Biomass District Heating Systems Based on Agriculture Residues

This paper presents a methodology for analyzing the regional potential for developing biomass district heating systems combining forestry biomass and agriculture residues as fuel. As a case study, this methodology is applied to the continental region of Spain. With this analysis the potential for the implementation of biomass district heating systems based on the use of agriculture residues is applied to 501 rural municipalities in Spain. The renewable forestry biomass and agriculture residues resources availability is analyzed and the biomass required for heating is assessed. The results of applying the methodology show the interest of the combination of biomass sources in a relevant number of municipalities with estimated Internal Rate of Return (IRR) values above 10% and for the analyzed region an IRR mean value of 4.3%.