Techno-economic assessment of pellets produced from steam pretreated biomass feedstock

Minimum production cost and optimum plant size are determined for pellet plants for three types of biomass feedstock - forest residue, agricultural residue, and energy crops. The life cycle cost from harvesting to the delivery of the pellets to the co-firing facility is evaluated. The cost varies from 95 to 105 $ t−1 for regular pellets and 146-156 $ t−1 for steam pretreated pellets. The difference in the cost of producing regular and steam pretreated pellets per unit energy is in the range of 2-3 $ GJ−1. The economic optimum plant size (i.e., the size at which pellet production cost is minimum) is found to be 190 kt for regular pellet production and 250 kt for steam pretreated pellet. Sensitivity and uncertainty analyses were carried out to identify sensitivity parameters and effects of model error.