Economic Evaluation of Large-Scale Biorefinery Deployment : A Framework Integrating Dynamic Biomass Market and Techno-Economic Models

• Biofuels and biochemicals play significant roles in the transition towards a fossil-free society. However, large-scale biorefineries are not yet cost-competitive with their fossil-fuel counterparts, and it is important to identify biorefinery concepts with high economic performance. For evaluating early-stage biorefinery concepts, one needs to consider not only the technical performance and process costs but also the economic performance of the full supply chain and the impacts on feedstock and product markets. This article presents and demonstrates a conceptual interdisciplinary framework that can constitute the basis for evaluations of the full supply-chain performance of biorefinery concepts. This framework considers the competition for biomass across sectors, assumes exogenous end-use product demand, and incorporates various geographical and technical constraints. The framework is demonstrated empirically through a case study of a sawmill-integrated biorefinery producing liquefied biomethane from forestry and forest industry residues. The case study results illustrate that acknowledging biomass market effects in the supply chain evaluation implies changes in both biomass prices and the allocation of biomass across sectors. The proposed framework should facilitate the identification of biorefinery concepts with a high economic performance which are robust to feedstock price changes caused by the increase in biomass demand.

Ämnesord

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Industriell bioteknik -- Bioenergi (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Industrial Biotechnology -- Bioenergy (hsv//eng)

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Ekonomi och näringsliv -- Nationalekonomi (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Economics and Business -- Economics (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Maskinteknik -- Annan maskinteknik (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Mechanical Engineering -- Other Mechanical Engineering (hsv//eng)

TEKNIK OCH TEKNOLOGIER  -- Naturresursteknik -- Energisystem (hsv//swe)

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY  -- Environmental Engineering -- Energy Systems (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

supply chain

partial equilibrium

biofuel

soft-linking

price formation

Energy Engineering

Energiteknik

Economics

Nationalekonomi

Publikations- och innehållstyp

ref (ämneskategori)

art (ämneskategori)