Feasibility analysis of municipal solid waste mass burning in the Region of East Macedonia – Thrace in Greece

Abstract

The present work conducts a preliminary techno-economic feasibility study for a single municipal solid waste mass burning to an electricity plant for the total municipal solid waste potential of the Region of Eastern Macedonia – Thrace, in Greece. For a certain applied and highly efficient technology and an installed capacity of 400,000 t of municipal solid waste per year, the available electrical power to grid would be approximately 260 GWh per year (overall plant efficiency 20.5% of the lower heating value). The investment for such a plant was estimated at €200m. Taking into account that 37.9% of the municipal solid waste lower heating value can be attributed to their renewable fractions, and Greek Law 3851/2010, which transposes Directive 2009/28/EC for Renewable Energy Sources, the price of the generated electricity was calculated at €53.19/MWhe. Under these conditions, the economic feasibility of such an investment depends crucially on the imposed gate fees. Thus, in the gate fee range of 50–110 € t−1, the internal rate of return increases from 5% to above 15%, whereas the corresponding pay-out time periods decrease from 11 to about 4 years.