ResourceBio

Biomass fuels have characteristics that go beyond a pure energy carrier, such as the specific fuel type and the moisture content of the material. These properties can significantly affect conversion efficiency and emissions, and are therefore explicitly represented. ResourceBio, which is a Resource for transporting and converting biomass fuels, is introduced to enable consistent modeling of biomass-based energy technologies in EnergyModelsX.

Compared to a ResourceCarrier, ResourceBio includes additional information on the biomass fuel type and its moisture content. Resources of type ResourceBio are intended to be consumed by technologies (e.g., biomass boilers or CHP plants). The properties are included in the detailed submodule for the calculation of efficiencies of the the BioCHP type.

Introduced type and its fields

ResourceBio extends the abstract type Resource from EnergyModelsBase, with additional fields describing biomass-specific properties.

• id :
  The field id is used to provide a name to the resource.

• bio_type::String :
  The type of biomass fuel, e.g., "spruce_stem", "spruce_bark", "spruce_T&B", or "birch_stem".

• moisture::Float64 :
  Moisture content of the biomass resource as a mass fraction. Typical values range from around $0.1$ for dry pellets to more than $0.5$ for wet wood chips.

• co2_int::T :
  CO₂ intensity of the biomass resource (with T <: Real), e.g., in t/MWh. This value can be used by emissions-accounting extensions when biomass is converted or consumed.