Waste-to-Energy in Transition Countries: Case Study of Belgrade (Serbia)

This paper gives an overview of the current situation in the field of energy and municipal solid waste management (MSWM) in Serbia with the emphasis on identification of opportunities and challenges related to obtaining energy from municipal solid waste (MSW) on a specific example of the future waste management center in Belgrade (Serbia). This waste management center will be equipped with two plants for energy production, from waste and from landfill gas. These plants will annually produce about 216 GWh of electricity and about 174 GWh of heat. The importance of such a project is manifold because it solves the long-standing problem of waste management in Belgrade based on landfilling at the non-sanitary landfill Vinca, which is a great burden on the environment with potential risk to human health, while introducing a new dimension in energy production in Serbia.