ANALYSIS OF THE PELLET PRODUCTION SUSTAINABILITY USING INFORMATION MODEL

Abstract

Renewable energy is becoming inevitable in the view of ever growing energy need, depleting fossil fuel reserves, and environmental concerns. Renewable energy sources (sun, wind, water, biomass) became an important factor in tackling climate change because of their sustainability and contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Together, solid, gaseous and liquid biomass as origin of bioenergy formed the largest category of all renewable energy consumption. The solid biomass (forest, wood, crop/agriculture residues etc.) is processed into pellets which generate less particulate emissions compared to the traditional biomass fuel. The pellet production from varied biomass is an efficient alternative for the traditional generation of heat, steam and electricity. Their high density and energy content per unit volume offer significantly reduced costs for transport, storage, handling and use. In the current study, the sustainability of the pellet production firms is investigated and estimated by information model development. For the research, analysis and assessment of the pellet production, in the model an index of sustainability is included containing environmental, economic and social criteria and indicators (sub criteria). These criteria and indicators are agreed with the Sustainable Development Goals of United Nations and are summarized by the availability of approved international and national certificates. In the article, methodology of information model and respective information system building is proposed. The use of information modeling in the field of sustainable development of renewable energy sources, and particularly in pellet production, allows a complex multi layered study and analysis of the efficiency and profitability of this sector. On the base of the model, a prototype web based three tier information system is created consisting of user interface, functional scripts and sample database of Bulgarian pellet production firms. Querying the database, results about ranging the firms by its indices of sustainability, type of used biomass, capacity of production, available certificates etc. are obtained. The current work aims to investigate the sustainability criteria and indicators, including example data for Bulgarian pellet production. Pellet production in Bulgaria has the potential to be environmentally sustainable, especially when waste products from the woodworking industry and agriculture are used. This reduces the need to harvest wood directly from forests or disposal of other residues and contributes to the circular economy. The results show the state and problems of pellet producing Bulgarian firms for the period 2017 2022, as well as the opportunity and ability of the presented information modeling for investigation of the sustainability of pellet production.