Abstract

This study aims to analyze the economic and environmental sustainability of a case study of an energy power plant that produces electricity from pruning residues of olive groves from nine municipalities in southern Italy. To assess the economic sustainability of the agro-energetic chain, the profitability and efficiency ratios are calculated. Moreover, the GHG emissions of the agro-energetic pruning supply chain due to both the pruning collection at the field level, and their combustion for energy production at the power plant, are calculated. To put together the environmental and economic evaluations, the ecoefficiency ratio was calculated to measure the value added per 1Mg of GHG emitted into the atmosphere. The findings show the whole agro-energetic chain, namely the power plant and the collection company have both a good return on owner’s equity (ROE) ratio (15.89% and 31.48%, respectively) and ROI ratio (4.34% and 6.14% respectively). Moreover, the power plant’s ecoefficiency ratio (2.64€ per 1Mg of GHG) is slightly lower than harvest firm one (2.91€ per 1Mg of GHG). The findings could be useful to develop new business models based on the circular economy concept. In fact, the business model proposed could push entrepreneurs towards new income opportunities, at the same time, helping local farms and reducing the environmental impacts.

Highlights

  • Concerns about emissions from fossil fuel use have stimulated renewable energy adoption, which included bioenergy and its crop residue [1]

  • To assess the economic sustainability of an agro-energetic chain, the return on owner’s equity (ROE) and return on investment (ROI) ratios are calculated for the power plant and harvest firm (Tables 3 and 4)

  • This research aims to analyze the economic and environmental sustainability of a 1 MWe power plant that produce electricity exclusively from olive pruning in Southern Italy, that represent a unique case-study in Europe

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Summary

Introduction

Concerns about emissions from fossil fuel use have stimulated renewable energy adoption, which included bioenergy and its crop residue [1]. In Apulia Region, where about 33% of the Italian olive groves are concentrated [5], according to [6], up to 7 Mg per hectare per year of green prunings are available for energy uses [6]. It is an abundant biomass resource, the exploitation of tree prunings for energy purposes is still limited, due mainly to logistics-related constraints [7]. These constraints are only partly related to the harvesting stage. The transport of a low energy density biomass from small-sized and scattered tree plantations affects the overall economic sustainability of a pruning-to-energy value chain [9]

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