Cost-efficiency of intermodal container supply chain for forest chips

Abstract

Cost-efficient solutions of supply chains for energy wood are requiredas part of endeavors to reach targets for renewable energy utilization.Long-distance railway transportation is an interesting area of research,especially for high-volume sites where the forest-to-site distance isconsiderable and rail facilities already exist. The aim of the study wasto compare the cost-efficiency of an intermodal container supply chainand traditional multi-modal supply chain with corresponding direct trucklogistics for long-distance transportation of forest chips. In thestudy, site-dependent information for forest biomass transport wasintegrated into a simulation model to calculate the cost-efficiency oflogistic operations related to forest chips transportation in centralFinland. The model was tested with several truck and railwaytransportation scenarios for varying demand of forest chips at the casepower plant. The total costs of traditional supply chains were found tobe 5-19% more expensive than container supply chain scenarios. Thetotal unit costs of forest chips varied between 15.3 and 20.0 (sic)/MWhdepending on the scenario. It is concluded on the basis of the scenariostudy that intermodal light-structure container logistics and railwaytransportation could be developed as a viable option for large-scalesupply of forest chips.