Waste-to-energy plant

A waste-to-energy plant is a waste management facility that combusts wastes to produce electricity. This type of power plant is sometimes called a trash-to-energy, municipal waste incineration, energy recovery, or resource recovery plant.

Modern waste-to-energy plants are very different from the trash incinerators that were commonly used until a few decades ago. Unlike modern ones, those plants usually did not remove hazardous or recyclable materials before burning. These incinerators endangered the health of the plant workers and the nearby residents, and most of them did not generate electricity.

Waste-to-energy generation is being increasingly looked at as a potential energy diversification strategy, especially by Sweden, which has been a leader in waste-to-energy production over the past 20 years. The typical range of net electrical energy that can be produced is about 500 to 600 kWh of per ton of waste incinerated. Thus, the incineration of about 2,200 tons per day of waste will produce about 50 MW of electrical power.

Most waste-to-energy plants burn municipal solid waste, but some burn industrial waste or hazardous waste. A modern, properly run waste-to-energy plant sorts material before burning it and can co-exist with recycling. The only items that are burned are not recyclable, by design or economically, and are not hazardous.

Waste-to-energy plants are similar in their design and equipment with other steam-electric power plants, particularly biomass plants. First, the waste is brought to the facility. Then, the waste is sorted to remove recyclable and hazardous materials. The waste is then stored until it is time for burning. A few plants use gasification, but most combust the waste directly because it is a mature, efficient technology. The waste can be added to the boiler continuously or in batches, depending on the design of the plant.

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