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Incineration is indispensable for burnable refuse disposal, and power generation by waste is environment-friendly and power system-friendly with synchronous generators. Optimal operation planning of incinerator plant is a key point to make much of this merit. We have studied on actual operational data of incinerator plant in Tokyo Metropolitan Area (TMA) applying GA. The subjects of these studies include improvement of GA program, rechecking of the basic data, etc. This paper proposes improved optimal method considering actual constraints of refuse disposal administration. As the result of improved GA program, it has become possible to increase generation energy more rationally.

This paper proposes optimal total planning for incinerator plants (IPs) in a typical urban area, which includes a method of determining the number of plants and the capacities of the IPs. Burnable municipal refuse is disposed of sanitarily by high-temperature incineration at the IPs. At the same time, power generation from waste (PGW) is being performed at many IPs to recover energy. At present, the amount of energy generated by PGW is greater than that of wind power or photovoltaic power generation. However, PGW has a limited generation efficiency and low generation output due to the smaller capacity of IPs. To overcome the above weakness, highly efficient PGW is necessary with total integration and scaling up of IPs. Regarding total integration and scaling up, operation in larger areas is favorable from the point of view of refuse volume and collection. In the planning stage, both the cost of IPs and refuse collection, which is important for refuse disposal, should be taken into account comprehensively. Optimal total planing for IPs can be performed in two stages. First, the disposal capacity G k of an IP versus the number of plants K is decided by constraints. G k is about the same for all K because of maintenance and refuse collection, and is greater than 300 tons per day in steps of 100 tons per day. G k should be decided not only by refuse volume but also by cessation of operation at plants due to maintenance or faults. Second, the cost of each value of K is calculated based on the construction and operating costs of the IPs, income from selling the energy of PGW, and refuse collection costs. Therefore, the value of K with the minimum cost is selected as the optimal number of IPs. A numerical simulation of an area with a population of 3 million indicates that the optimal plant number is 4. At present there are eight or nine IPs in cities of 3 million people. The above cost reduction effect will be about 15% from the present value. Considering the situation of aging IPs, a decreasing trend in refuse volume, and the stringent financial conditions of local governments, the proposed method is very effective and realistic. C⃝ 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electr Eng Jpn, 190(2): 41-56, 2015; Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com).

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SUMMARYFeed-in tariff (FIT) has been enforced in order to promote the utilization of renewable energy since 2012 in Japan. In consideration of FIT, we propose an integration plan for incinerator plants (IPs) with highly efficient power generation for the whole area of a prefecture. The plan includes disposal of forest biomass using the reserve capacity of IPs. The model prefecture's population is set to 1,200,000 and the proportion of the forested area is set to 70% of the model area based on data for northeastern Japan. The present 16 IPs are integrated into three new IPs. A relay transportation (RT) facility for waste is located at a decommissioned IP, and the waste from the area is transported to the new IP. In order to calculate the RT costs, an approximation formula for the RT distance is estimated via the IPs integration study. The plan will realize about 37% cost reduction and 1.8-fold CO 2 reduction including RT as compared to the plan to update the current IP situation. Forest biomass of 56,500 tons per year, which is about 43% of available forest biomass volume in the model prefecture, can be disposed of at new IPs. On the other hand, enough profit is not expected from the dedicated biomass power generation plant as a result of wood chip processing fees. The plan will help to develop local forestry.