A comprehensive economic analysis of biomass gasification systems

This paper presents a comprehensive economic analysis of biomass gasification systems. There has recently been interest in promoting biomass energy systems in Japan's domestic sector. However, there are problems in achieving this project. The costs of plant construction are very high compared with conventional plants. Accordingly, the unit costs of electricity will be increased to levels comparable with those of other environmental energy systems. Copyright © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. In this paper, biomass energy systems using woody biomass are proposed from the viewpoint of successful environmental business. Biomass integrated gasification combined cycle (BIGCC) plants operated by independent power producers and biomass gasification cogeneration (BGCGS) plants in sawmills or asphalt‐concrete production factories have the potential for implementation in the near future. Our analysis concludes that the systems proposed in this paper provide the following outcomes with subsidies: (1) the generating cost of BIGCC ranges from 15.1 to 36.6 yen/kWh, (2) the generating cost of BGCGS ranges from 2.6 to 32.2 yen/kWh, and (3) the cost reduction of BGCGS products in asphalt factories amounts to about 60 million yen per year. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 153(3): 52–63, 2005; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/eej.20089