In Brazil, the residual biomass of the sugarcane cultivation is represented by leaves, straw, tips and stalk fractions that together represent a production of about 108 million tons per year. Such amount could allow the production of 10.2 MWh of energy. There are many sugarcane cultivars resulting from improvement programs seeking resistance to pests, diseases and adaptation to the soil type. Their choice is made in function of the physical productivity as well as the sucrose production. That selection can be aided by optimization models, seeking to minimize the amount of crop residue with or without impositions about the amount of obtained energy from the biomass. It can also be aided by the maximization of the amount of energy of the residual biomass with impositions on the amount of residue to be generated. The decision on which model should be used is determined by the company administrator. Such decision can be made with aid of some approaches. The objective of this work is to present the profit in the use of the energy generated by that biomass as a decision criteria in the choice of the models. The results indicated the model III, that foresees the maximization of energy generation from the biomass with choice of cultivars taking into account the available area for the plantation, the sucrose production and the biomass production in four years of cultivation. The profit with the use of that model was calculated as being 939 US$/ha.year.
crop residue; optimization; sugarcane
