The Bioenergy simulator aims to assess the bioenergy potential for any given area. It focuses primarily on the biomass produced without accounting for competition for residues or of different land use applications into consideration.
Performing such assessment poses several key questions:
- Which local feedstock is best for production?
- Which technologies match the selected feedstock?
- What is the area’s production potential?
- What is the infrastructure availability?
- What concerns might arise about sustainability?
- What is the environmental impact of diverting resources to bioenergy production?
Answering these questions can help the user identify the required criteria to select the:
- potential area for analysis;
- biomass sources:
- Crops – includes 14 dedicated bioenergy crops;
- Agricultural residues – includes 28 different residue types;
- Livestock waste – covers 9 specific waste types;
- Forest plantations – includes 52 tree species.
- bioenergy end-use:
- Transport
- Heating
- Electricity
- bioenergy conversion technology - liquid, solid and gaseous fuels:
- Anaerobic digestion
- Combustion
- Gasification
- Hydrolysis-fermentation
Through the users’ selection, the simulator will search its database and by defining the geospatial data - flag potential issues related to population density, protected areas and water scarcity. It will also search for crops or residues suitable to the local agro-ecological conditions, biomass productivity, biomass technical parameters, and the conversion factors as well as any additional information. The simulator will then return the outputs of the simulation, which include the total biomass production and average biomass yield, in addition to the bioenergy potentials in terms of the biofuel yield, biofuel production, energy output for electricity, heat, or transport and possible applications of the bioenergy produced.
The Bioenergy simulator is a user-friendly web-based application developed to help policy makers, practitioners, and business developers estimate potential bioenergy and plan bioenergy development taking into consideration combinations of area, biomass resource, technology, and end-use.
The simulator aims to raise awareness on modern bioenergy production options to help meet global climate goals, decarbonise the world’s energy system, and ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable energy for all.
It is important to note that this knowledge is provided without assessing the financial viability, the socio-economic feasibility, and the environmental impacts.
It is one of a series of web applications developed by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) as part of the Global Atlas for Renewable Energy.