The Krakow WtE plant, which began operating in 2016 and is the largest such facility in Poland, has a modern design and is a well operated plant, with the capability to incinerate 245 000 tpy of municipal. Approximately 100 000 MWh of electricity and 1 million GJ of heat are produced per year as a result of the combustion. It has received Green Energy certification from the Polish government, and the power that it generates is sold to the national grid.

Most modern WtE plants generate electricity by using the heat energy from the incineration of waste to produce steam that drives a turbine. Compared to conventional fuel sources, the amount of energy generated from the incineration of municipal household waste tends to vary more due to variations in moisture content and density. Extensive waste sorting, which in recent years has been introduced in many European cities, also makes this situation more complicated, and it has proven increasingly difficult to stably control this process by relying solely on conventional PID control (a control technology for flow rate, temperature, level, pressure, and materials), even with well-designed WtE plants.

In Poland and most other European countries, there are two approaches to increasing revenue from WtE plants. The first is to keep the power plant operating at its maximum capacity by ensuring stable waste combustion conditions and maintaining steam production at a set level within the critical and safe process conditions defined for the plant, and the second is to increase the volume of waste that is incinerated by increasing the plant operational availability and thereby increasing the waste receipt and processing fees (gate fees) that are paid based on the volume of waste that is to be incinerated.

Dublix’s FuzEvent™ system is a high-performance combustion control solution based on a unique high-level control technology that leverages this company’s combustion process know-how. It can be installed as an addition to the existing control systems without having to add new plant sensors, change already established control structures, or make expensive modifications to existing equipment, and it enables centralised management with an integrated production control system. By tackling the root issues of municipal waste combustion and ensuring stable combustion, it allows plants to operate at full capacity and increase the amount of electricity and steam that they produce, while also increasing the volume of waste that is incinerated.

As part of this project, experts from Dublix who possessed an in-depth knowledge of WtE plants and were highly experienced in performing a range of simulations provided consulting services that included the conduct of a feasibility survey to estimate the benefits that the FuzEvent™ solution would have in increasing the waste incineration volume and electrical and thermal power output at this plant, following which they analysed past operational data and the operational methods of the plant’s highly experienced operators. Through the survey, it was found that the waste incineration volume at this plant could be increased by 2.5% (equivalent to a 5 500 tpy increase if operated at full capacity).

“I am very proud of the way in which the introduction of Dublix’s high-performance combustion control solution has brought about a quantitative improvement to the customer’s numerical indicators and will contribute significantly to an increase in revenue. For companies around the world that operate waste-to-energy plants, Yokogawa will provide support to increase revenues and contribute to ESG management, based on the foundation of our unique and high-quality technology and consulting capabilities,” said Yokogawa’s Koji Nakaoka, Senior Vice President and Head of the Energy and Sustainability Business Headquarters and the Global Sales Headquarters.