Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63

1876-6102 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.

Selection and peer-review under responsibility of COE of Sustainalble Energy System, Rajamangala University of Technology
Thanyaburi (RMUTT)
doi: 10.1016/j.egypro.2013.06.733
10th Eco-Energy and Materials Science and Engineering
(EMSES2012)
A Nation-wide Planning of Agro-residue Utility for
Bioethanol Production and Power Generation in Ecuador
J.C. Garcia M.*, T. Machimura , T. Matsui
Department of Sustainable Energy and Environment, Graduate School of Engineering,
Osaka University, 2-1 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 565-0871 Japan
Abstract
In order to diminish carbon-rich based energy, biomass is known to be an abundant and potentially carbon-neutral
renewable resource for energy production, furthermore it is more technically feasible than many other alternatives.
This paper presents a nation-wide planning of agro-residue utility for bioethanol production and power generation in
Ecuador. The study is based on a previous work of optimization of plant allocation for bioethanol production from
lignocellulosic feedstock. This time, the aim is to conduct a CO
2
and energy assessment, and two scenarios were set
to produce the necessary supply of E15 and bio-electricity to be replaced in the country by optimizing feedstock
selection and energy provision from plants to provinces. The first experiment is performed under no-restriction and is
to maximize total CO
2
reduction. The second experiment is described as to enlarge CO
2
reduction as one of the
restrictions but also to maximize energy supply according to energy sufficiency levels. Results conclude that
selecting high efficiency and easy to derive feedstock and matching demand and supply distribution are the key
measures in planning nation-wide biomass energy utility.

2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of COE of Sustainable Energy System, Rajamangala
University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT)
Keywords: Bioethanol; Bio-electricity; Agro-residues; Optimization; CO
2
reduction
1. Introduction
population growth and development. Most of this total primary energy supply comes from fossil fuels;
however, the environmental burden when combusting, the scarcity of resources and the volatile prices
encourage countries towards the tough task to move into a low-carbon energy production but without
destabilizing their economy and social development. Thus, biomass energy can play a key role in
reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Then, fuels and power generation from biomass offers a promising
alternative as energy carrier for energy security, which can be produced by using eco-friendly feedstock

* Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +81-6-6879-7407
E-mail address: juan-carlos-garcia@ge.see.eng.osaka-u.ac.jp.
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of COE of Sustainalble Energy System, Rajamangala University of Technology
Thanyaburi (RMUTT)
58 J.C. Garcia et al. / Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63
rather than fossil fuels. Non-conventional sources of energy such as solar, wind and biomass can be
considered renewable and environmentally friendly. The latter currently contributes 9 13% of the global
energy supply, accounting for 45 10 EJ per year [4].
The percentage of total primary energy supply (TPES) from biomass share in Latin America is around
17% [1]. Therefore, biomass has the potential to become one of the major global primary energy sources
during the current century whereby, modernized bioenergy systems are suggested to be important
contributors to future sustainable development in industrialized countries as well as in developing
countries [2], [3]. Ecuador is one of these developing countries with a large variety of biomass species
such as forests, grass, crops, municipal solid waste (MSW) and agro-residues; however those are rarely
utilized as energy carriers due to a lack of technology and policy implementation [9]. Moreover, in rural
lands, farmers are not completely aware of the potential of biomass residues as a massive energy source;
therefore, usually most of this organic feedstock ends up burned, wasted or naturally degraded [9].
In order to meet sustainably long-term goals for bioenergy expansion, the production processes must
be low-emission carbon. A vital challenge in fulfilling these goals is synchronizing all the steps in the
biomass-to-fuels and biomass-to-power supply chain from biomass production and logistics to bioenergy
production, distribution, delivery and consumption. While bioenergy demand and end use might be
concentrated in highly crowded areas, its production may be spread through the location [13], [15].
The aim of this paper is to conduct two case experiments for maximizing CO
2
reduction and supply
energy for an integrated process of bioethanol production and power generation, utilizing agro-residues as
feedstock. The result would support a better decision-making for a future strategy towards the
development of sustainable energy system in nation-wide.
2. Method
2.1. Data collection of agro-residue, and gasoline and electricity consumption
In order to design the national bioenergy system for the production of bioethanol blending gasoline
and electricity with agro-residues as feedstock, the annual yield of most productive crops is processed to
attain the total quantity of available residue for energy purpose [21], [9]. The GIS-data of rice, banana,
corn and sugarcane cropping area were collected and integrated with the national statistic data to estimate
the total annual yield of each crop [10], [14], [9]. The total residue amount is calculated for each province
regarding the ratio in ton residue per crop yield ton. The residue ratio data is used to determine the
biomass residues theoretical potential as Table 1 explains [9]. After the total residue quantity is found in
previous analysis, subsequently the total gasoline demand data is gathered from national statistics [7], [9]
and evaluated for each province. From this result, the bioethanol demand for E15 (15% ethanol blended
gasoline) is assessed in order to quantify if current lignocellulosic feedstock can supply sufficient ethanol
to meet the demand [9].
The yield efficiency in terms of ethanol liter per dry ton residue of each crop is crucial to be
determined, which reflects the available ethanol supply, thus the rates are based on literature as for
sugarcane bagasse is 280 [12], rice straw is 280 [12], banana stalk is 124 [11], and corn stover is 290 [12].
By processing these values, the total potential of bioethanol rate for E15 bioethanol is assessed in each
province. As for bio-electricity, national data of electricity supply in 2010 was gathered [6] and sorted
out by types of power generation such as renewable i.e. hydropower, wind, solar and biomass, and non-
renewable i.e. thermal gas turbine, thermal steam turbine and internal combustion diesel engine. For the
study, fossil fuel based power rate is estimated by dividing the total non-renewable energy share by the
population of each province in order to attain the electricity demand to be substituted by bio-electricity.






