Optimization of biomass fuelled systems for distributed power generation using Particle Swarm Optimization

With sufficient territory and abundant biomass resources Spain appears to have suitable conditions to develop biomass utilization technologies. As an important decentralized power technology, biomass gasification and power generation has a potential market in making use of biomass wastes. This paper addresses biomass fuelled generation of electricity in the specific aspect of finding the best location and the supply area of the electric generation plant for three alternative technologies (gas motor, gas turbine and fuel cell-microturbine hybrid power cycle), taking into account the variables involved in the problem, such as the local distribution of biomass resources. transportation costs, distance to existing electric lines, etc. For each technology, not only optimal location and supply area of the biomass plant, but also net present value and generated electric power are determined by an own binary variant of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO). According to the values derived from the optimization algorithm, the most profitable technology can be chosen. Computer simulations show the good performance of the proposed binary PSO algorithm to optimize biomass fuelled systems for distributed power generation. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.