This paper deals with a key issue related to municipal waste incineration, which is the efficiency of energy recovery. A strong driver for improving the energy performances of waste-to-energy plants is the recent Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives), which allows high efficiency installations to benefit from a status of "recovery" rather than "disposal". The change in designation means a step up in the waste hierarchy, where the lowest level of priority is now restricted to landfilling and low efficiency wastes incineration. The so-called "R1 formula" reported in the Directive, which counts for both production of power and heat, is critically analyzed and correlated to the more scientific-based approach of exergy efficiency. The results obtained for waste-to-energy plants currently operating in Europe reveal some significant differences in their performance, mainly related to the average size and to the availability of a heat market (district heating).
[1]
S Consonni,et al.
Alternative strategies for energy recovery from municipal solid waste Part A: Mass and energy balances.
,
2005,
Waste management.
[2]
Klaus Lucas,et al.
On the thermodynamics of cogeneration
,
2000
.
[3]
S Consonni,et al.
Alternative strategies for energy recovery from municipal solid waste Part B: Emission and cost estimates.
,
2005,
Waste management.
[4]
Enrico Sciubba,et al.
Extended exergy accounting applied to energy recovery from waste: The concept of total recycling
,
2003
.
[5]
Ibrahim Dincer,et al.
Role of exergy in increasing efficiency and sustainability and reducing environmental impact
,
2008
.