WASTE TURNS INTO HEAT AND ELECTRICITY

RVF:s UTVECKLINGSSATSNING FÖRBRÄNNING Rapport nr 2 2005 WASTE TURNS INTO HEAT AND ELECTRICITY A report on waste incineration RVF Svenska Renhållningsverksföreningen

Svenska Renhållningsverksföreningens Service AB Prostgatan 2 211 25 Malmö Tel: 040-35 66 00 Fax: 040-35 66 26 Svenska Renhållningsverksföreningens Service AB Internkopia för RVF:s utvecklingssatsning deponering, Malmö i juni 2005. ISSN 1403-8617

Table of contents Preface Summary 1 Hundred years with waste incineration 1.1 Waste management in a historic perspective 1.2 Waste incineration 1.3 Expansion of waste incineration with energy extraction 1.4 The moratorium1985-1986 1.5 Modernisation and expansion of waste incineration 2 Knowledge, politics and laws 2.1 What is waste? 2.2 Research and development 2.3 Some guidelines in Swedish waste politics 2.4 Laws on waste management and incineration 3 Quantities, management and treatment 3.1 Waste amounts in Sweden 3.2 Waste management 3.3 Increased amount of waste 3.4 Waste treatment 4 Waste incineration principals and techniques 4.1 Energy extraction with high environmental demands 4.2 Waste as fuel 4.3 Energy production 4.4 Incineration techniques 4.5 Flue-gas cleaning and condensing 4.6 Residues from waste incineration 4.7 A modern heat and power plant based on waste as fuel 5 Continued expansion of waste incineration 5.1 Initial position 5.2 Questions on environment 5.3 Economic conditions 5.4 Expansion plans Appendices A B C About RVF Svenska Renhållningsverksföreningen (The Swedish Association of Waste Management) Measurements, units, conversion factors and abbreviations List of sources

2 Figures 1 Principal schematic for dry flue-gas cleaning 2 Principal schematic for wet flue-gas cleaning 3 Outline principals over energy production at Sysav power plant 4 Outline principals over system for flue-gas cleaning and water at Sysav power plant Tables 1 Waste incineration plants in Sweden in 1985 2 Waste incineration and energy production at Swedish waste incineration plants 1985-2003 3 Total waste amounts in Sweden in 1998 4 Waste amounts that, in 1998, was handled by communities, municipality owned plants and private waste companies 5 Amount of domestic waste in Sweden 1975-2003 6 Treatment of domestic waste in Sweden 1980-2003 7 Emissions of heavy metals from incineration of different fuels 8 Emissions of carbon dioxide by incineration of different fuels 9 Amount of metals and dioxins in flue-gas cleaning residues 10 Waste incineration plants in Sweden in 2003, amount of waste and energy production 11 Emissions of contaminations into the air from waste incineration in Sweden 1985-2003 12 Emissions into the air from waste incineration in Sweden 1985-2002, amount per ton incinerated waste 13 Emissions into the air from waste incineration in Sweden 1985-2002, amount per produced MWh energy

3 Preface The purpose of this report is to present waste incineration with energy recovery in Sweden. Waste incineration plants play an important role both as energy producers and for waste management. The report focus on incineration of domestic and other waste in the plants defined as waste incineration plants. The most characteristic for these plants are a high-energy efficiency production of district heating and electricity. All plants also have comparatively very high demands on operation of the plants as well as flue-gas cleaning and management of residues from the incineration and cleaning. The report has been drawn up with the goal that it shall be able to be used both by people working with waste and recycling as well as other persons interested in these issues. The assignment to write this report was given to a control group within the working group consisting of Ulf Kullh, chairman, Barbro Broman, Åsa Hagelin and Christer Knutås. Nils Ahlgren, UNO-konsult AB, has served as researcher and secretary for the group. This RVFreport is the result of this assignment. This report is an English summary. The complete report is only available in Swedish. Malmö January 2005 RVF- The Swedish Waste Management Association Weine Wiqvist Managing Director

