Modeling and Simulation of Small Scale Waste-to-Energy Plant
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Date
2017-03
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
With increasing demand of energy and global issue of pollution due to municipal solid waste, the idea of energy from waste is attracting the attention of many researchers. This is due to the fact that, generation of energy in the form of electricity or heat from waste has a dual effect: getting energy and changing environmentally polluting waste in to harmless and usable material which is ash. At the moment a 50 MW Waste to Energy plant is under construction in Addis Ababa at ‘Rappi, Koshe’ site which is previously used as land fill site. There is also a landfill site at ‘Sendafa’ which is by now closed as surrounding people not accepted the project. However as both these plants sites are at outskirt of Addis Ababa city, delivering of such amount of waste to these plants needs complicated transport management and traffic congestion. Due to this, localized waste management is preferable. This is possible with the application of Small Scale Waste to Energy plant.
Thus, in this thesis, Addis Ababa’s municipal solid waste was characterized, detailed modeling and simulation of Small Scale Waste to Energy plant for Ethiopian Cities are performed. Various ways to maximize the energy performance of Small Scale Waste-to-Energy plants has been done.
Different data has been collected through literature. Thermoeflex® Software has been used for modeling and Simulation. The model has also been validated by using literature data from actual operating Small Scale Waste to Energy Plants. Thus, based on the simulation result, the proposed model plant can generate approximately 2.4 MW net electric power at 21.27 % net electric efficiency with waste throughput of 1.7 Kg/s. As a result, the electric generation potential of regional towns of Ethiopia was assessed by varying the waste throughputs. Detailed simulation has been done by varying the waste input from 23.04 tons/day to 97.92 tons/day. Thus, based on the result, net electric power of 0.5 - 1MW can be obtained for Bahir Dar, Awasa, and Harar and net electric power of 1 – 1.5MW can be obtained for Mekelle, Dire Dawa and Jimma and 2 - 2.45 MW can be obtained from a sub city of Addis Ababa. The result also shows that fuel’s lower heating value, moisture and ash content, ambient temperature, and size of the plant affects the plant’s performance significantly. Thus, by adopting a Small Scale Waste-to-Energy plant with a generating capacity of 2.45 MW, around 2,000 town houses can be electrified with the
Modeling and Simulation of Small Scale Waste-to-Energy Plant PageIV
assumption that each house will consume 1.2KW electric power. In conclusion, adopting small scale waste-to-energy plant for Ethiopia not only generates electricity but also it helps in reducing waste to be land filled.
Keywords: Small-Scale Waste-to-Energy Plant, Efficiency, Simulation
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Keywords
Small-Scale Waste-to-Energy Plant; Efficiency;Simulation