Profitability of using wood gas at Loma Plata
The generation of electricity with wood gas at Loma Plata has turned out to be a successful and profitable operation, compared to the alternative of using diesel oil as a fuel. The price of diesel oil has gone up from 72 G/l in June 1983 to 127 G/l in December 1984. During this period the cost of the wood chips has been on average 2.9 G/kg, which is more than six times the price of wood-fuel at the Sapire sawmill (see Chapter 4), but is still a very favourable cost compared to the price of diesel oil.
Production of 1 kWh electricity consumes 1.89 kg of wood-fuel at a cost of 5.48 G, while the corresponding number for diesel oil would be 0.34 I and 34 G, calculating with an average oil price of 100 G/l.
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Table 6.4 Electricity Generation Costs Using Wood Gas at Loma Plata (9)
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During this period the total electricity production was 4703650 kWh, which gives an average unit cost of 11.93 G/kWh. The share of the lubricating oil of the final costs was 1.02 G/kWh, and the share of the maintenance costs 4.09 G/kWh. The total investment costs of the power-plant (excluding the third gasifier unit) was 319 million G and the share of the equipment costs 208 million G.
Calculating with a real interest rate of 10% and a depreciation time of eight years the annual capital costs for the installations are 59.3 M G or equivalent to 11.9 G/kWh, with an estimated average electricity production of 5000 MWh per year. This means total electricity production costs of 23.8 G/kWh, which is only half of the actual electricity price of 1984, 46 G/kWh.
The pay-back time for the whole project has been estimated to roughly 6.5 years. The net annual savings in fuel costs by using wood instead of diesel-oil for year 1984 was over 100 million G.
All the economic numbers calculated above, clearly indicate the profitability of using wood-gas for electricity generation at the Loma Plata power-plant. The other positive socio-economic impacts of using biomass-based power generation on the agricultural and industrial activity within the Chortitzer cooperative are dificult to express in numbers but are obvious.