4 Summary Waste turns into heat and electricity Sweden has, through a very well built-out district heating system, the possibility to distribute heat for heating. Half of the heating necessity in residences and premises is today covered through district heating. Waste incineration covers a good 15% of the district heating production in the country. In some larger cities the waste incineration covers closer to 50% of the heating necessity. The extraction of energy per ton waste has almost doubled during the latest 15 to 20 years. Waste incineration can be summoned as follows: The energy in the waste is extracted and used for production of district heating and electricity. The energy production through waste, which to a large extent consists of biomass, can replace energy production through fossil fuels and, thereby, contribute to minimize the greenhouse effect. Waste incineration at the high temperatures that is used, involves waste disinfections and eliminated risks for sanitary problems. Some of the contaminations in the waste are subversed into not dangerous materials at these high incineration temperatures. Emissions into the air and, whenever applicable, into water is constant very low and in many cases at levels far below valid conditions. The largest part of the contaminations remaining after the incineration is stored in the ashes. The waste weight is reduced by 80 85 % and the volume is reduced by 95 96 %. The spreading of contaminations into the environment is minimized through technical measures and secure handling of the ashes. The Swedish waste incineration plants have become more and more complicated and technically advanced. They are comparable to process industries, iron and steel plants and other larger industrial plants concerning techniques and complexities. Present situation In 2003 there were 28 waste incineration plants in the country, which all together received and treated 3.1 million tons of waste. These plants produced 8.6 TWh district heating and 0.7 TWh electricity with waste as fuel. This corresponds to the need for heating for approximately 600 000 residences per year and electricity enough to cover the annual need for domestic electricity for approx. 100 000 125 000 households. Waste incineration answered to handling and treating of 45 % of the country s domestic waste. History Waste incineration was a practical measure in order to get more room at the refuse dumps and to minimize the risk for spreading deceases through rats. Open incineration of waste at the refuse dump or in simple furnaces was also frequent in Sweden up to the 1960s. It became more and more difficult to store the increasing amount of waste at existing refuse dumps and to find new places for deposition. Further more, the district heating had been extended in a

5 number of cities. This implied that the waste incineration plants could find a market for dispose of their most important product district heating. In the 1970s the expansion of waste incineration increased. During spring 1985 this was put to an end as the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency introduced a moratorium for expansion of new plants. The reason for this was alarming research reports about the spreading of heavy metals and, amongst other, dioxin. The moratorium was revoked in July following year due to an extensive research, which lead to new, harder environmental demands. Up to 2003, 7 plants have been liquidated and 8 new have been built compared to 1985. Environmental and waste issues Waste, formed in households, industries and at other places is a reflection of the modern consumption and production society. In spite of ambitious achievements in order to get less contaminated waste, the waste of today contains an amount of contaminations. Therefore, demand is laid on the treatment that the contaminations, as far as possible, are transformed and extracted into non-dangerous and harmless materials. Contaminations are being separated and concentrated into a fine-grained flue-gas residue and are stored in a safe way. Other incineration residues, such as slag, are being recycled to a larger extent. With modern technique for flue-gas cleaning, the extent of separation of contaminations is very high. The emissions of mercury and other heavy metals from waste incineration plants into the air has, for example, been reduced by 98 99 % from 1985 to 2002. The assembled dioxin emissions into the air from all waste incineration plants in Sweden have decreased from approx. 100 gram per year 1985 to 1.1 gram year 2002. The amount of emissions at all plants is below EU limit of 0.1 nanogram dioxin per cubic meter in outgoing flue-gas, which is valid for all existing plants from December 2005. The production of energy through incineration of waste is positive considering the greenhouse effect, as 85 % of the waste is of biological origin. This is the consequence of the biomass binding the equivalent amount of carbon dioxide during the growth. The changeover from using fossil fuels for district heating production into production based on waste has, therefore, implied a non-unessential contribution in the aim of minimizing the emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. Economy Waste incineration plants are operated, with some exception, as stock companies or as a result unit within larger municipality companies. The businesses have to be economical self-paid with incomes from management of waste and selling of district heating and, whenever applicable, also electricity. Costs for management of waste and incomes from selling of energy has to cover variable operational costs as well as capital costs. The income at a waste incineration plant consists of two different parts. One part refers to fees which municipalities, industries and other waste producers pay. The other part consists of income from selling of district heating and, at power plants, also electricity. The costs for energy production with waste as fuel, is essentially higher than using other types of fuel. This is mainly depending on environmental demands, which demand high investments in equipment, and, thereby, high capital and working costs.

6 Future The development of the waste incineration is, in a larger perspective influenced by such factors as landfill ban, environmental legislation, tax rules, matter of prices etc. Accounted plans for expansion speaks for that waste incineration also in the future will play a central role when handling consumption as well as production waste. Expansion plans The consultant company Profu has, at the turn of the year 2003/2004, made a survey over strong expansion of waste incineration in Sweden. The amount of plants should increase from 26 to 40 during the period 2002 2008. This should, at the same time, imply the capacity to 4.9 million tons per year, which can be compared to 2002 when 2.8 million tons of waste was incinerated. The amount of process waste that the industry is taking care of and incinerates in own plants is not included in these amounts. However, Profu does emphasize in the report that the uncertainty is large.

