Energies 2014, 7, 5874-5898; doi:10.3390/en7095874 OPEN ACCESS energies ISSN 1996-1073 www.mdpi.com/journal/energies Article Challenges in Bioenergy Production from Sugarcane Mills in Developing Countries: A Case Study Guido Colombo 1,*, William Ocampo-Duque 2 and Fabio Rinaldi 3 1 Scuola di Ingegneria Industriale, Politecnico di Milano, Via Scalabrini 76, Piacenza 29100, Italy 2 Department of Civil and Industrial Engineering, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Seccional Cali, Cll 18 118-250 Cali, Colombia; E-Mail:
[email protected] 3 Department of Energy, Politecnico di Milano, Via Lambruschini 4, Milano 20156, Italy; E-Mail:
[email protected] * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:
[email protected]; Tel.: +39-349-697-0210; Fax: +39-022-399-3863. Received: 15 May 2014; in revised form: 6 August 2014 / Accepted: 27 August 2014 / Published: 10 September 2014 Abstract: Worldwide energy policies are moving towards a reduction of fossil fuels’ share in the energy mix and to invest in renewable and green energy sources. Biomass is one of these, and it represents, in the form of sugarcane, a strategic source in Colombia, especially in the Valle del Cauca. In this region, the sugarcane industry is able to convert the energy content of the cane into different energy products, such as ethanol, electricity, and high-pressure steam, which are cogenerated via bagasse combustion. In this work, the case of a sucrose and ethanol production plant, which mills ten thousand tons of sugarcane per day, is considered. A tailor-made computational model was developed to assess the energy and material process balances in order to estimate the effect of different operating conditions on cogeneration boilers and turbines, and to optimize the overall process efficiency.