BioMatNet Item: ALTENER 4.1030/Z/01-018 - ACISA - Alternative Crops Integration in a Spacial Analysis

ALTENER 4.1030/Z/01-018
ACISA - Alternative Crops Integration in a Spacial Analysis

Abstract

The objectives pursued by the ACISA project can be summarised as follows:

to finalize the development of an analytic tool that covers all the biomass chain to integrate new energy crops into an existing regional energy system;
to include in the analysis as energy outputs the electricity and heat production but also the liquid biofuels generation;
to aid the decision-making procedure presenting the best solution of integration from a triple perspective (micro and macro-economic, environmental and energetic);
to develop real case studies in Italy and Greece showing the tool possibilities;
to disseminate the tool potentialities in a dedicated Web server using it at the same time as the main communication system with end-users;
to enhance the potentials of a Geographical Information System to carry out integration studies of biomass energy considering its spatial dimension;
to improve the knowledge about multidisciplinary approaches to integrate biomass energy;
to help the development of biomass in its different ways (solid and liquid) in order to achieve the targets of the EU White Paper on Renewables.

Activities

To reach the proposed objectives, ACISA is organised in the following phases:

Multidisciplinary enhanced modelling, where all models are going to be expanded and a new macroeconomic impact model will be developed;
Case studies preparation, where the two case studies are going to be defined in a detailed way and the necessary database fro them is going to be designed and fulfilled;
GIS assisted DSS on-line, compiling all models to build an integrated package in a GIS environment and developing a dedicated Web facility;
Case studies of liquid biofuels in Thessaly (Greece) and bioelectricity production in Modena (Italy) and;
Dissemination activities, where major activities will be a scientific community enquiry, a Workshop, the Web server and printout of the summary results to disseminate through a mailing list.

Results

The most relevant deliverables of ACISA will be:

a complete and more versatile and robust integrated software package that analyses the regional integration of energy crops in the EU;
a set of manuals where the methodology, information flows, inputs and outputs of each sub-model are clearly explained;
the validation of the developed tool in two ways: through a scientific consultation and through a the analysis of two different cases studies;
a fully developed Web site where analysis of the integration of energy crops in certain regions of Europe could be performed on line.

Contacts

Coordinator

Participant