Waste to energy plant operation under the influence of market and legislation conditioned changes

In this paper, gate-fee changes of the waste-to-energy plants are investigated in the conditions set by European Union legislation and by the introduction of the new heat market. Waste management and sustainable energy supply are core issues of sustainable development of regions, especially urban areas.

These two energy flows logically come together in the combined heat and power facility by waste incineration. However, the implementation of new legislation influences quantity and quality of municipal waste and operation of waste-to-energy systems. Once the legislation requirements are met, waste-to-energy plants need to be adapted to market operation.

This influence is tracked by the gate-fee volatility. The operation of the waste-to-energy plant on electricity markets is simulated by using EnergyPLAN and heat market is simulated in Matlab, based on hourly marginal costs. The results have shown that the fuel switch reduced gate-fee and made the facility economically viable again.

In the second case, the operation of the waste-to-energy plant on day-ahead electricity and heat market is analysed. It is shown that introducing heat market increased needed gate-fee on the yearly level over the expected levels. Therefore, it can be concluded that the proposed approach can make projects of otherwise questionable feasibility more attractive.