Abstract
The promotion of the development of co-digestion power plants will be intensified in many European Union member states as the main target of the Union concerning energy generation is complete decarbonisation by 2050. This potential expansion prompts the need for optimal resources allocation according to several techno-economical parameters, highlighting energy costs, power infrastructures access, and social and environmental aspects and restrictions. In Spain, agricultural and livestock biogas production trough co-digestion power plants is still poorly deployed, although the EU Directive 2009/28/EU stipulates that energy from bio-fuels and bio-liquids should contribute to a reduction of at least 35% of greenhouse gas emissions in order to be taken into account, and many authors agree that biogas produced from energy crops and livestock waste fulfils this criterion. Moreover, biogas can be used to upgrade gas pipelines and may have other efficient thermal uses. In this paper, through a Geographical Information System approach, eight different co-digestion mixtures have been evaluated and the most profitable ones have been optimized for the Spanish Iberian Peninsula according to the geographical distribution of the resources. Furthermore, the best locations for co-digestion power plants siting have been calculated, minimizing transport costs and considering technical, environmental and social restrictions. In contrast with other studies, this proposed approach is focused on a holistic optimization. Results show that in Spain the most feasible co-digestion mixtures are based on slurry, glycerine and animal meals, and four areas arise with an outstanding energetic potential up to 208 MW exploitable in large electrical power plants, while 347 MW can be reserved for distributed generation based on this technology.
Highlights
The European Union (EU) states on its energy roadmap for 2050 that EU members have to prepare their infrastructure for further decarbonisation of its energy system in the longer term towards
This study investigates the possibility of using citrus pulp as a possible matrix of the mixture necessary to feed anaerobic digesters in areas where the biogas sector is still developing
The main aim of this study is to evaluate the maximum generation potential with co-digestion-based power plants and, as novel approach, to differentiate the power capacity of this technology which must be exploited in centralized power plants
Summary
The European Union (EU) states on its energy roadmap for 2050 that EU members have to prepare their infrastructure for further decarbonisation of its energy system in the longer term towards. This framework should, be able to accommodate possible future EU energy and climate policy objectives [1], being aligned with the goal of promoting the large-scale use of renewable energy sources, but always considering minimum cost and maximum efficacy criteria. Most EU members have been carrying out energy policies according to the 2050 roadmap since several years ago, with different success rates depending on the economic and financial circumstances. With the aim Environments 2018, 5, 137; doi:10.3390/environments5120137 www.mdpi.com/journal/environments. 40%to ofreduce the COby in comparison with the 1990 levels in the energy circumstances.
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