Techno-economic Assessment of Biomass Gasification of Spartina argentinensis

Abstract

Argentina has rangelands with high biomass production and low profitability such as the «Bajos Submeridionales», a depressed 33,000 km2 area mostly dominated by a perennial grass, Spartina argentinensis. In this work, we assessed the technoeconomic feasibility of S. argentinensis pellets gasification for combined heat and power purposes. The energy balance was estimated, resulting in an Energy Return On Investment (EROI) of 5.43. Breakeven energy price (BEPE) was calculated for:(i) business as usual (BAU) and (ii) alternative scenario (AS) considering an international natural gas price of 0.2 and 0.47 USD.m-3 respectively. Investment net present value (NPV) was calculated and a sensitivity analysis was performed. BEPE resulted in 149 and 126.2 USD.MWeh-1 for BAU and AS respectively. NPV was -4.4 and -1.6 million dollars for BAU and AS respectively, showing the relevance of natural gas price on economic results. Power efficiency and electricity selling price were the variables with higher impact on NPV.