Incorporation of location-specific parameters and policy incentives in the Techno-Economic Analysis (TEA) of biorefineries

Biofuels will be an important part of a successful bioeconomy and the transition to renewable sources of energy. For this reason, various programs and incentives have been implemented at the federal and state levels to stimulate the production of biofuels from various feedstocks. New feedstocks and conversion technologies are constantly evaluated via TEA to suggest areas along the biofuel supply chain in need of improvement. However, despite incentivization frequent evaluation, the production of biofuels from lignocellulosic biomass has historically fallen short of targets set by the national Renewable Fuels Standard. Thus, it is apparent that additional financial support and technological breakthroughs are necessary to promote the development of the biofuel industry. This project explores the effect of various location-specific contextual parameters and existing incentives on biorefinery economics while simultaneously considering a range of biorefinery operating conditions under uncertainty using BioSTEAM. Location-specific parameters and incentives were characterized by their effect on a lipidcane biorefinery’s minimum fuel selling price. Location-specific parameters that were evaluated include state income tax rates, property tax rates, feedstock prices, electricity prices, and location capital cost factors. Twenty-four tax incentives available to biorefineries were also evaluated. All location-specific parameters and 5 of 24 tax incentives had observable effects on the minimum fuel selling price. Across realistic ranges of parameter values observed in the United States, the influence of location-specific parameters varied the minimum fuel selling price by approximately 0.50 to 2.00 USD·gallon-1 (or approximately 20 to 90% of the baseline price). Tax incentives regularly lowered the minimum fuel selling price by 0.10 to 0.50 USD·gallon-1 (4 to 20% of the baseline price). The results of this study highlight the importance of accounting for the influence of location in future biorefinery TEAs.LimitedAuthor requested closed access (OA after 2yrs) in Vireo ETD syste