Waste-to-Energy Facilities as Power Plants

Definition of the Subject

This entry describes the history of WTE and technological developments with regard to increasing the energy efficiency of this process, and ways to assess energy efficiency.

In the history, four distinct stages are described involving improvements on the combustion system, flue gas cleaning, and energy efficiency.

An overview of options to improve energy efficiency is given, with the technical limitations to raise steam parameters, resulting efficiencies, and ways to evaluate the energy performance of WTE installations.

Introduction

Over the last century, Waste to Energy was developed in a few distinct stages. Originally, the objective was to manage urban wastes in order to avoid the spread of diseases. In the second stage, reduction of smoke issuing from the stack became the point of attention. Later, discovery of the effects of invisible pollutants, such as volatile metals and dioxins, in the stack gases led to important...