Techno-Economic Analysis of a Small-Scale Biomass-to-Energy BFB Gasification-Based System

Andrea Porcu, Stefano Sollai, Davide Marotto, Mauro Mureddu, Francesca Ferrara and Alberto Pettinau
Additional contact information
Andrea Porcu: Sotacarbo S.p.A., 09013 Carbonia, Italy
Stefano Sollai: Sotacarbo S.p.A., 09013 Carbonia, Italy
Davide Marotto: Sotacarbo S.p.A., 09013 Carbonia, Italy
Mauro Mureddu: Sotacarbo S.p.A., 09013 Carbonia, Italy
Francesca Ferrara: Sotacarbo S.p.A., 09013 Carbonia, Italy
Alberto Pettinau: Sotacarbo S.p.A., 09013 Carbonia, Italy

Energies, 2019, vol. 12, issue 3, 1-17

Abstract: In order to limit global warming to around 1.5–2.0 °C by the end of the 21st century, there is the need to drastically limit the emissions of CO 2 . This goal can be pursued by promoting the diffusion of advanced technologies for power generation from renewable energy sources. In this field, biomass can play a very important role since, differently from solar and wind, it can be considered a programmable source. This paper reports a techno-economic analysis on the possible commercial application of gasification technologies for small-scale (2 MW e ) power generation from biomass. The analysis is based on the preliminary experimental performance of a 500 kW th pilot-scale air-blown bubbling fluidized-bed (BFB) gasification plant, recently installed at the Sotacarbo Research Centre (Italy) and commissioned in December 2017. The analysis confirms that air-blown BFB biomass gasification can be profitable for the applications with low-cost biomass, such as agricultural waste, with a net present value up to about 6 M€ as long as the biomass is provided for free; on the contrary, the technology is not competitive for high-quality biomass (wood chips, as those used for the preliminary experimental tests). In parallel, an analysis of the financial risk was carried out, in order to estimate the probability of a profitable investment if a variation of the key financial parameters occurs. In particular, the analysis shows a probability of 90% of a NPV at 15 years between 1.4 and 5.1 M€ and an IRR between 11.6% and 23.7%.

Keywords: bubbling fluidized-bed; pilot-scale plant; biomass; techno-economic analysis; risk assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/3/494/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/12/3/494/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:12:y:2019:i:3:p:494-:d:203475

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().