Models for optimization and performance evaluation of biomass supply chains: An Operations Research perspective Birome Holo Ba, Christian Prins * , Caroline Prodhon ICD-LOSI, Universit e de Technologie de Troyes (UTT), CS 42060, 10004 Troyes, France article info Article history: Received 26 March 2015 Accepted 16 July 2015 Available online xxx Keywords: Biomass Logistics Supply chain Modeling Optimization Bioenergy abstract The production of biofuels, bioenergy and chemical intermediates from biomass is a promising solution to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions. While a significant research effort has been devoted to biomass production and conversion processes, the importance of logistics was detected more recently. Indeed, efficient supply chains are essential to provide conversion facilities with sufficient quantities of quality biomass at reasonable prices. As large territories and hundreds of biomass producers are involved, quantitative models are very useful to evaluate and optimize the resources required, the associated costs, the energy consumptions and the environmental impacts. This article surveys the recent research on models for biomass supply chains, from an Operations Research perspective. 124 references, including 72 published since 2010, have been analyzed to present the structures and the activities of these chains, a typology of decisions in three levels (strategic, tactical and operational), and a review of models based either on performance evaluation techniques (e.g., simula- tion) or mathematical optimization. A conclusion underlines the contributions and shortcomings of current research and suggests possible directions. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Simply speaking [114], biomass is any material of biological origin, biofuels are fuels produced directly or indirectly from biomass, and bioenergy refers to the energy produced from biofuels. For instance, forest wood can be chipped and incinerated to pro- duce heat and power, while sugar cane can be fermented to pro- duce bioethanol. The last two decades have seen a growing interest in biomass as a means of reducing dependence on fossil fuels and developing a clean and renewable energy. For instance, the Ref. [40] issued a directive to achieve, by 2020, 20% of renewable energy, including from biofuels, with a target of 10% in transport. While research on crop production and conversion processes is well developed, the actors concerned realized only recently that the Achilles' heel of the planned bioenergy production systems could be logistics. For instance, each crop is harvested during a short period in the year while conversion plants have to work continu- ously. Hence, an efficient supply chain must be implemented, to act as intermediate buffer and supply conversion units without shortage. Moreover, as the biomass itself is relatively cheap, the economic equilibrium of the whole system critically depends on logistic costs. Operations Research (OR) is an adequate approach to bring quantitative models for these biomass supply chains, evaluate their performance and optimize criteria such as their total cost, their energy consumption and their GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions. The goal of this contribution is to depict the OR models pro- posed for biomass supply chains and to provide good entry points for readers having a general OR culture without being specialists in biomass. We have read more than 170 research articles, published from 1989 to 2014, to select 124 significant references in terms of modeling. This review demarcates from the few existing surveys by adopting an OR perspective, insisting on the types of models and solution methods employed, and gathering very recent references, with 72 papers published from 2010 onwards. It also highlights the gaps in the existing research and proposes a few possible directions for improvement. The paper is organized in four sections. Section 2 is a general presentation of biomass supply chains (structures, activities, deci- sion levels) and comments the few existing surveys. Section 3 de- scribes performance evaluation models based on spreadsheets, geographical information systems, or simulation. Section 4 * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: birome_holo.ba@utt.fr (B.H. Ba), christian.prins@utt.fr (C. Prins), caroline.prodhon@utt.fr (C. Prodhon). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Renewable Energy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/renene http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2015.07.045 0960-1481/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Renewable Energy xxx (2015) 1e13 Please cite this article in press as: B.H. Ba, et al., Models for optimization and performance evaluation of biomass supply chains: An Operations Research perspective, Renewable Energy (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.renene.2015.07.045