Optimizing waste management system design for energy recovery

Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) disposal has been a controversial issue in many countries over the past years. Issues such as the increasing public opposition in creating new landfills, stricter environmental regulations, as well as a change in the European Union directives for MSW management, have complicated further the decision of locating a MSW disposal facility. One of the ways of treating/disposing MSW is energy recovery, as waste is considered to contain a considerable amount of bio-waste, therefore being able to lead to renewable energy production. Especially if co-generation or tri-generation is performed, the overall efficiency can be very high. In this paper, a model is presented, aiming to support decision makers on issues relating to Municipal Solid Waste energy recovery. The idea of using more fuel sources, including MSW and agricultural residue biomass types that may exist in a rural area is explored. The model aims at optimising the system specifications, such as the capacity of the Waste-to-Energy co-generation facility, the capacity of the peak-load biomass boiler and the location of the energy conversion facility. Furthermore, it defines the quantities from each potential fuel source that should be used annually, in order to maximise the financial yields of the investment in the energy conversion facility. The results of a case study application at a rural area of Greece are presented, for energy tri-generation from mixed MSW and biomass fuel. Furthermore, a sensitivity analysis is performed on the effect of the most important parameters of the model on the optimum solution.