Biomass exploitation in Tuscany; a GIS-based planning tool and methodology for energy potential assessment

The employment of an innovative GIS tool, devel oped as the product of a project supported by the LIFE III Environment financial instrument is here pr esented. The target of the project is to point out the most appropriate strategy for the biomass resources exploitation and to de velop the tools to evaluate the sustainability of the energy use of biomass within specific applications. To reach this ta rget an innovative GIS tool and GIS based methodology to optimise the land-use development and planning for the effective exploitation of bi omass resources has been deve loped. The joint GIS-based analysis of the entrepreneurial structures and the available resources led to the de finition of 19 supply basins. Then, technic al and economical considerations identified the most appropria te combustion and power generation technologies for each kind of biomass and plant size. If the best scenario is considered for each of the 19 Supply basins, a total amount of 41 plants could be installed on the whole regional territory, co rresponding to a total installed power of nearly 135 MW. Based on these results an urban and a rural area were then examined through the GIS analysis as pot ential locations to install a medium size bioenergy cogeneration plant.