We have been talking a lot about renewable sources of energy and how the energy mix is slowly but steadily changing. Under the National Solar Mission, the government aims to install 100 GW of solar capacity by 2022. Currently, 5 GW of solar installed capacity has been achieved and it is poised to cross 20 GW in the next 18 months. This is applaudable, but there is yet another renewable source of energy which does not get much mention and which is often ignored – municipal waste!
Per estimates, 62 million tonnes of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) is generated in India every year. The yearly increase is slated at around 5%. If MSW is dumped without treatment then it will need 3,40,000 cubic meter of landfill space everyday. The Waste To Energy (WTE) plant seems to end the woes of landfill. It takes in MSW and generates energy with negligible levels of pollutants. Various MSW to energy technologies have come to the fore such as incineration, biomethanation, gasification and pyrolysis. Of these, incineration and biomethanation have gained prominence.
The WTE plants require segregation of wastes upfront. The moisture reduces the calorific value of the wastes. The biomethanation WTE plant in Lucknow was a flop show due to inefficient segregation of wastes. Blame it on the collection at the source , inappropriate transport facilities for waste or constrained marred urban local bodies in India.
The waste to energy plant at Okhla, New Delhi which treated 1950 MT of MSW and generated 16 MW of power has been shut down due to alleged non-compliance to the right incineration technology. A quick back of the envelope calculation suggests that if all MSW is treated then it has the potential to generate around 1400 MW of power everyday. Ministry of New & Renewal Energy (MNRE) estimates the current potential at 1700 MW and has been bullish in saying that this potential could increase to 5200 MW by 2017. Of the current potential, only about 24 MW has been exploited in India, which is less than 1.5% of the total potential.
A quick peek at how MSW fares in the US. Until last year, there were 84 WTE plants in the US that generated electricity or produced steam. These plants combusted 30 million tons of MSW yearly, and sold more than 14.5 million mwh to the grid, about the same amount used by 1.3 million US households. In addition, many plants sold steam directly to end users offsetting the use of fossil fuels to make that energy. Despite all this, MSW is considered to be an abundant, valuable yet under utilised source of domestic and renewable energy since only 7.63% of the total waste in the US is processed in these facilities. The main reason why WTE has been a success in the US is because of the appropriate segregation of wastes upfront and proper waste collection and transporation facilities.
Last year, the government of India gave nod to 6 WTE facilities across India. More and more private players wish to foray into the untapped WTE potential but are deterred by lack of a proper waste management infrastructure and regulatory environment. Interestingly, challenges present opportunities. A lot of firms are attempting to leverage opportunities present in the entire MSW value chain be it collection, segregation, transportation or disposal under the regulatory and operational control of municipal bodies. Such firms are direct collaborators to potential WTE facilities.
The most interesting part is that the government can leverage WTE to showcase some quick wins as part of its Smart Cities initiative since it not only catches the waste and landfill problem by its tail, but also acts as a renewable energy source. The government can put its weight behind such installations, have single window of clearances for the entire value chain and get a (say) 2000 MT facility constructed and operational within 1-1.5 years. This is by no means very ambitious since such facilities do not have high installation time. Couple that with the Swachch Bharat (Clean India) program (not ignoring the tax receipts that would now come through it) to transform the bottlenecks (required extended infrastructure) into facilitators and you are on your way to achieve an energy oxymoron – swachch and eco-friendly waste!