Elsevier

Applied Energy

Volume 86, Supplement 1, November 2009, Pages S125-S131
Applied Energy

Optimizing biodiesel production in India

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2009.05.024Get rights and content

Abstract

India is expected to at least double its fuel consumption in the transportation sector by 2030. To contribute to the fuel supply, renewable energies such as jatropha appear to be an attractive resource for biodiesel production in India as it can be grown on waste land and does not need intensive water supply. In order to produce biodiesel at a competitive cost, the biodiesel supply chain – from biomass harvesting to biodiesel delivery to the consumers – is analyzed. A mixed integer linear programming model is used in order to determine the optimal number and geographic locations of biodiesel plants. The optimization is based on minimization of the costs of the supply chain with respect to the biomass, production and transportation costs. Three biodiesel blends are considered, B2, B5 and B10. For each blend, 13 scenarios are considered where yield, biomass cost, cake price, glycerol price, transport cost and investment costs are studied. A sensitivity analysis is carried out on both those parameters and the resulting locations of the plants. The emissions of the supply chain are also considered. The results state that the biomass cost has most influence on the biodiesel cost (an increase of feedstock cost increases the biodiesel cost by about 40%) and to a lower effect, the investment cost and the glycerol price. Moreover, choosing the right set of production plant locations highly depends on the scenarios that have the highest probability to occur, for which the production plant locations still produce a competitive biodiesel cost and emissions from the transportation are minimum. In this study, one set of plant locations happened to meet these two requirements.

Introduction

In 2005, India consumed 30 million tons of oil in the transport sector, of which 29% is gasoline and 71% is diesel [1]. The Indian energy demand is expected to grow at an annual rate of 4.8% over the next couple of decades [2]. Many scenarios projected that India will at least double its oil consumption by 2030 [3], which will make India the third largest oil consumer in the world [4]. Biofuel production could potentially play a major role in the country.

A number of developmental activities are being taken up in the country for the production of biofuels, which include a 5% compulsory blend of ethanol in gasoline [2]. These trials are ongoing in various state and the Government of India aims to increase the blends of biofuels with gasoline and diesel to 20% by 2017 [5].

Biodiesel has the advantage to be mixed with mineral diesel to any quantity, and its use does not require major changes on the engines as its properties are similar to those of diesel. The use of pure biodiesel in the transport sector lowers the emissions of soot by 60%, carbon monoxide and hydrocarbons by 50% and carbon dioxide by 80%. Nevertheless emissions of NOx may vary by ±10% depending on the engine’s combustion characteristics [6]. Sulfur dioxide is not emitted as no sulfur is contained in biodiesel due to its vegetable origin [7].

Considering biodiesel production, jatropha has attracted an increased interest since it is a drought-resistant perennial and grows well in marginal/poor soil. It is easy to establish, grows relatively well and produces seeds for 50 years. Its seeds have an oil content of 37% which can be combusted as fuel without refining [8]. Production of biodiesel in India plays a major role as it offers chances for social and rural development amongst poorest people, namely farmers in developing countries. By cultivating energy crops, these communities can diversify their crop portfolio, generate substantial incomes and hence facilitate economic and social development [9]. Producing renewable energy locally can thus offer a viable alternative but only if the projects are intelligently designed and carefully planned with local input and cooperation [10].

This study is focused on the supply chain of the biodiesel production based on jatropha, and the aim is to determine the optimal location of biodiesel plants for three blends, 2% (B2), 5% (B5) and 10% (B10). An analysis of the different parameters influencing the final biodiesel cost is considered as well as the sensibility of different combinations of plant locations in regards to the scenarios studied. In the following study, costs and prices are given in Rs, at the date of this study 1 Rs represents US$0.02 [11]. The base year for the currency is 2009.

Section snippets

Feedstock

Jatropha seeds are harvested manually every year. The selected land may be owned by government, forest department, individual farmers or private industries. Over 40 million ha [12] of land from 24 states are estimated to be potential wasteland for growing jatropha. These lands include gullied and ravened land, upland with or without scrub, shifting cultivation area, degraded forest/pastures/grazing land and degraded land under plantation crop [13].

In order to realistically model biodiesel

Optimization and scenarios

The aim of this study is to determine the optimal locations of biodiesel plants in India under different scenarios. A mixed integer linear programming model [29] is used to optimize the supply and delivery of biodiesel. A detailed description of the model is given in Leduc et al. [30], [31]. The model is extended to the production of biodiesel where the by-products considered are glycerol and oil cake. In Fig. 2, the model is schematically depicted as a graph with nodes and arcs. A continuous

Results and discussion

The results are similar for every blend. The scenarios 1–5 give different results on the geography of the plants. Scenarios 6–13 give the same plant distribution as scenario 1 since the parameters changed are indeed not geographically dependent. The different locations for the different blends and scenarios are depicted in Fig. 3. For the biodiesel production of B2, B5 and B10, an availability of land of, respectively, 1.2, 3.2, 6.4 Mha is needed.

Those production plants are mainly located in the

Conclusion

The supply chain of the biodiesel production has been studied for India, considering three different national targets on blends: B2, B5 and B10. For each blend, the geographical locations of the biodiesel production plants have been determined. The influence of important parameters such as yield, biomass cost, cake price, glycerol price, transport cost and investment costs have been analyzed and the influence of the selected locations on the costs and the emissions have been considered. The

Acknowledgement

This study was supported by the EC projects GEO-BENE and CC-TAME, coordinated by the Forestry Program at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Austria.

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