A multi-criteria analysis of options for energy recovery from municipal solid waste in India and the UK

Abstract

Energy recovery from municipal solid waste plays a key role in sustainable waste management and energy security. However, there are numerous technologies that vary in suitability for different economic and social climates. This study sets out to develop and apply a multi-criteria decision making methodology that can be used to evaluate the trade-offs between the benefits, opportunities, costs and risks of alternative energy from waste technologies in both developed and developing countries. The technologies considered are mass burn incineration, refuse derived fuel incineration, gasification, anaerobic digestion and landfill gas recovery. By incorporating qualitative and quantitative assessments, a preference ranking of the alternative technologies is produced. The effect of variations in decision criteria weightings are analysed in a sensitivity analysis. The methodology is applied principally to compare and assess energy recovery from waste options in the UK and India. These two countries have been selected as they could both benefit from further development of their waste-to-energy strategies, but have different technical and socio-economic challenges to consider. It is concluded that gasification is the preferred technology for the UK, whereas anaerobic digestion is the preferred technology for India. We believe that the presented methodology will be of particular value for waste-to-energy decision-makers in both developed and developing countries.

Mitigation of CO2e Emissions from the Municipal Solid Waste Sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain

“…In this study, a linear additive model was applied, where a simple MCA matrix was built and WtE technologies were assessed based on four main criteria: environmental, economic, social, and other criteria (Figure 8) (for details on the method, please see Reference [66]). The selection of the assessment criteria and subcriteria was in light of relevant literature [38,70]. The assessment was based on the energy recovery figures calculated using Equations (8)- (11), along with the costs of using WtE technologies and various qualitative criteria, which were taken from published studies [14,16,64,[71][72][73].…”

Comparative analysis of waste-to-energy alternatives for a low-capacity power plant in Brazil

“…According to Greater London Authority (2008), the incineration technology investment cost is in the range 540-740 USD t y -1 (400-550 £ t y -1) : For example, for Case 1 with the lower heating fuel (MSW2), a CAPEX of 7530 USD kW -1 is obtained. Yap and Nixon (2015) estimated that, in the case of England, the investment cost for gasification ranges from 620 to 850 USD t -1 per year: for Case 4, CAPEX varies from 3636 to 8945 USD kW -1 according to the lower heating value considered. Table 3 presents the main economic parameters of each one of the four analysed cases, as well as the selling price of electricity and average electricity cost.…”

Combining AHP Method with BOCR Merits to Analyze the Outcomes of Business Electricity Sustainability

“…Unfortunately, nowadays we can observe that statistics confirm a lack of creation due to the inertia in technological transfer regarding restructuration and decentralization on power systems. In their recent publications, many authors [11][12][13][14][15][16] have stated that for solving a problem by BOCR analysis, they consider both positive attributes (benefits and opportunities) and negative ones (costs and risks) to determine a preference of alternatives in relation to a specific goal. They have defined for costs the following constituents: the capital cost (investment), operation and maintenance cost, pretreatment cost, land use cost, and finally ecological damage cost.…”

“…In a recent publication [13], authors have reviewed the MCDM methods of sustainability and have highlighted their great potential in the field of energy. AHP is the first popular method, and it was found that AHP and its associated family of methods account for 65% of the published papers.…”