Investigating effective waste-to-energy options from refuse-derived fuel resources

Municipal solid waste has great energy potential as a renewable energy resource, which can be recovered by different waste-to-energy facilities. This study investigates the effective waste-to-energy options towards sustainable solid waste management in Pyongyang, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Three waste-to-energy options were investigated in terms of the energy potential and efficiency. The results showed that waste-to-energy option 3 (inclusive of a gasification reactor) could produce the largest net electricity as 58·18 GWh/year, followed by waste-to-energy option 2 (inclusive of a fluidised-bed combustor) and waste-to-energy option 1 (inclusive of a fixed grate combustor plus a fixed dome reactor) as 48·91 and 45·94 GWh/year, respectively. In addition, the gross efficiency of the waste-to-energy options significantly decreased by an average of 5·9%, due to the electricity consumption for the pre-treatment of waste including electricity equivalents by transport of the residues in the waste-to-energy options, accounting for a range of 16·6–19·8% of net efficiency in the options. The results show that waste-to-energy option 3 could be the highly effective option, but it reveals that an environmental aspect and economic feasibility should be considered in a further study, including economic benefits of the digestate from the fixed dome reactor in waste-to-energy option 1.