A design of rural energy system by industrial symbiosis considering availability of regional resources

Abstract This paper performed the design of rural energy system by industrial symbiosis considering long-term availability of forest resources. As for the case examples, alternatives of energy system in Tanegashima, a remote island in Japan, were examined, where two types of combined heating and power (CHP) were designed. In the first option, bagasse-based CHP at the cane sugar mill was enhanced to use woody biomass as additional fuel and generate energy for district heating and cooling (DHC). In another option, small scale biomass-CHP was designed for DHC in city center. Both options were mathematically modeled and simulated for examining the resource requirements and lifecycle greenhouse gas emission. A constraint on total availability of woody biomass was taken into account, which was calculated through a simulation on forestry. The effect of total timber availability and allocation to the two CHP systems was quantified. A design of rural energy system by industrial symbiosis can be facilitated by simulation-based analysis to visualize the impacts of such energy networks among involved multiple players such as industry, residential, and commercial sectors.