Elsevier

Energy Policy

Volume 39, Issue 2, February 2011, Pages 651-663
Energy Policy

Assessing the power generation, pollution control, and overall efficiencies of municipal solid waste incinerators in Taiwan

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2010.10.038Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper evaluates the productivity of municipal solid waste incinerators (MSWIs) by addressing the following questions: (1) to what extent should one further increase the production of power generation while maintaining the emission of noxious air at the current level?; (2) To what extent should one further decrease the emission of noxious air while maintaining the production of power generation at the current level?; and (3) To what extent should one increase the production of power generation and decrease the emission of noxious air simultaneously? To effectively address these questions to improve performance, the power generation and pollution control efficiencies are evaluated using TODEA (two-objective data envelopment analysis), as well as the overall efficiency evaluated using Tone’s NS-overall model (slacks-based measure with non-separable desirable and undesirable outputs for evaluating overall efficiency). A MSWI case study in Taiwan with the panel data covering the period of 2004–2008 reveals that the power generation and overall efficiencies of build-operate-transfer are more efficient, on average, than those of public-own-operate and build-own-operate. However, the three building and operation types do not significantly differ in pollution control efficiency.

Research highlights

► The MSWIs implemented by private sectors are more effective than that by public sectors. ► Policy makers should pay more attention to the reduction of CO during waste incineration. ► Three alternatives for improving the performance of MSWIs can be made available.

Introduction

Located in southeast Asia while facing the Pacific Ocean in the east and proximate to the Taiwan Strait in the west, Taiwan encompasses nearly 36,000 km2 in total area with a population of nearly 23 million by the end of 2009. The densely populated and small island had an average population density of 634 inhabitants/km2 in 2007. Given the extremely limited availability of landfill space, incineration is the primary means of treating municipal solid waste (MSW) in Taiwan (Tsai and Chou, 2006). As of 2009, 24 large-scale MSW incinerators (MSWIs) were operating for waste disposal, with a total treatment capacity of 24,650 metric ton daily. Importantly, MSWIs can transform waste into renewable energy via heat recovery, i.e. cogeneration, despite the emission of noxious air during waste incineration. The Taiwan government is especially attracted to renewable energy alternatives such as waste-to-energy, given that this energy-importing nation imports nearly 99% of its fuel energy for consumption (Liu et al., 2010a). As is estimated, the renewable energy supplied by MSWIs accounts for over 85% of all renewable energy in Taiwan (Tsai and Chou, 2005), explaining why assessing the productivity of MSWIs is of priority concern in Taiwan.

Outputs of MSWIs include desirable (good), i.e. production of power generation, and undesirable (bad), i.e. emission of noxious air items. As is widely recognized, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is a highly effective means of evaluating the productivity of a group of homogeneous decision making units (DMUs) in the presence of undesirable outputs. Zhou et al. (2008a) and Sueyoshi et al. (2010) described numerous studies that have applied DEA to evaluate efficiency while addressing energy and environmental issues. However, the productivity of MSWIs in Taiwan has seldom been addressed in DEA studies.

This study evaluates the productivity of MSWIs by addressing the following questions: (1) to what extent should one further increase the production of power generation while maintaining the emission of noxious air at the current level?; (2) To what extent should one further decrease the emission of noxious air while maintaining the production of power generation at the current level?; and (3) To what extent should one increase the production of power generation and decrease the emission of noxious air simultaneously? The DEA method is thus adopted to evaluate the power generation efficiency, pollution control efficiency, and overall efficiency. Importantly, DEA can provide benchmark MSWIs for inefficient MSWIs, allowing us to determine the extent to which one should reduce inputs and/or increase outputs to improve performance. Measuring the power generation, pollution control, and overall efficiencies can thus obtain three alternatives for energy and environmental policy making, i.e. (1) maximizing the production of power generation and maintaining the emission of noxious air at the current level; (2) minimizing the emission of noxious air and maintaining the production of power generation at the current level; and (3) increasing the production of power generation and decreasing the emission of noxious air simultaneously.

Let d+, d0, u, and u0 denote “increasing the desirable output”, “maintaining the desirable output at the current level”, “decreasing the undesirable output”, and “maintaining the undesirable output at the current level”, respectively. The three alternatives can be represented as (d+, u0), (d0, u), and (d+, u). Fig. 1 depicts the three alternatives for improving performance with a simple example including three MSWIs, each having a desirable output (the production of power generation) and an undesirable output (the emission of noxious air) and an equal input. For instance, MSWI C can (1) emulate MSWI B to maximize the production of power generation and maintain the emission of noxious air at the current level, (2) emulate MSWI A to minimize the emission of noxious air and maintain the production of power generation at the current level, or (3) achieve segment 0AB (the segment 0AB of the output possibility set constitutes the best practice frontier) for simultaneously increasing the production of power generation and decreasing the emission of noxious air. Policy makers can select any of the three alternatives for improving the performance of the (inefficient) MSWI C based on their preferences.

The rest of this paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the DEA methods adopted here to evaluate the power generation, pollution control, and overall efficiencies. Available DEA methods adopted to cope with the undesirable outputs in efficiency evaluation are also briefly reviewed. Section 3 then summarizes the analysis results of a MSWI case study in Taiwan. Conclusions are finally drawn in Section 4, along with recommendations for future research.

Section snippets

Evaluating the power generation and pollution control efficiencies

Disregarding the emission of noxious air, i.e. the undesirable outputs, is a conventional means of evaluating the power generation efficiency (see Arcelus and Arocena, 2005). Also, neglecting the production of power generation, i.e. the desirable outputs, can evaluate the pollution control efficiency. However, after the conventional approach is adopted, the identified power generation benchmarks (or pollution control benchmarks) may be an inappropriate “best practice” because MSWIs are

Case study results

The Taiwan government highly prioritizes MSW management owing to extremely limited landfill space available islandwide. Since 1990, Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration (TEPA), i.e. largely responsible for environmental issues at the governmental level, created a series of MSWI construction projects, i.e. public infrastructure projects, to construct an incinerator for each city or county to resolve tremendous waste problems in Taiwan (Huang et al., 2006). Given public deficit

Conclusions

The 24 large-scale MSWIs operating in Taiwan for waste disposal may rank the island as having the largest large-scale incinerator density worldwide. Importantly, transforming waste into renewable energy is an attractive feature of MSWI, despite the fact that noxious air is the inevitable undesirable by-product during waste incineration.

This study evaluates the power generation, pollution control, and overall efficiencies of MSWIs with the panel data covering the period of 2004–2008. According

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