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Figure 7.4 Impact of haulage distance on road transport costs.
There are some differences in the cost of road transport that are outside the scope of this modelling:
Scenarios One and Two, where the wood chip is transported to the factory in end-tip trailers is likely
to be most accurately reflected with the cost assumptions. Scenario Three, with the swing-lift trailers,
have a much faster unload time at the factory; fifteen minutes compared to one hour for the tipper
bins. While this will reduce the cost of transport it is offset by the lower tare weight due to the weight
of the swing lift.
7.3.5 Factory Assumptions
There are some capital requirements at the factory to handle the wood chip and feed it into the boiler.
These would typically include a hard stand area, a front-end loader and a conveyer/feed mechanism.
A ball park figure might be around one million dollars for this equipment. Running costs of the
loader, if assumed to be similar to a sugar cane harvester, might be in the order of $3.00 to $4.00 per
tonne. These are not costed into the modelling.
7.4 Sensitivity Analyses
A series of sensitivity analyses was undertaken. The base case was Scenario Two (moderate capital
cost system with tipper bins) for a 20 MW plant (144,000 green tonnes) at an elevator pour rate of 30
green tonnes per hour in the high density scenario (belt spacing of 75 m). The results of these
sensitivity analyses are given below.
7.4.1 Capital Costs
The impact of infield (harvester and haulout) equipment on harvesting costs is illustrated in Figure 7.5
below. Capital cost has some impact on the cost of harvest but is not significant. The selection of
capital equipment is important as it can bring inherent efficiencies. It is also important that infield
equipment is suited to the adverse conditions found in mallee harvesting.
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