J.C. Garcia et al. / Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63 59
Table 1. Dry residue per crop yield and residue LHV

Crop Residue
Residue ratio
[dry residue ton/crop
yield]
Residue Low Heat
Value
[GJ/dry ton]
Rice Straw 1.4a 16.8b
Banana Stalk 2.4c 13.1c
Corn Stover 1.0a 17.5e
Sugarcane Bagasse 0.6a 18.5d
a Theander et al. [17], b Voivontas et al. [8], c Tock et al. [16], d Minowa et
al. [18],
e Ontario Minister of Agriculture et al. [22]

2.2. Locations and standards of bioethanol refinery and biomass generators

For bio-refineries and biomass generators allocation analysis, the feedstock collection area is
determined by summing up each cropland area on Geographic Information System (GIS) [9]. First,
biomass supply area in the country is divided into 7 areas, and the site of bioethanol plants and biomass
generators is located at the centroid of each area [9]. Second, the location and annual bioethanol liter
demand of E15 scenarios and electricity demand from non-renewable sources were evaluated, and by
assuming that all consumers in a province are concentrated at the center of the most populated city, and
therefore bioethanol and bio-electricity delivery distance is calculated from each plant to each consumer
point. Seven cases are adopted to allocate and sort out the distances from resources to plant and from
plant to city of each province, and also at this stage, the most efficient bioethanol and bioelectricity
resource is selected. For more detailed data on biomass-to-fuels on previous paper is referred to literature
[9], [19], [23], [20]. Assessing a whole life cycle inventory of CO2 and energy is preferable to design
biomass plants in an implementation stage, however detailed specs of plants are not important for a
nation-wide biomass energy use plan, therefore the assessment boundary was limited within the operation
stages of feedstock collection, energy transformation and delivery assuming popular technologies in this
study. Evaluation of CO2 emission and energy inputs for bioethanol production and delivery was similar
to the published study [9]. CO2 emission of feedstock collection for electricity was the same for ethanol.
A simple direct biomass combustion boiler and a steam turbine generator were assumed, and water
content of feedstock and thermal efficiency of generator were assumed to be 30% and 25%, respectively.
Electricity transmission loss is proportional to distance and current. Total bioelectricity transmission loss
was assumed to be the same as present grid system (15% according to statistics of the World Bank [5]),
and that between individual plant and province center was calculated proportionally to distance and
energy supply. This transmission loss does not directly create CO2 emission and additional energy input,
however it increases feedstock use and electricity generation and reduces environmental efficiency.

2.3. Definition of problem and optimization

In order to plan the nation-wide agro-residue biomass energy utility, three classes of parameters were
defined; sufficiency, plant share and crop share. Sufficiency is the ratio of bioethanol supply to E15
potential demand or bioelectricity supply to renewable electricity potential demand in a province, and is
used to determine energy supply to each province.

