To understand more about how farmers have integrated 2G energy crops into their wider farm business, the ETI commissioned ADAS to carry out three case studies of successful transitions to 2G energy crops, examining the financial impact of the crop and understanding how farmers have optimised the way they use their land to minimise any impact on food production. This document provides the evidence behind each case study and details how the financial costs and benefits and food production changes were calculated. .
All three case studies demonstrate that planting energy crops can increase the profitability of the land over a 23-year lifetime. Initial investment costs are expected to be paid back within the first six to seven years.
When optimising the use of land across the farm, impacts on food production can be minimised or avoided. in two case studies, food impacts were minimised by using land which delivered poor arable yields, and by minimising the reduction in sheep numbers through higher stocking densities (the number of sheep per hectare). in the third case study, the crop was planted on unused land so no food production was displaced.
Land which is less suitable for food production or grazing can be suited to energy crops as they can be successfully planted on poorer quality soils, and land which is more prone to waterlogging or weed problems. They are also suited to less accessible fields as they require less intensive management than arable crops.
The farmers in these case studies chose to grow energy crops for a variety of reasons - making better use of difficult or underutilised land, diversifying income and reducing workload. In addition, all farmers cited the importance of obtaining secure fixed-term contracts with buyers in their decision making. This reinforces findings from previous ETI work on enabling UK biomass.
Discussions with land agents suggest that land used to grow biomass crops should not be valued differently to other agricultural land, as land should be valued on its productive capacity. however, the specific price offered by a buyer will be affected by their objectives in buying the land and their understanding of bioenergy crops. The presence of a profitable contract for the crop and a willingness from the buyer to continue with bioenergy cropping may have a beneficial impact on the land value. If the buyer wishes to change the land use, is uncertain how to manage a bioenergy crop, or if there are limited market outlets for the crop, the land value may be lower than if it weren’t planted with a bioenergy crop.
Qualitative evidence from the Miscanthus farmers indicate an increase in wildlife, particularly birds, since growing the crop. In the Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) Willow case study, the farm carried out an environmental impact assessment (EIA) before planting.
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This report, the final deliverable from the project, contains both the Development and Deployment Opportunity Assessment and the Technology and Demonstration Benefits Assessment. The report covers all eight technologies selected for detailed investigation. Dedicated biomass chemical looping combustion and to a lesser extent cofired carbonate looping came out as two of the more attractive biomass CCS technology combinations for possible development and demonstration in the UK. This was due to their attractive prospects in terms of offering relatively high efficiency and low capex at a range of scales, the significant level of existing UK expertise (at least at the academic level), and most importantly, the potential for first mover advantage to make a significant impact in the IP space, given the size of the budget available toETI.
However, there are several technical hurdles to be overcome in the development and scale-up of the two looping technologies, and large uncertainties attached to the cost estimates considered in this study.
The TESBiC consortium recommends the following UK technology demonstration for consideration: A flexible pilot plant with dual inter-connected circulating fluidized bed (CFB) reactors, suitable for investigating, testing and demonstrating primarily chemical looping combustion, but that can also be used to test and demonstrate post-combustion carbonate looping capture, as well as oxy-fuel combustion of biomass
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. Bioenergy production coupled with CCS could provide up to 10% of UK energy in the 2050s and deliver substantial net negative emissions. At the time of writing (2012) Bioenergy with CCS was thought to have the potential to remove 50 - 100 Mt of CO2 from the atmosphere each year by 2050. More recent analysis, published in the Bioenergy Insights papers, suggests that this figure is closer to 55 Mt CO2/yr.The Biomass to Power with CCS project found that uncertainties in the data resulted in large potential uncertainties in the conclusions, particularly with regard to the looping technologies. This made the comparison of the eight technologies, and drawing definitive conclusions, difficult. The project team recommended further investigation of the data, in particular data relating to chemical looping technologies
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. The Biomass to Power with CCS project (2011-2012) consisted of an assessment of the technology and cost barriers for biomass fuelled power and the optimum scale-up potential of single-source and co-fired biomass to power with carbon capture technology. This executive summary is based on the summary provided by the consortium in their Technology Landscape and Recommendations Report; this is the output of Work Package 1.
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This document outlines the Model Data Requirements Specification and the Model Template Release for the eight technologies modelled as part of the project. They were used in the development of the Bioenergy Value Chain Model (BVCM).
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This document (from Work Package 3) provide the specification and user guidance for the the first two, of eight, parameterised technology models that will be used by the Bioenergy Value Chain Modelling (BVCM) project. The two technologies covered in this report are Biodedicated IGCC and Co-fired IGCC both with physical absorption-based carbon capture.
