Abstract

The economic feasibility and the technical consistency of a system to produce biofuels were analyzed in Central Chile in the year 2010. In this study, the biodiesel, ethanol, and biogas platforms were integrated to assess the internal rate of return (IRR) and net present value (NPV) indexes. The analysis included the influence of the type of alcohol used in the manufacture of biodiesel (ethanol versus methanol), the effect of the relative size of the platform of ethanol with respect to biodiesel, and the impact of the value of main agricultural feedstocks. The study used combinations of plant sizes of 10 000-20 000 m3 y1 for ethanol, and 20 000- 40 000 m3 y1 for biodiesel, and in all the cases the biogas platform was projected with a generating capacity of 1 MW of electricity. The mass and energy flows were obtained through the balance of mass and energy of the integrated system. All cases studied showed that the impact of the price of grain was greater for ethanol than for biodiesel. According to the economic approach based on the NPV, the system presents negative economical indexes. Sensitivity analysis showed that for production of biodiesel with both methanol and ethanol the monetary flows are negative. There was a minimal change in NPV values with different interest rates of 10, 12 and 15 %. The analysis showed that no capital increase is generated as a result of the project, for any of the three scenarios.