Myles Kitcher, Peel NRE, part of Peel L&P, UK, looks at the UK’s energy from waste market and how the movement towards net zero is driving change within the industry.
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espite the technology having its critics, energy from waste (EfW) is still widely used across Europe to treat municipal waste. In 2019/2020 in the UK alone, more than 11 million t of waste was collected by local authorities as feedstock for EfW facilities. This was used to generate approximately 7769 GWh of energy, enough to power all the washing machines in the UK for a year.1 However, leading the way is Finland, where over half of the country’s municipal waste was treated in EfW facilities in 2019.2
What is energy from waste? Put simply, EfW, or energy recovery, is a way of creating energy from material that is no longer useful. While it is generally used to create electricity, it can be used to generate other forms of energy such as hydrogen and syngas. In addition to energy generation, the technology has benefits for the environment and waste management. It helps to avoid waste going to landfill, which produces methane – a greenhouse gas 25 times more potent than CO2. After treatment, the volume of the waste is significantly reduced, leaving only ash which can be used as an aggregate in the construction industry.
The changing landscape It is clear that EfW will remain a vital means of managing non-recyclable waste and a source of low carbon energy for the foreseeable future.
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