Action A4 – Technical and economical assessment

In this Action the objective is to obtain a technical and economical assessment of the process demonstrated by means of pilot plants in the project, in reference to hypothetical full scale applications. The technical assessment is aimed to define a complete layout of plants on full scale, accompanied by the sizing of the full process components, the consumption of input materials, the consumption of water, the reactant make up, the consumption of energy for driving equipment, the production of up-graded gas, the production of valuable by-products, the production of scraps.
On the basis of the results of the technical assessment it will be possible to perform an economical assessment. First of all the investment cost for the equipment and its installation will be calculated. The maintenance and operating costs will be evaluated. The yearly economic balance will be performed and a specific up-grading cost – per unit of gas processed – will be calculated.
The specific up-grading costs will be compared with specific up-grading cost for conventional methods.
The reference full scale will be the size of the landfill that hosts the pilot plants. This means an average landfill gas production of about 1.200-1.400 Nm3/h. Lower and higher sizes will be considered too. Also, the reference type of landfill gas will be similar to the gas produced in the hosting landfill, which is at present characterised by a methane content of about 60%. The application on full scale to landfill gas with lower methane content will be considered too, in reference to the different defined sizes.
The analysis covering different landfill sizes and different landfill gas qualities, will supply indication about the type/size of equipment that will be required in the different situations and about the costs of the process in reference to the different situations. In this way it will be possible to highlight in which cases the proposed process are more economically sustainable also in comparison with conventional methods.
In all the considered cases of sizes and gas quality, the technical and economical assessment of the proposed processes will be compared also with the conventional layout of landfill gas exploitation (i.e. direct use in reciprocating engines) to understand if the proposed process to up-grade the gas and use it away from the landfill is comparable/better/worse – from an economic point of view – with the conventional one.
The technical and economical assessment will be performed also in reference to the application of the proposed processes to gas from anaerobic digestion on hypothetical full scale. Also in this case the reference size will be defined in the basis of the indication of CSAI concerning their project of anaerobic digestion in the proximity of the landfill site. Also smaller installation sizes will be include in the analysis. The aim will be the calculation of the specific up-grading cost in reference to these cases, the comparison with specific up-grading cost for conventional methods and the comparison with conventional way of exploiting the biogas (i.e. direct combustion in reciprocating engines).
Also, also a detailed cost-benefit analysis (CBA) will be performed in Action 4. The potential implementation of results of the project (i.e. realising at industrial level the proposed up- grading processes for landfills or anaerobic digestion plants) is off course dependant on the CBA. In the CBA, in order to understand whether the proposed processes have a potential for implementation, it will be necessary to make a comparison with a baseline scenario. Actually we think that the baseline scenario is of two types: - baseline scenario 1: use of the biogas from landfill or anaerobic digestion in the most common way in which it is used at present, i.e. combustion with electric/thermal energy recovery in reciprocating engines; - baseline scenario 2: up-grading of biogas from landfill or anaerobic digestion, by means of conventional available processes, that do not include CO2 capture. Including the external costs in the CBA will allow for evaluating cost-benefit for CO2 emission reduction and fossil energy saving.