The first municipal solid waste incinerator project in Southeast Europe

Abstract

Purpose The City of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, is in the project preparation phase for a publicprivate partnership (PPP) project for the provision of services of treatment and disposal of residual municipal solid waste (MSW), including the construction and operation of a waste to energy (WtE) facility. The objective of this work was to perform a social cost-benefit analysis (CBA) for a combined heat and power municipal solid waste mass burn incineration facility in Belgrade. Methods A financial and an economic analysis were conducted for the proposed WtE facility. The contributions of energy derived from waste incineration to the total energy consumption in Belgrade were also evaluated. Results Belgrade has a developed district heating system and locating the WtE facility next to an existing thermal power plant would enable the utilization of the heat energy produced by incineration. It was estimated that in its first year of operation, the incinerator would produce electrical energy and heat in the equivalent of 6% of the electrical household demand in 2014 and 26% of the thermal energy delivered during the 2014/2015 heating season in Belgrade. The financial and economic analyses, done in the form of a CBA, showed that the project would be financially and economically positive and viable. Results The Belgrade WtE facility project is a first-of-its-kind in the region. The presented work could serve as a primer on conducting a WtE project sustainability analysis for other cities and urban areas in the region that do not have developed WtE systems.