Costs, available resources and quality of fuel straw - Influence of local variations in weather and geography and choice of handling systems

The potential for use of straw as a fuel is 4-7 TWh/year in Sweden, but the actual use is only approx. 0.3 TWh/year. Important obstacles to the increased use of straw fuel include uncertainty about the continuity of supply between different years and annual variations in fuel quality. Furthermore straw is a bulky fuel, which means that it is expensive to transport and store and that the logistics costs are accordingly high.

In this project, a dynamic simulation model was developed to analyse these aspects for some districts of Sweden. Data on weather, soil, geography, etc. was used as input data in the model, which will then calculated costs and different measures of supply security and fuel quality for different management systems. The model was applied to some small district heating plants (1-2 MW).