Title
Economic and Environmental Performance of Biowaste-to-energy Technologies for Small-scale Electricity Generation
Date Issued
01 January 2022
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Graded S. P. A.
Publisher(s)
State Grid Electric Power Research Institute Nanjing Branch
Abstract
Electricity is predicted to be the energy vector that will undergo major changes in the future, and a transition would be observed in the resources such as waste and residual biomass that we use to satisfy the energy demand. Therefore, this study aims to highlight the main economic and environmental performances of different biowaste-to-energy technologies for small-scale electricity generation by comparing the direct combustion of refined vegetable oil obtained from waste cooking oils (thermal pathway), anaerobic digestion of biowaste (bio-chemical pathway), and gasification of wood residues (thermo-chemical pathway). The economic analysis is mainly based on personal experiences in the energy sector and shows an overview of the performance in investment of combined heat and power (CHP) systems, ranging from 100 to 500 kW for a period of 20 years. The environmental assessment is conducted considering the life-cycle thinking approach using support from the openLCA software, product environmental footprint (PEF) data-base, and previous studies that have reported environmental inventory data from real industrial cases.
Start page
12
End page
18
Volume
10
Issue
1
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Sistemas de automatización, Sistemas de control
Ingeniería eléctrica, Ingeniería electrónica
Subjects
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-85124160160
Source
Journal of Modern Power Systems and Clean Energy
ISSN of the container
21965625
Sources of information:
Directorio de Producción Científica
Scopus