No abstract

Plant biomass is mostly used by the agricultural enterprises for their own needs. But there is a possibility to use biomass for biofuel production. It requires the adaptation of new technical equipment that, in its turn, requires capital expenditures. In particular, it is the production of fuel pellets from straw. The combination of efforts and resources of a significant number of agricultural enterprises makes it possible to combine the financial resources for purchasing the required technological line, as well as to provide it with a necessary amount of raw materials. For example, it is expedient to locate a technological line on the production of fuel pellets from the straw with regard to the lowest transport expenses. While choosing such an enterprise, the distance from it to other enterprises (association partners), as well as the available biomass potential should be considered. The location of an enterprise which will produce biofuel should be instrumental in cutting down the expenditures. Thus, it is necessary to minimize the distance between the suppliers and the enterprise, which will result in minimization of transport costs, as well as in time expenditures that are required for organic raw material transportation. In order to achieve this target, by using the method of potential functions, it is necessary to determine the conventional points on the map of a chosen area which will supply biomass. These above mentioned points determine the centres of biomass potentials of the enterprises on the supply area. Herewith, it is expedient to make a cartogram of organic raw materials capacity, on which a circle is drawn for each enterprise and the centre of this circle coincides with the coordinates of a given enterprise centre, the area of a circle equals (at scales) the specified potential of organic raw materials. Then it is suggested to calculate the objective function value of determining the coordinates for setting a technological line of the manufacturing process at some enterprise.