Optimizing the bioenergy industry infrastructure: Transportation networks and bioenergy plant locations
Authored by Juergen Scheffran, Kesheng Shu, Uwe A Schneider
Date Published: 2017
DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2017.01.092
Sponsors:
German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG)
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Abstract
In the context of combating climate change and maintaining energy
security, ambitious bioenergy development projects in emerging economies
face considerable challenges, for example an overburdened bioenergy
industry infrastructure due to the growing demand for bioenergy
products. There are abundant studies on optimizing the bioenergy
industry infrastructure. However, they fail to comprehensively simulate
the interactions among the predominant actors of the infrastructure,
especially the bioenergy plant operators in emerging economies. To fill
this research gap, We develop a new dynamic agent -based model of
optimized bioenergy industry infrastructure. from the perspective of
bioenergy plant operators. We then apply the model to Jiangsu Province
of China to simulate the coordination of two types of bioenergy plants
and project the optimal distribution of these plants and their
corresponding transportation networks for the year of 2030. The model
results suggest locating bioenergy plants closer to bioenergy feedstock
source regions rather than to bioenergy products consumption sites, an
answer to the classical facility location problem. A welfare analysis
based on the extended model indicates that the biomass densification
process aiming at mitigating the growing transport volumes incurred by
the delivery of bulky bioenergy feedstock is not economically profitable
in our case region. The experiences from this region further show that
for emerging economies, a successful bioenergy industry infrastructure
needs to take the benefits of smallholder farmers into consideration.
(C) 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Tags
Agent-based model
bioenergy
China
Optimization
biomass
Model
Supply chains
Methodology
Generation
Ethanol
Province
Facility location
Chain optimization
Information-system