Assessment of the energy potential of agricultural crop residues in rural areas of Côte d’Ivoire

There is significant interest in using biomass for power generation as coal continues to raise environmental concerns. Agricultural biomass residue-based energy generation has become one of the major focus areas of renewable energy in different countries around the world. This study quantifies the agricultural crop residues available like rice, coffee and cocoa in the rural areas in Côte d’Ivoire for energy generation purposes. Thereby, an assessment of the energy potential of these agricultural crop residues has been carried out. The results of this analysis reveal that the theoretical average potential and the average available biomass energy potential of these residues are 54.03 PJ and 35.63 PJ per year, respectively. Also, this abundant energy resource usually left to rot can allow the production of about 6.77 to 9.26 PJ of electricity per year distributed among the residues as follows: cocoa pod husk (54%), rice straw (34%), rice husk (11%) and coffee husk (1%). This study shows that there is important biomass energy potential for energy sustainability in Côte d’Ivoire.