Ethanol production from food waste in West Attica: evaluation of investment plans under uncertainty

ABSTRACT

Food waste, the organic fraction of household waste, because of its components is considered an ideal raw material for the production of ethanol. However, there are only a few successful examples of large-scale production of bioethanol from food waste in Europe. The present work aims at evaluating a potential investment for the production of bioethanol from the food waste of the region of West Attica in Greece. Such a project would contribute to the effective management of waste as well as to meeting the EU targets concerning renewable energy. Two investment plans involving private equity or public–private partnership funding are compared and the viability of the investment is estimated using discounted cash flows. Under the hypotheses made, only the public–private financing scheme was proved to be viable. Sensitivity analysis and Monte Carlo simulations performed to address uncertainty confirmed this result. Moreover, sensitivity analysis revealed that among the parameters tested, the fluctuations in ethanol prices and the participation of the households are the most crucial factors affecting the viability of the investment.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioethanol
• food waste
• NPV
• IRR
• Monte Carlo simulations

Acknowledgements

AK would like to thank the State Scholarships’ Foundation of Greece for a postdoctoral fellowship from the programme ‘IKY Fellowships of Excellence for Postgraduate Studies in Greece – Siemens Programme’.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the State Scholarships' Foundation of Greece [under Grant IKY Fellowships of Excellence for Postgraduate Studies in Greece – Siemens Programme].