Control strategy for the combustion optimization for waste-to-energy incineration plant

Waste disposal is becoming more and more challenging. Indeed, global population is still increasing and countries that do not have enough space to create big landfills need to find other solutions to deal with this problem. The incineration of municipal solid waste (MSW), if well controlled, is a possible solution. According to Cheng and Hu (2010) incineration can reduce the volume occupied by MSW down to 90% while producing thermal and/or electrical energy. Also the clinker of incineration can be used in road building and the construction industry. But air pollution control remains a major problem in the implementation of incineration for solid waste disposal. Despite the long history of work in this area, the proposed control schemes of these waste-to-energy plants are quite basic. This paper presents a way to optimize such a plant by using Advanced Control techniques. The aim of this operation is to control the steam flow rate, and, therefore the energy production, while ensuring a complete combustion, which is synonym of minimal pollution emission. Copyright (C) 2020 The Authors.