Fuel efficiency and CO2 emissions of biomass based haulage in Ireland - A case study

The purpose of this study was to analyse how biomass based haulage in Ireland performed as a measure of efficiency under 4 main criteria; distance travelled, fuel consumption, fuel consumption per unit of biomass hauled and diesel CO2 emissions. The applicability of truck engine diagnostic equipment was tested to analyse the schedule of engine data that could be recorded in real-time from a 5 axle articulated biomass truck. This identified how new on board truck technology in Ireland could be used to monitor data in real-time, specifically fuel consumption, litre/km, litre/ton and distance to allow for informed analysis of how efficient new biomass trucking operations currently are in Ireland. Fleet Management System (FMS) monitoring systems are a relatively new technology in biomass and log transport in Ireland. They are more common place in the food supply chain with refrigerated units travelling across continental Europe where food temperature and truck movements are controlled data from a central dispatch. A GPS asset tracking monitoring system was also installed on the truck over the test period to record trip log data. The BT (biomass truck) was a 5 axle, 2004 DAF XF Euro III 430hp 4*2. Initial results showed that for the BT, the average daily fuel consumption varied from 0.23 L/km to 0.47 L/km. The thresholds of travelled distance were between 20.92 km and 434.91 km respectively with average fuel consumption per tonnage of woodchips of 0.16 L/ton and 5.68 L/ton. When the total daily distance is limited to 1 load within 200 km roundtrip versus 1 load at approximately 400 km trip, the % difference in logistic cost (€/T) is 56%. Delivering 2 loads per 400 km trip shows a 5.4% decrease in logistic costs versus the Trip 1 scenario confirming the increased efficiency of a more localised transport approach. A maximum percentage difference in costs of 45% that exists between a 2 load and 1 load trip occurs for Trip 22 and Trip 5 but this increases to 72% when analysing for 2 load versus 1 load for distances over 400 km. Trip 7 and 12 are both below 50 km and seem to be the exception and to compare could possibly show an element of distortion. The closest logistic cost to Trip 12 is Trip 5 with 113% higher costs confirming how a 50 km roundtrip can impact significantly on lowering biomass transport costs.