Assessment of biomass potential for power production: a GIS based method

A method is presented, which estimates the potential for power production from agriculture residues. A GIS decision support system (DSS) has been developed, which implements the method and provides the tools to identify the geographic distribution of the economically exploited biomass potential. The procedure introduces a four level analysis to determine the theoretical, available, technological and economically exploitable potential. The DSS handles all possible restrictions and candidate power plants are identified using an iterative procedure that locates bioenergy units and establishes the needed cultivated area for biomass collection. Electricity production cost is used as a criterion in the identification of the sites of economically exploited biomass potential. The island of Crete is used as an example of the decision-making analysis. A significant biomass potential exists that could be economically and competitively harvested. The main parameters that affect the location and number of bioenergy conversion facilities are plant capacity and spatial distribution of the available biomass potential. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.