Planning biomass energy production in a farming area

Authors

A thorough analysis of biomass supply and of

energy demand should be carried out at local scale in order to

optimize bioenergy plans and deal with the related social ad

environmental issues. We present a method to identify the

optimal use of biomass: local biomass availability is assessed,

the road network is used to evaluate transportation costs, and

different energy conversion technologies are considered.

Energy crops and animal slurries are considered as feedstocks.

We also estimate the amount of land available for energy crops,

given the current land use. The comparison between possible

conversion systems is carried out solving an optimization

problem for the net energy produced in the system, accounting

for energy needs for biomass cultivation, collection, and

transportation. An emissive indicator is used to evaluate the

amount of carbon equivalent emissions avoided. The economic

performance of the systems is also analysed. The method is

applied to the province of Ravenna in Italy. Transport and

cultivation energy and emissions are much smaller than the

energy produced or the emissions avoided. The biomass

transformation chain can indeed provide 1.9-3.3% of the

present power consumption and may reduce GHG emissions by

1-3.5% by replacing fossil fuels.