Comparison of PNS’ optimum solution and the scenarios

Table 9 overviews the results of the three optimizations described before.

Optimum

Structure

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Substrate costs

max.

min.

max.

min.

max.

min.

Investment costs [€]

Total investment costs

2,894,519

2,894,519

2,894,519

2,894,519

2,824,519

2,824,519

Products [MWh / yr] and Revenues [€/yr]

Total produced electricity

3,826

3,826

3,900

3,900

3,826

3,826

Total produced heat

4,591

4,591

4,680

4,680

4,591

4,591

Revenue for electricity fed in (205 € / MWh)

784,281

784,281

799,500

799,500

707,766

707,766

Revenue for district heating (22,5 € / MWh)

103,296

103,296

105,300

105,300

103,296

103,296

Total revenue [€/yr]

887,576

887,576

904,800

904,800

811,062

811,062

Operating Costs [€/yr]

Fermentation

114,423

114,423

116,090

116,090

114,423

114,423

CHPs

75,556

75,556

75,556

75,556

51,346

51,346

Transport

60,286

60,286

64,121

64,121

60,286

60,286

Substrates

213,561

129,488

213,400

131,740

213,561

129,488

Electricity

34,432

34,432

35,100

35,100

34,432

34,432

Total operating costs [€/yr]

498,258

414,185

504,267

422,607

474,048

389,975

Operating result without depreciation

389,319

473,392

400,534

482,194

337,015

421,088

Depreciation for 15 years*

192,968

192,968

192,968

192,968

188,301

188,301

Operating result with depreciation*

196,351

280,424

207,566

289,226

148,714

232,787

Table 9. PNS results summary

It turned out that the profitability of a fermenter on location 2 is lower than on the other locations. It was never preferred in any optimum structure. The other locations have one advantage — the shared usage of biogas pipelines whereas low additional costs for location 1 have to be born. There are never heating pipelines from the different locations to the center considered in the optimum technology networks. Just the biogas is transported; heat is produced centrally and distributed within a district heating network, although additional biomass furnaces are required. In scenario 1 the missing corn silage availability was compensated by a higher amount of intercrops, referring to the CH4 content, and it shows the best revenue, because of higher plant utilization and higher revenue for electricity and heat production. Although in the optimal scenario the amount of corn relating to the total feedstock was not even 17 % of the total (dry matter) the compensation for corn with intercrops results in higher revenue. For more corn that intercrops compensate in the input the impact would be even higher. Therefore it is obvious that intercrops can be a profitable feedstock to run a biogas plant. For the case study the availability of intercrops would have to be raised as described before which would lead to the best technology network for the region.

The system has two limiting factors; on the one hand the distances between the fermenter locations and the feedstock providers accompanying different transport costs and on the other hand the limited resource availability. It could be shown that it is not lucrative to run a central CHP with higher capacity (500 kWel) as feed-in tariffs are lower and less revenue can be gained. Nevertheless, from the point of view of sustainability, it would be preferable to substitute two smaller CHPs with a bigger one. An adaptation of reimbursement schemes to the solutions presented is recommended.