3.7.1 Identification of the main pathways for waste-to-energy
waste-to-energy”. Therefore, the list of pathways should include installations that recover most of the energy from waste in Europe, and for each pathway it should be possible to compare techniques and identify technical improvement potential for waste-to-energy.
Based on the current situation, five main pathways were identified:
Group 1 - Combustion plants: Combustion plants which utilise waste as a secondary energy source in combination with other types of fuels (these installations include all kinds of conventional power plants used for the generation of mechanical and/or electrical power generation and heat, as well as recovery boilers). CL plants are excluded.
Group 2 – Waste incineration plants48: Waste incineration plants dedicated to the thermal treatment of waste, with recovery of the combustion heat generated, through the direct incineration by oxidation of waste.
Group 3 - CL plants: Cement and lime production plants.49
Group 4 - AD plants: Anaerobic digestion plants.
Group 5 - Other WtE plants: Other waste-to-energy plants (including pyrolysis, gasification, plasma treatment and hazardous waste incinerators).
In the report the five main pathways will be referred to as:
Group 1 - Combustion plants;
Group 2 – Waste incineration (WI) plants;
Group 3 - CL plants;
Group 4 - AD plants;
Group 5 - Other WtE plants.
Hazardous waste incinerators are studied separately from waste incineration plants because it was considered that their techniques should not be compared when trying to identify technical improvement potential for waste-to-energy.
3.7.2 Waste-derived energy recovery for each main pathway Overview of waste-to-energy plants in the EU-28
The European Commission published in March 2016 the “WID implementation final report” (EC, 2016). This report provides information (see table below) on the number of incineration and co-incineration plants in Europe and by Member State (excluding Croatia), according to the definition of Art. (3) of the WID (2000/76/EC). Data comes from the reports submitted by Member States for the third and last reporting period under the WID which covered the period 2012-2013.
48 Certain stakeholders may use the wider term waste-to-energy plant when actually referring to waste incineration plants only. It should be noted, however, that in the context of this study the term WtE has been maintained to refer to all processes that recover energy from waste and not only to dedicated waste incineration plants.
49 The current report focuses on cement plants. We are awaiting data from Eula (the European Lime Association) on lime production plants. This will be updated in the final report.
WI plants1
(1) Definition according to Art. (3) of the WID (2000/76/EC) including also thermal treatment processes such as pyrolysis, gasification or plasma processes.
(2) 95 facilities not covered by Annex II.1 or II.2 to the WID (2000/76/EC) and 112 uncategorised.
Energy from waste recovered as heat/electricity in the EU-28
Miscellaneous sources provide information on the amount of heat and electricity recovered from combustible waste in Europe:
Energy recovered from waste as electricity: CEWEP, the Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants, estimates that, in 2013 in the EU-28, 110 PJ of electricity was recovered from the incineration of 76.5 million tonnes of MSW and similar waste in 411 WI plants. The same year, Eurelectric, the association of the electricity industry in Europe, estimated that 86 PJ50 of electricity was recovered from renewable waste in the EU-28. It represented 4% of total renewable electricity production.
Energy recovered from waste as heat: In 2012-2013, 79% of total incineration and co-incineration plants reported recovering heat in Europe (EC, 2016). 54% of the plants that did not recover energy as heat were located in two Member States:
France (34%) and Germany (20%). Over the same period, CEWEP estimated that 275 PJ of waste-derived heat were recovered from 411 WI plants. For cement kilns, waste-derived thermal energy conversion was estimated at 176 PJ in 2013 (see Table below).
Table 1.47 presents the estimation of waste-to-energy recovery in the EU-28 by pathway.
Table 1.47: Estimation of the waste-derived energy recovery in the EU-28 for the five pathways studied
Combustion plants
WI plants1 CL
plants2 AD plants3 Other WtE
plants4
1- Source: CEWEP.
2- No information for Lime production plants. Information for cement kilns from CEMBUREAU.
3- Source: Deloitte calculation based on Eurostat Energy Statistics and EBA data.
4- Information only for hazardous waste plants from Hazardous Waste Europe.
5- Heat recovery after exclusion of internal use.
Table 1.47 shows that, in the period 2006-2013, the amount of energy recovered from waste increased by 39% for cement kilns, by 36% for electricity from WI plants, and by 53% for heat from WI plants. The latter can be explained by the significant increase in the number of WI plants relying on CHP.
According to Eurostat data, the final energy consumption in the EU-28 in 2013 and 2014 amounted to 46,331 PJ and 44,451 PJ, respectively. Therefore the 2013-2014 energy output from WI plants, CL plants and AD plants covered about 1.49% of the final energy used on average in the EU-28 in the same time period.
Estimation of waste consumption for energy recovery
The amount of wastes consumed by cement kilns and waste-to-energy plants has been analysed in order to assess whether the figures are representative compared to the total waste-derived energy recovered in the EU-28.
Table 1.48: Amount of waste consumed by waste-to-energy plants and cement kilns in the EU-28 in 2013
Amount of wastes treated in
2013 – thousand tonnes Source
WI plants 76,500 CEWEP
Cement kilns 8,000 CEMBUREAU
Total 84,500 1.47, especially combustion plants and to a lesser extent other WtE plants such as hazardous waste incineration plants. Although it was not possible to estimate the amount of wastes used by combustion plants, it might represent a significant amount of the 26 million tonnes of wood wastes reported by Eurostat. A more in-depth analysis based on data from all industries using process residues in co-incineration should provide a better understanding of this aspect. Also, according to Hazardous Waste Europe, only 5 million tonnes of hazardous wastes were sent for incineration, instead of the 10.5 million tonnes according to the Eurostat Waste Statistics database, in 2012.
As explained in previous paragraphs, the definition of “waste” and “by-products” is open to interpretation. It is, however, impossible to estimate how much of the difference could be explained by this.
Based on the Eurostat Waste Statistics database, 36.5 million tonnes of wastes were sent for incineration/disposal (D10) in 2012. It was not possible to estimate the share which goes to incineration plants without any kind of energy recovery and the share that goes to incineration plants with an energy efficiency below the R1 threshold and which are therefore not considered as recovering energy.
51 Waste-derived biogas is not taken into account in the 138 million tonnes.
Finally, a number of experts that were interviewed considered that the Eurostat Waste Statistics data represent a high-range estimate.
4 Task 2 - Analysis of the technical improvement potential for waste-to-energy
The objective of Task 2 is to provide an analysis of the technical improvement potential for waste-to-energy with respect to energy recovery.