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Abstract
This paper deals with a key issue related to municipal waste incineration, which is
the efficiency of energy recovery. A strong driver for improving the energy performances
of waste-to-energy plants is the recent Waste Framework Directive (Directive 2008/98/EC
of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing
certain Directives), which allows high efficiency installations to benefit from a
status of "recovery" rather than "disposal". The change in designation means a step
up in the waste hierarchy, where the lowest level of priority is now restricted to
landfilling and low efficiency wastes incineration. The so-called "R1 formula" reported
in the Directive, which counts for both production of power and heat, is critically
analyzed and correlated to the more scientific-based approach of exergy efficiency.
The results obtained for waste-to-energy plants currently operating in Europe reveal
some significant differences in their performance, mainly related to the average size
and to the availability of a heat market (district heating).
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