Data supporting the assessment of biomass based electricity and reduced GHG emissions in Cuba

Assessing the biomass based electricity potential of developing nations like Cuba can help to reduce the fossil fuels dependency and the greenhouse gas emissions. The data included in this study present the evolution of electricity production and greenhouse gas emissions in Cuba. Additionally, the potentialities to produce biomass based electricity by using the most significant biomass sources in Cuba are estimated. Furthermore, estimations of the potential reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, resulting from implementing the biomass based electricity potential of the different sources discussed in the study, are included. Results point to the most promising biomass sources for electricity generation and their potential to reduce GHG emissions.


Subject area
Renewable energy, environment More specific subject area Carbon dioxide emissions. The current potential of low-carbon economy and biomass-based electricity in Cuba. The case of sugarcane, energy cane and marabu (dichrostachys cinerea) as biomass sources "in press".

Value of the data
This data contains key information for the biomass production and the GHG emissions in Cuba. This data can be used to estimate the biomass based electricity potential of Cuba. This data can be used to estimate the reduction of GHG emissions that could result from implementing the different biomass based electricity potentialities existing in Cuba.
This data permits to focus on the largest biomass sources for energy production in Cuba.

Data
The data presented in the article is related to the research article: The current potential of lowcarbon economy and biomass-based electricity in Cuba. The case of sugarcane, energy cane and marabu (dichrostachys cinerea) as biomass sources [1]. The data corresponds to the evolution of the electricity production and of the GHG emissions in Cuba, and includes the biomass potential of the largest sources and the estimation of the associated biomass based electricity generation and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions potential. The data of the evolution of the electricity production and of the GHG emissions was collected from the National Statistics Office of Cuba, when needed complemented with information from literature and databases. The estimations of the potentialities of biomass based electricity production and GHG emissions reduction in Cuba are calculated to highlight the main features.

Materials and methods
Based on the available biomass sources (between 2011 and 2016) estimations of the biomass based electricity potential and the possibilities to reduce GHG are developed. The biomass based electricity potential was calculated as: where: E -Electricity potential (kWh/t)   Filter cake (kg) 33 transformed into electricity) An electricity production efficiency of 28% was considered for biomass incineration [1,3]. Moreover, to assess the potentialities of pig manure, where the use of the biogas resulting from manure rather than directly incinerating manure (because of its high moisture content) is considered, an electricity production efficiency of 35% was used [2]. Table 3 Evolution of sugarcane production and its use of agricultural land in Cuba. (Source: [11,13]  The factors used to estimate the biomass resulting from the production of different crops and livestock in Cuba are included in Table 1. For the estimations of dichrostachys cinerea (kwon as marabu, is a non-indigenous bush tree that is widely available and considered a fast spreading plague,    occupying between 1.5 and 2 million ha) it is considered that between 2011 and 2016 its area increased from 1.5 to 2 million ha (at a rate of 100,000 ha/year). Marabu yields 37 t/ha with a re-grow period of three years [3]. Based on re-grow period, the yearly marabu based electricity potential is estimated as 33.3% of the overall potential of the marabu stock.
To assess the potential reductions of the GHG emissions, it is considered that the GHG emissions of producing the different crops and livestock are allocated to the production of the product (e.g. rice, maize grain, meat, eggs, sugar, etc.). This is not entirely true since biomass is not carbon neutral. However, it serves as a first approximation. Thus, it is considered that biomass based electricity can save 100% of the GHG emissions resulting from generating the same amount of fossil based electricity. In Cuba, the greenhouse gas emission factor for electricity generation is 0.879 t CO2 eq./MWh [4] (Figs. 1 and 2, Tables 2-9).

Transparency document. Supplementary material
Supplementary data associated with this article can be found in the online version at http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.dib.2018.01.071.