Assessment of Power Production Possibilities in Two Sawmills in La Palma, Cuba

Abstract: The Cuban power sector with its heavy dependency on foreign oil is in much need of investment and development. In the past decade, the Cuban government launched an ‘energy revolution,’ the Revolución energética, which aims at generating electricity from renewable sources. As part of this effort, the country looks toward tapping into its biofuels which mainly consist of bagasse from the sugar industry and wood residues from the forest industry. Against this background, the thesis is a case study of how to use the wood residues from two Cuban sawmills in order to generate electricity. The focus is on electricity generation as the mills have no current need for heat. The mills belonging to the state owned company EFI La Palma located in western Cuba are small, with a yearly production of 8400 m3 and 12 500 m3 sawn timber. The wood residues; sawdust, slabs, wood chips and bark, are currently simply dumped in two large deposits near the mills and represent a wasted resource which pollutes the local environment. Three electricity generating alternatives are initially investigated in the literature review: a steam cycle, gasification connected to an internal combustion engine and a Stirling engine using heat from biomass combustion. The gasification alternative is deemed most suitable and the thesis evaluates how two downdraft wood gasifiers would perform if connected to the two currently unused diesel generators of 276 kW and 504 kW which are in place in each of the mills. The specific gasifier models examined are the Indian company Ankur’s WBG 250 and WBG 400 and the fuel preparation necessary to use these gasifiers is investigated. The electricity consumption of the mills is compared with the potential electricity generation. It is found that the smaller mill could produce a yearly amount of 1,5 MWh of electricity  for the grid and the larger mill could export 3,2 MWh.  As the engines must be run in dual mode, the net present value of the gasification system is dependent on the level of replacement diesel which according to Ankur will be between 50 and 75 %. In the smaller mill the investment in the gasifier system is profitable at replacement levels greater than 65,4 % and in the larger mill, the investment becomes profitable at replacement levels above  63,8 %. Moreover, the profitability of the investment is highly dependent on the Cuban electricity price which currently is strongly subsidized. The reduction in CO2 emissions are also dependent on the replacement level and  at 75 % replacement level they are found to be 665 tons in the smaller mill and 1272 tons in the larger mill.