Technical evaluation of a power generation process consuming municipal solid waste

Abstract The technical feasibility study of a thermoelectric power generation process consuming municipal solid waste (MSW) is presented. Such fuel is fed into a bubbling fluidized bed boiler with combustion chamber pressurized at 4 MPa. The flue gas is cleaned and injected into gas turbines while the produced steam at 10 MPa is diverted to a Rankine cycle. Costly and cumbersome cascade feeding systems are avoided by feeding the particulate MSW as slurry into the pressurized combustion chamber. Therefore, the present process dispenses fuel drying –– as usually required by more conventional processes—leading to substantial savings on capital and operational costs. Additionally, the characteristics of bubbling fluidized bed combustors allows for low pollutant emissions, which should also decrease the costs of further cleaning in order to comply with required for emissions to environment. A comprehensive simulator (CeSFaMB) is applied to predict the boiler operational behavior, while another (IPES) is employed to simulate the power unit. The work shows the possibility of achieving power-generation efficiencies above the usually found for such a low-grade fuel. Therefore, the present process is believed to be a good alternative for discharging of waste while supplementing power for medium to large cities. The present work does not include considerations on economics of the proposed process; however provides information for future studies on such aspects.