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ID: 101371

Impacts of facility size and location decisions on ethanol prod / Kocoloski, Matt; Griffin, W Michael; Matthews, H Scott

Matthews, H Scott	Journal Article
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2011.

Summary/Abstract

Cellulosic ethanol has been identified as a promising alternative to fossil fuels to provide energy for the transportation sector. One of the obstacles cellulosic ethanol must overcome in order to contribute to transportation energy demand is the infrastructure required to produce and distribute the fuel. Given a nascent cellulosic ethanol industry, locating cellulosic ethanol refineries and creating the accompanying infrastructure is essentially a greenfield problem that may benefit greatly from quantitative analysis. This study models cellulosic ethanol infrastructure investment using a mixed integer program (MIP) that locates ethanol refineries and connects these refineries to the biomass supplies and ethanol demands in a way that minimizes the total cost. For the single- and multi-state regions examined in this study, larger facilities can decrease ethanol costs by $0.20-0.30 per gallon, and placing these facilities in locations that minimize feedstock and product transportation costs can decrease ethanol costs by up to $0.25 per gallon compared to uninformed placement that could result from influences such as local subsidies to encourage economic development. To best benefit society, policies should allow for incentives that encourage these low-cost production scenarios and avoid politically motivated siting of plants.

Key Words

Biofuels ; Cellulosic Ethanol ; Infrastructure Optimization

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ID: 112257

SimWIND: a geospatial infrastructure model for optimizing wind power generation and transmission / Phillips, Benjamin R; Middleton, Richard S

Phillips, Benjamin R	Journal Article
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Publication

2012.

Summary/Abstract

Wind is a clean, enduring energy resource with the capacity to satisfy 20% or more of U.S. electricity demand. Presently, wind potential is limited by a paucity of electrical transmission lines and/or capacity between promising wind resources and primary load centers. We present the model SimWIND to address this shortfall. SimWIND is an integrated optimization model for the geospatial arrangement and cost minimization of wind-power generation-transmission-delivery infrastructure. Given a set of possible wind-farm sites, the model simultaneously determines (1) where and how much power to generate and (2) where to build new transmission infrastructure and with what capacity in order to minimize the cost for delivering a targeted amount of power to load. Costs and routing of transmission lines consider geographic and social constraints as well as electricity losses. We apply our model to the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) Interconnection, considering scenarios that deliver up to 20 GW of new wind power. We show that SimWIND could potentially reduce ERCOT's projected ~$5B transmission network upgrade line length and associated costs by 50%. These results suggest that SimWIND's coupled generation-transmission-delivery modeling approach could play a critical role in enhancing planning efforts and reducing costs for wind energy integration.

Key Words

Infrastructure Optimization ; Wind Power Planning ; Transmission Losses

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