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. Bioenergy production coupled with CCS could provide up to 10% of UK energy in the 2050s and deliver substantial net negative emissions. At the time of writing (2012) Bioenergy with CCS was thought to have the potential to remove 50 - 100 Mt of CO2 from the atmosphere each year by 2050. More recent analysis, published in the Bioenergy Insights papers, suggests that this figure is closer to 55 Mt CO2/yr. The Biomass to Power with CCS project found that uncertainties in the data resulted in large potential uncertainties in the conclusions, particularly with regard to the looping technologies. This made the comparison of the eight technologies, and drawing definitive conclusions, difficult. The project team recommended further investigation of the data, in particular data relating to chemical looping technologies.
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This report, the first deliverable from the project, is a landscape overview of current biomass based power generation and CCS technologies. It also reviews current global demonstration activities. The consortium has assessed the various combinations of biomass power with CCS technologies, before recommending a shortlist of eight technologies for further detailed study in the rest of the project. The report includes an explanation of the consortium’s high-level thoughts, structuring and prioritisation behind their recommendation to take 8 technologies forward.
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This report, the 2nd deliverable from the project, is a high level study of the engineering associated with implementing each of the 8 technologies identified in the Technology Landscape report (1st deliverable: WP1). It includes, for each technology, an overview evaluation of system performance. It provides a critical assessment of knowledge gaps, technical risks and subject areas that will require further development work. It also includes an overview of the total process for the combined technologies, preliminary process flow diagrams, high level process control philosophy, environmental performance summary, estimate of the project development and capital costs and an estimate of operating and maintenance costs
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This presentation was used to brief ETI members and advisors on the outcomes of the high level engineering study carried out by the Biomass to Power with CCS project team. It should be read in parallel with the full report: D2.1 Report on Selected Technology Combinations.
The Techno-economic Study of Biomass to Power with CCS (TESBIC) project, which has been commissioned by ETI, is concerned with the performance of an overview techno-economic assessment of the current and potential future approaches to the combination of technologies which involve the generation of electricity from biomass materials, and those which involve carbon dioxide capture.
The present document forms the deliverable within work package WP3, it covers the work on :
D3.3: Parameterised sub-system models
D3.4: Model requirements and specifications and modelling strategy
D3.5: Model and sub-model user documentation
Following the first variation of Contract/Agreement with ETI, the aforementioned deliverables have been applied to the final three (T6,T7,T8) out of eight technology combinations.
T7 Biomass combustion, with CO2 capture by post-combustion carbonate looping
T8 Dedicated biomass chemical-looping-combustion using a solid oxygen carrier
The overall model structure finalised for WP3 employs the “base+delta” modelling framework (see D3.1 and D3.2). This fits the requirements for the capture of information and transfer to ETI and compatibility with the Biomass Value Chain Modelling (BVCM) and ETI’s Energy System Modelling (ESME) projects. The models were developed based on the techno-economic sensitivity data obtained from WP2 and additional available data. The “base+delta” model is readily implementable in MS-ExcelTM.
This document also provides user documentation of the models and its sub-models developed as part of WP3. This document is intended to enable any potential user to use and understand the models and their application. Data standard validation, parameter estimation and improvement of model robustness were carried out using the Model Development Suite (MoDS). Overall, the models offer evaluation of key techno-economic variables such as CAPEX, OPEX, efficiencies, and emissions as a function of inputs such as co-firing, capacity factor, nameplate capacity and extent of carbon capture
TESBiC: Techno-Economic Study of Biomass to power with CCS. This document (from Work Package 3) provides the specification and user guidance for three, of eight, parameterised technology models that will be used by the Bioenergy Value Chain Modelling (BVCM) project. The three technologies covered in this report are biomass co-firing in a pulverised coal-fired power plant with post combustion amine scrubbing-based carbon capture, biomass combustion in a dedicated power plant with carbon capture by solvent scrubbing, and biomass co-firing in a large pulverised coal power plant with carbon capture by oxyfuel firing.
Published in 2010, the request for proposals set out the project scope for the Biomass to Power with CCS project. The project consisted of an assessment of the technology and cost barriers for biomass fuelled power and the optimum scale-up potential of single-source and co-fired biomass to power with carbon capture technology
It is important to understand fully the end-to-end elements across the bioenergy value chain: from crops and land use, to conversion of biomass to useful energy vectors, and the manner in which it is integrated into the rest of the UK energy system (e.g. into transport, heat or electricity). This insights report presents the evolution of that work, incorporating data arising from the ELUM project on soil carbon changes to calculate dLUC emissions, and examining
how material they are in UK bioenergy value chains, and
identifying which UK value chains offer a significant opportunity to deliver GHG savings relative to fossil baselines.
CCS is a game-changer. Bioenergy value chains with CCS render dLUC emissions of second-order importance, since virtually all CCS value chains using 2G bioenergy crops grown in the UK would deliver substantial negative emissions tothe UK. This work strengthens the link between biomass and CCS, which remains the only credible route to deliver genuine negative carbon emissions at the scale necessary to meet the UK’s 2050 GHG emission reduction targets<
ETI’s Strategy Manager Hannah Evans presents “Making efficient use of bioenergy feedstocks for cleaner, greener energy” at an Energy Institute lecture on 27 November 2017 (slide set)
