Tolvik Consulting have just released the latest edition of their “Energy from Waste Statistics” covering developments in the sector in 2017.
The report points to year of “little new EfW” capacity being developed, a 7.7% rise in inputs in 2017 to 10.9Mt.
This was as a result of some EfW plants in construction in 2016 completing commissioning and improvements in the operational performance of a number of existing EfWs,
Particularly notable, after turbine issues experienced at several larger EfW plants in 2016, was the return to the long-term trend of a greater average power exported per tonne of input waste.
The 2017 figure of 575kWh/tonne was an all-time high and 11% upon on 2016. The report identified other operational improvements including the lowest ever reported average parasitic load (at 13.4%) and, whilst still modest, increased beneficial use of heat exported by EfWs in the UK.
For the first time the report also considered the calorific value of waste feedstocks as this is becoming increasingly important for operators.
The report once again assesses gate fee trends and identifies whilst median short-term gate fees rose only modestly in 2017, there was a narrowing of the gap between these gate fees and gate fees for longer term contracts.