Techno-Economic Assessment of Three Modes of Large-Scale Crop Residue Utilization Projects in China

In China, the non-exploitation of bioenergy poses major problems and challenges. To solve bioenergy problems, considerable efforts have been made to expedite the construction of large-scale crop residue utilization projects. In this study, three principal supported modes of large-scale crop residue utilization projects were taken as empirical cases in Hubei province bioenergy planning. In terms of the overall benefit and sustainable development, a third-grade evaluation index system was established. The analysis was carried out using the analytical hierarchy process, principal component projection, and grey relational analysis. The conclusion indicates that according to the evaluation values, the sequence from best to worst was crop residue biogas project, crop residue briquette fuel project, and crop residue gasification project. Nevertheless, there was no remarkable difference in the overall evaluation values. The biogas project had certain advantages in terms of the production cost, soil improvement, and expenditure saving, whereas the gasification project was comparatively insufficient in environmental efficiency, product benefit, by-product disposal, and technical rationality. According to actual evaluation results, the unilateral determination approach of the single weight index can be seen as being overcome through the unified adaptation of the evaluation methods. The research results can serve as a reference for making investment decisions to build large-scale crop residue utilization projects.