Influence of Waste-to-Energy Plant Integration on Local Immission Load

conference paper

en

Landfilling is still the most common way of municipal waste treatment in around half of the EU countries. In connection with the objectives of diverting such waste from landfill, there is potential for its energy recovery as a hierarchically more appropriate way of treatment. In addition to waste reduction, another significant benefit in this case is the generation of energy, which can partially replace primary energy sources. It has been shown that this makes it possible to achieve savings in greenhouse gas production, especially when waste replaces a lower quality fossil fuels in heating plants. In addition to CO2 emissions, the operation of conventional heat sources often involves significant emissions of various pollutants, such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides or particulate matter, which directly affect the population and the environment around the plant. The paper presents a methodology for determining the influence of Waste-to-Energy plant integration into the existing district heating system on the air pollution load of the population in the area. First, the change in emission production after the integration of the WtE plant is determined by a previously published optimization tool. It uses linear integer programming and is implemented in the GAMS programming environment, which cooperates with MS Excel. The parameters of the existing heating plant, such as the fuels used, the boilers output range or combined heat and power generation, are taken into account. In the next step the Gaussian dispersion model SYMOS'97 determines the immission loads of individual pollutants, taking into account the distribution of the surrounding population. The whole problem is presented on a case study of a real site.

Landfilling is still the most common way of municipal waste treatment in around half of the EU countries. In connection with the objectives of diverting such waste from landfill, there is potential for its energy recovery as a hierarchically more appropriate way of treatment. In addition to waste reduction, another significant benefit in this case is the generation of energy, which can partially replace primary energy sources. It has been shown that this makes it possible to achieve savings in greenhouse gas production, especially when waste replaces a lower quality fossil fuels in heating plants. In addition to CO2 emissions, the operation of conventional heat sources often involves significant emissions of various pollutants, such as nitrogen and sulfur oxides or particulate matter, which directly affect the population and the environment around the plant. The paper presents a methodology for determining the influence of Waste-to-Energy plant integration into the existing district heating system on the air pollution load of the population in the area. First, the change in emission production after the integration of the WtE plant is determined by a previously published optimization tool. It uses linear integer programming and is implemented in the GAMS programming environment, which cooperates with MS Excel. The parameters of the existing heating plant, such as the fuels used, the boilers output range or combined heat and power generation, are taken into account. In the next step the Gaussian dispersion model SYMOS'97 determines the immission loads of individual pollutants, taking into account the distribution of the surrounding population. The whole problem is presented on a case study of a real site.

optimization; waste-to-energy; air emissions; imission load

15.10.2021

Faculty of Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, Zagreb

Zagreb, Croatia

1847-7178

Proceedings of the 16th Conference on Sustainable Development of Energy, Water and Environment Systems (SDEWES)

16

1

175-1–175-12

12