Development of Waste-to-Energy Plants Database for Evaluating the Efficiency of Energy Recovery from Waste in Europe

Efficient waste-to-energy plants can be classified as energy recovery operations rather that waste disposal, according to the Waste Framework Directive, which came into force on 12 December 2008. As a result, waste could replace fossil fuels, which would have been otherwise used for energy recovery. Aim of the present paper is the presentation of one developed waste-to-energy plants database for evaluating the efficiency of energy recovery from waste in Europe. The main database fields are the energy recovery, the capacity, the contractor, the location of the plant, the investment and operation cost and various characteristics of boilers that affect the efficiency of 416 registered waste-to-energy plants. Quantitative results include the number of waste-to-energy plants per European country, the kind and amount of treated waste, the kind of typology and other operational parameters of plants and the energy recovery status.