Análisis de Costos Nivelados de Electricidad de Plantas de Cogeneración usando Biomasa Forestal en el Departamento de Antioquia, Colombia.

In this paper the effects of the tax incentives of the Law 1715 of 2014 (Colombian law of renewable energies) on the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) of cogeneration plants using forest biomass in the Antioquia Department are analyzed. Generation technologies such as Gasification, Combustion and Rankine Organic Cycle (ORC) were considered based on the energy potential of the forest biomass crops. Three study cases were carried out: 1) LCOE without tax incentives, 2) LCOE with tax incentives, and 3) LCOE with tax incentives considering ten years for assets depreciation. On the other hand, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to evaluate how the LCOE is affected due to changes in the forest biomass cost, the technology cost, the minimum acceptable return rate and the grace period on credits to finance the cogeneration plants. Finally, the results show that the LCOE with the ORC (13,2 ¢U$/kWeh) is the case with the greatest reduction (11,2%), when the incentives of Law 1715 of 2014 with assets depreciation at 10 years, financing the 50% of the initial investment and grace period for 5 years are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]