The Energy Potential of Agricultural Biomass Residues for Household Use in Rural Areas in the Department La Guajira (Colombia)

Cooking with firewood in inefficient stoves primarily affects the rural population in poor and developing countries, usually lacking access to clean and modern energy sources. La Guajira, Colombia, is especially affected, with 40% to 60% of the departmental households relying on firewood, which increases to 80% in rural areas. In the department, only 40.4% of the population have access to natural gas, which drops to 6% in the indigenous reservations, while 68.4% have access to electricity, which reduces to 22% in indigenous reservations. Rural areas with agricultural production in the department can benefit from biomass wastes to address firewood consumption. This study quantified the agricultural biomass waste inventory in La Guajira to assess their availability for energy valorization as cooking fuel or, when possible, for electricity generation. The geolocalization of biomass wastes and rural communities was developed to overlap biomass production with the demand for firewood. Moreover, briquetting, anaerobic digestion, and direct combustion were considered small- and medium-scale options for the energy valorization of biomass wastes. Results highlighted the department’s yearly production of 292,760 to 522,696 t of agricultural biomass wastes between 2010 and 2023. These wastes could yield an estimated 381 to 521 TJ/year of electricity using direct combustion, coinciding with some 21% to 28% of the electricity demand in 2022 in La Guajira. Furthermore, this electricity potential could replace 57% to 78% of the demand for firewood in the department using electric stoves. Moreover, anaerobic digestion could produce from 8.6 to 10 million m³/year, enough to replace between 16% and 18% of the demand for firewood using biogas stoves. Finally, briquettes could replace between 28% and 49% of the firewood demand, considering the adoption of improved biomass stoves. Considering that direct combustion and anaerobic digestion technologies would be efficient on the medium scale, briquettes surfaced as the most viable approach at the small scale to take advantage of agricultural wastes to replace firewood in households in rural areas.