A Review on Supply Costs and Prices of Residual Biomass in Techno-Economic Models for Europe

Abstract

This review paper aims to investigate the supply costs and prices for biogenic residues, wastes and by-products for Europe that are used as key economic parameters for techno-economic analyses in the relevant literature. The scope of the paper is to show: (i) which information on costs and prices is used in techno-economic models; (ii) which sources these monetary values are based on; and (iii) whether these values are able to be compared and classified. The methodology employed in this review paper is a systematic evaluation of the supply costs and prices for residual biomass used as the basis for techno-economic analyses in the literature. Three evaluation criteria (COST TYPE, TIME PERIOD and COST SCOPE) are used to operationalise the scope of the delivery, the time frame and the spatial resolution of the monetary values. The pricing and cost variables UNIT and BIOMASS are also studied. The results show that the supply costs and pricing differ in terms of the units used, the scope of the delivery and the spatial scale, making it difficult to compare individual studies or transfer the findings to other use cases. The costs and pricing examined range from 0.00 EUR/Mg (dm) for “bio-waste from private households” to a regional value of 1097.02 EUR/Mg (dm) for “woody biomass from vineyards”. They are rarely based on cost calculations or price analyses over a period of several years, and more than half of the literature sources examined do not take into account regional differences. The findings suggest that the input data on costs and prices are not always of sufficient quality. For that reason, in the future, the data on supply costs and prices that are provided for processing should have a more detailed temporal and spatial resolution.

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