Co-generation based energy recovery from municipal solid waste integrated with the existing energy supply system

The SISMan (Simple Integrated System Management) decision-aid model is introduced in this paper. The SISMan model is used in a demonstration of evaluating the viability of adding an Energy-from-Waste (EfW) plant to an existing municipal energy supply system. The integrated system utilizes co-generation in heat and electricity production. The evaluation is carried out by calculating the energy and money flows for the integrated system and comparing the results to the original system values. No “competing technologies” to the EfW alternative are presented; the evaluation is carried out simply by comparing the original (“existing”) system flows to the integrated system flows. The results show that in certain conditions it is feasible to integrate an EfW plant with the existing municipal energy supply system in Finland. However, the conditions for a viable integration may not be so easy to fulfill.