- Assess materials cost (should not be more than $15k including the generator and complete balance fo system), not including excavation and labor costs
- Produce an initial bid (time and budget) for the project
- Secure 3 such bids so that our cost predictions are well-grounded
If you guys can help us up to step 7, then we will be likely to take the build on at Factor e Farm. The research phase is a lot of work, but the product would be the open-sourcing of this technology. I think that this could be a viable energy source for many municipal systems as well as any working farm, especially wherever biomass is abundant.