An integrated approach to assessment of waste-to-energy options

This paper explores the performance of four waste-to-energy (WtE) technologies, incineration, gasification, centralised anaerobic digestion and decentralised anaerobic digestion. It compares a standalone financial analysis of the technologies to one conducted which takes into account the broader waste management programme in which these technologies would be located. Using the City of Cape Town, South Africa, as a case study, incineration was the preferred option in both the standalone and integrated analysis, when using levelised cost of waste as the performance indicator. The ordering of the remaining technologies, however, was different in the standalone and integrated analysis. Furthermore, the ranking of technologies changed when electricity generation and waste diversion potential were used as the performance indicators. These results of the study thus demonstrate that if Waste-to-Energy is to be considered as an option for processing waste and generating electricity, technologies must not be considered in isolation as the results do not present a fair reflection of the financial performance of the technology. In addition, taking on board multiple criteria influences the selection of preferred technology.