Resumen de Methodology to evaluate the feasibility of local biomass resources as a fuel for building boilers. Application to a Mediterranean area
David Alfonso Solar, Carlos Vargas Salgado, Elías Hurtado Pérez, Paula Bastida Molina
The massive implementation of distributed energy resources based on biofuels requiresa complex methodology to assess the optimal energy valorization options andeconomic feasibility. This paper has focused on producing pellets for boilers. Thework focuses on the residential and commercial sectors. To consume local biomass,it must be considered the availability of potential customers, biomass availability,properties, and dispersion to evaluate transport cost. The developed methodologywas applied to three different counties of the Valencian Community (typical of Mediterraneanareas). Biomass resources for different counties have been quantifiedand characterized regarding key issues as heating value and ash content. Consideringevery evaluated area (the typical total area in the range 600 to 1800 km2) as abiomass management unit, the impact of pellet production plant size and biomasstransport costs for three different counties was evaluated. However, different balancesbetween biomass resources availability and self-consumption potentials areobtained, the economic feasibility of pellet plants was acceptable in the three caseswith payback periods from 5 to 6 years.
