There is no other use for bagasse because it is too expensive to move so it has to be burnt on site and it costs sugar mills a lot of money to design and install plant to be able to burn that fuel and waste the steam. Dixon has calculated that there is up to 1,000MW of electricity generation potential available from the existing bagasse resource and that changes to harvesting practices coupled with a full conversion to high pressure, high efficiency boilers could produce many times more power than that. However it is not necessarily a straightforward matter to burn bagasse in a more efficient way. There are several major stumbling blocks to what looks like an obvious means of filling the Queensland grid with renewable electricity including the management culture of the mill operators, the fact that bagasse availability is seasonal, the requirements of investment capital and the return on that capital which is largely determined by the price mills can get for the electricity. The seasonal nature of the availability of the bagasse is a major problem.
Bagasse is produced during and after the cane harvest for about six months of the year.
The two options for exporting electricity from a sugar mill all year round are to either store and manage the bagasse so that fuel is available for the full year or use a second fuel for the six months that bagasse is not available. Dixon says that the Sugar Research Institute is looking at bagasse handling and storage techniques that could extend electricity production into a continuous mill export. Other possible fuel sources include using natural gas for part of the year or sourcing wood wastes nearby. Dixon suggests that wood wastes could be sourced from forestry operations for mills at Nambour, Maryborough and Isis. However the difficulties and expense of handling and moving large quantities of biomass should not be understated.