GIS-Integrated Optimization for Locating Food Waste and Manure Anaerobic Co-digestion Facilities

There has been an increasing interest in continuous base-load low-carbon renewable energy generation in the United States. Several technologies have been developed to convert biomass into energy, and anaerobic digestion is one such technology to convert food waste and animal manure into power by biochemical conversion and combustion. Many studies have looked at the optimization of the biomass supply chains in combination with environmental impacts. However, there are very few studies in the literature for determining the optimum location of biopower plants fed by food waste and manure. This study evaluates the optimum locations, sizes, and the number of plants for biopower production in Wisconsin using both mixed-integer linear programing and geographic information system network analysis (ArcGIS V10). The main objective of the study is to maximize the profits of biopower facilities accounting for both the profits from the biopower supply chain and carbon credits. In this study, two scenarios (base case and a future case) were evaluated by varying the carbon credits and the food waste tipping fee: the base case with $0 carbon credits and $0 food waste tipping fee and the future case with $15/ton CO2 savings and $40 tipping fee/ton collected for the food waste. The key results showed that the inclusion of a carbon credit and tipping fee policies increased the profitability of biopower production and predicted an increase in biopower production capacity from 15 to over 77 MW in WI, representing 1% of its annual electricity consumption.