Supplyij = Sufficiencyij Demandij (1)

where, i is energy type (i=1 for ethanol and 2 for electricity), and j is province (j=1 23). Plant share is
the fraction of bioethanol or bioelectricity energy production by a refinery or generator plant to total
supply for a province, and is used to determine total energy production of each plant.
60 J.C. Garcia et al. / Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63
Production
ik
=
j
(Plant share
ijk
Supply
ij
) (2)
where, k is refinery or generator plant (k=1 7). Crop share is the fraction of ethanol or electricity
generated from a crop type to the total production in a plant, and is used to determine total feedstock use
in each plant.
Feedstock use
ik
=
l
(Crop share
ikl
Production
ik
) (3)

where, l is crop type (l=1 for rice, 2 for sugar cane, 3 for banana and 4 for corn). Demand, supply,
production and feedstock use were defined in the unit of energy (J or Wh), and sufficiency, plant share
and crop share are dimensionless and have a range between 0 and 1. Because these parameters are
matrixes holding a number of elements to be examined, plant share of the most distant four plants from a
province center were fixed to be 0, and the crop share of plants having no cultivation of the crop types
were also fixed to be 0 to simplify the problem. 168 parameter elements in total were selected to being
optimized. Finally, feedstock use in energy unit was converted into feedstock use in dry weight.
For the purpose of this study, object function was defined as CO
2
balance consisting of CO
2
emission
from fossil fuel reduced by use of biomass (negative), and CO
2
emission from biomass feedstock
collection (for ethanol and electricity), bioethanol refinery process, and ethanol delivery (positive). In
order to introduce a restricting condition in which feedstock use should not exceed feedstock potential of
each crop type and in each plant, the object function was multiplied by a penalty function, which has a
range between 0 and 1, and decreases linearly when the minimum crop share decreases below 0.1. The
optimum solution was found by using solver add-in tool of Microsoft Excel 2010 (Microsoft Corp.).
Because the defined problem is non-linear and has many local optimum solutions, a few trials seeking for
a quasi-global solution were performed using a genetic algorithm option (called evolutionary ) followed
by a GRG non-linear solver trial to reach the true optimum.
Two case examinations were performed to examine the effect of biomass energy sufficiency to
demand on CO
2
reduction and on selection of plants and crop types, because the regional mismatching
between energy demand and biomass energy supply potential may reduce environmental efficiency. Two
scenarios were compared. Firstly, the no-restriction or maximum carbon reduction scenario does not have
any condition of sufficiency and reduction of CO
2
was the only target. Whereas, another scenario
introduces the minimum sufficiency as an additional penalty function that forces an aggressive use of
biomass. In the second case, sufficiency of both ethanol and electricity in all provinces was fixed at levels
between 10% and 90%. In addition to total CO
2
emission, energy production ratio (EPR) was used as a
performance indicator of biomass utility plants, which was defined as the ratio of LHV of produced
ethanol to energy inputs for feedstock collection, bioethanol refinery and bioethanol delivery for ethanol,
and as the ratio of generated electricity to energy input for feedstock collection.
3. Results and Discussion

3.1. Demand of ethanol and electricity and biomass resource potentials

Currently, E15 (85% gasoline and 15% ethanol) is the maximum supply needed for blending with
regular gasoline in Ecuador. For this, present gasoline consumption of 2,777 million liters/y results an
ethanol demand of 439 million liters/y as for E15. In comparison, total agro-residue feedstock was
estimated to be 28.8 million t-dw/y, which can potentially produce ethanol of 5,327 million liters/y.
Sugarcane bagasse is the most efficient crop for ethanol production, therefore it is the most used
feedstock.
Bio-electricity demand is assessed in terms of non-renewable electricity consumption in the country.
Around 54% of electricity is fossil fuel basis energy; gas turbine thermal 19.1%, steam turbine thermal
13.8%, and diesel internal combustion engine 21.3% (ICE). In order to substitute this percentage out of
total consumption 19,013 GWh/y in 2010, bio-electricity of 12,128 GWh/y is needed considering the
J.C. Garcia et al. / Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63 61
transmission loss of about 15%. The total agro-residue can potentially produce bioelectricity of 27,974
GWh/y. Therefore; total agro-residue of rice, sugarcane, banana and corn is potentially able to substitute
the entire demand of ethanol for E15 and non-renewable electricity.

