The economic effects of energetic exploitation of straw in Vojvodina

The autonomous province of Vojvodina is an autonomous province in the Republic of Serbia. It is located in the northern part of the country, in the Pannonia plain. Vojvodina is an energy-deficient province. Assessment of the effects of energetic use wheat straw is performed for certain types of systems for storing straw and straw stored specifically in the form of small square bales, and especially for the cylinder-shaped straw bales. The method of evaluation of economic effects is based on the total cost of collecting, transportation, handling and storing, with corrections for the difference in the cost of the energy conversion and combustion. With comparison of the costs of energy production from baled straw to the costs of energy production from hard coal, it was found that the energy obtained from the straw from own farm is cheaper than energy from hard coal by 28%, in the case of the using small square bales and by 34% in the case of the using cylinder-shaped bales. Through sensitivity analysis it was concluded that the two systems of collecting straw, economically, are relatively resistant to changes in prices of the most important inputs. However, there is a relatively high sensitivity to changes in performances of machines with a larger percentage increase of costs for the system with cylinder-shaped bales. However, this system is generally more resistant to changes of influencing factors due to lower basic costs per ton of the pretreated straw. Differential costs analysis, i.e., the development of differential calculations, shows that the energy from straw in the form of small square bales is cheaper than the energy from hard coal by 51%, while the energy from the straw in the form cylinder-shaped bales is cheaper by 60%. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.