Integrated assessment of bioelectricity technology options Dr Patricia Thornley 12 , Dr Paul Upham 2 , Dr Ye Huang 3 , Dr Sina Rezvani 3 , Dr John Brammer 4 , Mr John Rogers 4 Abstract Power generation from biomass is a sustainable energy technology which can contribute to substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. It is not, however, emission free and, when account is taken of airborne emissions, ecological and other impacts there is arguably greater potential for direct environmental impact than is the case for most other renewable energy technologies. The requirement to produce and supply biomass feedstock in rural areas also results in the systems having far-reaching impacts within local rural communities. These factors make it particularly important to consider the whole system (including crop production and transport) and to choose an appropriate scale, technology and feedstock. The optimal system choice will take account of a number of factors, including technical performance, efficiency, greenhouse gas savings, environmental emissions, scale of facility, impact on transport networks, cost of electricity produced etc. The work completed in work package 1 of the Supergen bioenergy consortium addresses the challenge of analysing, quantifying and comparing these factors for bioenergy power generation systems. A life cycle approach is used to analyse the technical, environmental, economic and social impacts of entire bioelectricity systems, with a number of life cycle indicators as outputs to facilitate cross- comparison. These indicators are presented here for a selection of the systems studied along with outputs from stakeholder consultation of scenarios utilising these systems. The results provide definitive data relating to the systems and also illustrate the complexity of comparing different systems. 1 Corresponding author 2 Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research University of Manchester Pariser Building PO Box 88 M60 1QD +44 (0)161 3063257 p.thornley@manchester.ac.uk 3 University of Ulster 4 Aston University