Evaluación del potencial técnico y económico de plantas de generación eléctrica basadas en desechos agrícolas y agroindustriales, reproducibles en distintas localizaciones en Ecuador

Abstract

This project aims to evaluate the bioenergetic potential of agricultural and agro-industrial residues generated by crops in Ecuador: rice, african palm, hard corn, cocoa, sugar cane, banana and plantain. This evaluation is done under technical and economic considerations. It starts with the theoretical bioenergetic potential of the residues from the data provided by the Ecuadorian Bioenergetic Atlas (Atlas Bioenergético del Ecuador) and information from both, national and sector censuses, and, also the Continuous Agricultural Production Surveys. Subsequently, sustainable potential is determined based on a 30% factor that allows the extraction of crop waste for energy purposes without affecting the ecosystem balance neither the current uses. The technical potential is obtained with a 25% conversion efficiency in a Rankine cycle plant which uses combustion chambers for the steam boilers and the thermodynamic analysis is done through the EES software considering losses and self-consumption, calculating pressure and temperature values for a 5MWe net power to the electrical network. Lastly, the economic potential is determined by the LCOE indicator. The study determines a selection of 11 cantons as possible places with favorable conditions to reproduce one or more electric generation plants of 5MWe using biomass residues of rice husk, sugarcane bagasse, african palm kernel and its fiber. The information is presented through maps at cantonal level done by the ArcMap application of the ArcGIS Software.