Developing small agro-energy districts in southern italy: An economic assessment of a plant producing electrical and thermic energy from wood biomass

The study presents the assessment of an integrated plant for the production of electric and thermic energy, consisting of a drying plant for woodchips and a co-generator. Technological innovation concerns two farms adopting an inter-company organizational model to solve a problem that often involves many farms operating in rural areas, where it is more difficult to access to electrical system and manage agricultural and forestry residues. In particular, it has been evaluated the profitability and competitiveness of the experimental plant re-using wood biomass produced by the farms themselves. After checking the availability of biomass, the assessment of farm investment used two synthetic cost indicators: the average cost of energy produced by the plant, with the method of the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE), and the Net Present Value (NPV). Considering a 20-year time horizon, the LCOE value varies from 0.17 €/kWh, for a plant realized with public contribution (scenario A), to 0.20 €/kWh, assuming a plant without public contribution (scenario B). Overall, both the inter-company typology and inter-company management model is competitive and can be reproduced within an agro-energy district for the most internal rural areas.