3.2. CO
2
and energy assessment of biomass utility plants

With the purpose to fulfill a better decision-making when deciding the priorities and needs of the
country for producing a sustainable bioenergy system, two scenarios resulted from the analysis. The no
restriction scenario refers to maximum reduction of CO
2
emission for the production of bioethanol and
electricity. The aggressive biomass use scenario takes into account not only CO
2
emission reduction but
also maximizes bio-energy supply and this means that inefficient feedstock will be utilized e.g. banana
stem.
Table 2 compares CO
2
balance between the two scenarios, where production of bioelectricity did not
vary significantly. On the other hand, production of bioethanol in the aggressive scenario was more than
twice of no restriction scenario. CO
2
reduction per ethanol production decreased when production
increased mainly because CO
2
emission from feedstock collection expanded disproportionally. Increased
feedstock demand for ethanol reduced also the resource efficiency of bio-electricity and CO
2
emission for
feedstock collection increased in the aggressive scenario.
The energy production ratio (EPR) of the no restriction scenario was 4.8 for bioethanol and 5.5 for
bioelectricity, respectively. This depicts that producing electricity from agro-residues is more efficient
than producing ethanol. The intense use of biomass for ethanol to increase the demand sufficiency forced
the EPR worse.

Table 2. CO
2
and energy assessment of bio-ethanol and bio-electricity production scenarios



No restriction
scenario
Aggressive biomass
use scenario
Biomass use (1000t-dw/y)
Ethanol
Electricity
Total

754
11,275
12,029

1,969
11,263
13,233
Production
Ethanol (ML/y)
Electricity (GWh/y)

182
10,202

420
10,092
CO
2
balance (1000tCO
2
/y)
Ethanol
Gasoline consumption
Feedstock collection
Refinery
Ethanol delivery
Total ethanol
Electricity
Non-renewable
Feedstock collection
Total electricity
Total


278
39
144
2
93

7,207
459
6,747
6,840


642
141
332
6
163

7,128
695
6,434
6,597
EPR
Ethanol
Electricity
Total

4.8
5.5
5.4

3.4
3.6
3.6


3.3. Effect of sufficiency on CO
2
and energy performances

The sufficiency ratios of bioethanol supply to E15 potential demand or bio-electricity supply to
renewable electricity potential demand in a province has been determined, therefore the energy supply to
each province. Fig.1 draws sufficiency levels from 10% to 90% and the outcome clearly shows that if
62 J.C. Garcia et al. / Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63
energy sufficiency is low very efficient feedstock is used and that keeps a high EPR. In the case of
electricity, EPR exceeds 60 but it quickly decreases if the energy sufficiency increases. As for bioethanol
the change of EPR is similar. If energy sufficiency reaches 60% for bioethanol supply, the use of low-
efficiency feedstock like banana makes EPR small as Fig. 2(a) illustrates. Also, Fig. 2(b) describes that
in terms of electricity production, the energy sufficiency exceeds 35%, and then banana feedstock is also
needed for the production.


Fig. 1. Effect of energy sufficiency on CO
2
reduction and EPR


Fig. 2. Effect of Energy sufficiency on crop type selection for (a) bio-ethanol and (b) bio-electricity
4. Conclusions
As the previous study demonstrated, Ecuador has a great potential for producing bioethanol from
agro-residues [9]. In this study, the possibility to attain not only bioethanol production but also electricity
from agro-residues through direct combustion is likely feasible as well. Around 12.45 million t-dw/y is
needed to meet the demand of both bioethanol and bio-electricity production. Thus, in the long-term,
Ecuador could develop a clean bioenergy system that could provide energy security therefore enhancing
its energy portfolio instead of being attached to the oil dependence.
The bio-electricity demand is based on the supply of non-renewable produced electricity, so by using
bioelectricity the total CO
2
balance is set to avoid 6.8 MtCO
2
in the best case. For bioethanol production,
the carbon emission in the intense biomass use scenario was high due to CO
2
emission in the feedstock
J.C. Garcia et al. / Energy Procedia 34 ( 2013 ) 57 63 63
collection increased by 43% compared to the other scenario. This is due to utilizing non-efficient and
distant-to-collect feedstock for bioethanol.
In terms of energy sufficiency, bio-electricity is relatively high in the no restriction scenario because it
keeps advantage in CO
2
reduction within the entire range of sufficiency compared with bioethanol. In
contrast, energy sufficiency of bioethanol was relatively low and this is because CO
2
balance of
producing ethanol is not good due to its process requires additional energy inputs for refinery and
delivery. In conclusion, selecting high efficiency and easy to derive feedstock and matching demand and
supply distribution are the key measures, and adjusting bioenergy demand sufficiency at an appropriate
level is a reasonable strategy in planning nation-wide biomass energy utility.
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