BEAM-- A Model to Assess Biomass Energy Availability Transport Options and Delivery Costs

 

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Description:
The Energy Information Administration projects that biomass usage in the power sector alone will increase by a factor of five over the next 25 years. As the biomass market grows, the need to rigorous Supply availability, sustainability, and economic assessment will become important. Enegis, LLC developed the Biomass Energy Analytical Model (BEAM) to assess biomass energy availability, transport options, and delivery cost. BEAM models resources from field/forest, through processing, to demand, providing a geographic quantification, storage and densification options and transportation analysis. The model has a 30 meter resolution for the lower 48 states, currently carries about 50 species and commodities and performs analysis with costs, net energy and net carbon carried forward at all modeling steps. BEAM can conduct assessments on a site-specific, regional, or national-scale. BEAM focuses on residuals, consistent with the American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) proposed definition for biomass and has been run in a number of cases, including mark to market. BEAM was originally developed for the Federal Energy Management Program.

Presenters:
Jeffrey Eppink is president of Enegis, LLC, which he founded as a result of a management buy-out from a leading energy consulting firm. He has over 30 years of consulting, technical, and analytical experience in a variety of energy projects, topics and issues worldwide. Mr. Eppink directs and conducts strategic, analytical and technical work in biomass, power, oil and gas, geothermal, and carbon capture and storage.

Michael Marquis is a Project Manager at Enegis, LLC, specializing in constructing highly-specialized, quantitative Geographical Information Systems. Mr. Marquis has been instrumental in advancing geoanalytical and data-integration methods that have evolved into sophisticated geoanalytical models. Mr. Marquis designs and creates fully-integrated geodatasets through the use of customized data-structures and highly-tailored geoprocessing algorithms. Mr. Marquis’ work emphasizes use of GIS as a powerful analytical tool. He has been instrumental in design and has been the primary programmer/implementer on large GIS modeling projects including BEAM, the Biomass Energy Analytical Model.