Rapporter från RVFs utvecklingssatsning förbränning Vatten- och kemikalieförbrukning vid svenska avfallsförbränningsanläggningar 1993 1995:01 Restprodukter vid rening av rökgaser från avfallsförbränning. Erfarenheter från svenska undersökningar och anläggningar 1995:02 Prediktionsmodeller för kontinuerlig kvalitetskontroll av process och instrument 1995:03 Tvättning av aska och slagg från avfallsförbränning - en litteraturstudie 1995:04 Underhållskatalog för avfallsvärmeverk 1996:01 Svensk avfallsförbränning 1994-1995. Miljö och ekonomi 1996:02 Nyckeltal 1994. Drift och underhåll. Avfallsförbränning 1996:03 CE-märkning. Nya regler för maskiner 1995 1996:04 Vattenkylda roster för avfallsförbränning 1996:05 Slangfilterproblem i avfallsförbränningsanläggningar. Erfarenhetssammanställning 1996:06 Mätinstrument. Erfarenheter av olika drift- och miljöinstrument på värmekraft- och kraftvärmeverk inom RVF och ADV. 1994/1995 års status 1996:07 Nyckeltal för avfallsförbränning 1995. Drift och underhåll 1997:01 Förbränning av källsorterade förpackningar. Granskning av ÅFs rapport Energiutvinning ur källsorterade förpackningsfraktioner 1997:02 Åtgärder för CO-minimering på avfallsförbränningsanläggningar i Sverige. Sammanställning av enkätsvar 1997:03 Rökgasåterföring. Kartläggning av problem vid drift och underhåll 1997:04 Waste incineration in Europe. A study tour to Alkmaar, Bamberg, Vestforbrænding 1997:05 Våt slipfångare av ammoniak. Ny process i pilotskala 1997:06 Rening och återanvändning av rökgaskondensat från avfallsförbränning. Litteraturstudie 1997:07 Drift och underhåll av avfallstraverser. nkätsvar från sex anläggningar 1997:08 Kombination av SNCR och SCR i avfallsförbränningsanläggningar för reducering av kväveoxider och ammoniakslip 1998:01 Nyckeltal för avfallsförbränning 1996. Drift och underhåll 1998:02 Environmental Optimisation of Waste Combustion 1998:03 Miljöanpassad optimering av avfallsförbränning. Förkortad version på svenska av rapport Environmental Optimisation of Waste Combustion (nr 3 1998) 1998:04 Samförbränning av rötslam 1998:05 Hantering av rökgasreningsprodukter från avfallsförbränning. Tekniska, miljömässiga och ekonomiska aspekter 1998:06 Nyckeltal för avfallsförbränning 1997. Drift och underhåll 1998:07 Eldstadsisolering i avfallseldade pannor i Sverige och Tyskland 1999:01 Lagring av avfall och avfallsbaserat bränsle 2000:01 Dioxiner i rester från förbränning av avfall. Resultat från undersökningar 1999/2000 av svenska avfallsförbränningsanläggningar 2001:01 Dioxiner i rester från förbränning av avfall. En genomgång och redovisning av kunskapsläget beträffande lakning och nedbrytning 2001:02 Hantering av rökgasreningsrest (RGR) från avfallsförbränning. Underlagsrapport 2002:01 Bestämning av vatteninnehåll i bottenaska/aska från avfallsförbränning 2002:02 Rening av rökgaskondensat 2002:03 Utsläpp till vatten från avfallsförbränningsanläggningar. Praktisk hjälpreda för utsläppskontroll 2003:01 Kalibrering av automatiska mätsystem vid Igelstaverket. Praktiskt genomförande av QAL 2 enligt standarden EN 14181 2004:01 Reduktion av svaveldioxidemissioner vid avfallsförbränning med torra rökgasreningssystem 2004:02 Svavel i avfall 2004:03 Förslag till praktisk tillämpning av standarden SS-EN 14181, Kvalitetssäkring av automatiska mätsystem 2004:04 Mätvärdeshantering vid avfallsförbränningsanläggningar med anledning av avfallsförbränningsdirektivet 2005:01 Waste turns into heat and electricity 2005:02 RVF Svenska Renhållningsverksföreningen, Prostgatan 2, 211 25 Malmö. Tel. 040-35 66 00, fax 040-35 66 26. E-post: office@rvf.se Hemsida: