Green Energy Prospects of Electricity Generated from Short-Rotation Woody Crops—Quantifying the EROIg of Bioelectricity

Abstract

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s sixth assessment report (AR6) allocates 15% to 43% of global primary energy to biomass in 2050 across multiple mitigation scenarios. The report also emphasizes the importance of electrification. For increased reliance on electricity and on biomass, bioelectricity is expected to play a major role. It is therefore vital to know whether the energy generation potential of biomass electricity can support the removal of its environmental impact, particularly as generation at large scale is expected to rely almost solely on energy crops. This paper evaluates the potential of short-rotation woody crops in generating green electricity. This is performed using the “Green Energy Return on Investment (EROIg)” methodology, which indicates the net energy generated after investing in ecosystem maintenance energy (ESME). This study found that the EROIg of bioelectricity is marginally larger than unity when converted to its primary equivalent form (EROIg-PE). Three design options were proposed to improve bioenergy’s EROIg. Among these options, pelletizing wood chips has the largest advantage with an EROIg of 1.11 and an EROIg-PE of 3.17. We conclude with a discussion of the indirect advantages of growing energy crops, and discuss how this technique can be used alongside others to help generate cleaner energy.