Cooperation in manure-based biogas production networks: An agent-based modeling approach
Authored by Luca Fraccascia, Devrim Murat Yazan, Martijn Mes, Henk Zijm
Date Published: 2018
DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.12.074
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Abstract
Biogas production from manure has been proposed as a partial solution to
energy and environmental concerns. However, manure markets face
distortions caused by considerable unbalance between supply and demand
and environmental regulations imposed for soil and water protection.
Such market distortions influence the cooperation between animal
farmers, biogas producers and arable land owners causing fluctuations in
manure prices paid (or incurred) by animal farmers. This paper adopts an
agent-based modeling approach to investigate the interactions between
manure suppliers, i.e., animal farmers, and biogas producers in an
industrial symbiosis case example consisting of 19 municipalities in the
Overijssel region (eastern Netherlands). To find the manure price for
successful cooperation schemes, we measure the impact of manure
discharge cost, dimension and dispersion of animal farms, incentives
provided by the government for bioenergy production, and the investment
costs of biogas plants for different scales on the economic returns for
both actor types and favorable market conditions. Findings show that
manure exchange prices may vary between -3.33 (sic)/t manure (i.e.,
animal farmer pays to biogas producer) and 7.03 (sic)/t manure (i.e.,
biogas producer pays to animal farmer) and thanks to cooperation, actors
can create a total economic value added between 3.73 (sic)/t manure and
39.37 (sic)/t manure. Hence, there are cases in which animal fanners can
profitably be paid, but the presence of a supply surplus not met by
demand provides an advantage to arable land owners and biogas producers
in the price contracting phase in the current situation in the
Netherlands.
Tags
Agent-based modeling
Industrial symbiosis
Supply chain network
renewable energy
Life-cycle assessment
Ethanol-production
Biogas production networks
Manure markets
Sustainable supply chains
Anaerobic-digestion
2nd-generation biomass
Methane production
Biofuel production
Carbon
emissions