ABSTRACT
Energy
recovery from waste biomass can have significant impacts on the most pressing development
challenges of rural poverty and environmental damages. In this paper, a
techno-economic analysis is carried out for electricity generation by using
timber and wood waste (T & WW) gasification in Iceland. Different expenses
were considered, like capital, installation, engineering, operation and
maintenance costs and the interest rate of the investment. Regarding to
revenues, they come from of the electricity sale and the fee paid by the
Icelandic municipalities for waste collection and disposal. The economic
feasibility was conducted based on the economic indicators of net present value
(NPV) and discounted payback period (DPP), bringing together three different
subgroups based on gasifier capacities, subgroup a: 50 kW, subgroup b: 100 kW and subgroup c: 200 kW.
The results show that total cost increases as the implemented power is
increased. This indicator varies from 1228.6 k€ for subgroups a to 1334.7 k€
for subgroups b and 1479.5 k€ for subgroups c. It is worth mentioning that NPV
is positive for three subgroups and it grows as gasifier scale is extended. NPV
is about 122 k€ (111,020 $),
1824 k€ (1,659,840 $) and
4392 k€ (3,996,720 $) for
subgroups a, b and c, respectively. Moreover, DPP has an inversely proportional
to the installed capacity. It is around 5.5 years (subgroups a), 9.5 months
(subgroups b) and 6 months (subgroups c). The obtained results confirm that
using small scale waste biomass gasification integrated with power generation
could be techno-economically feasible for remote area in Iceland.