Dublin / Ireland
Dublin / Ireland
Green Energy and Sustainability for Top Energy Efficiency.
Following Oslo, Paris, Edinburgh, and London, Hitachi Zosen Inova is implementing its technology in a further European capital – in Dublin’s new Waste to Energy plant. The installation will supply electricity to more than 80,000 households at the highest levels of energy efficiency.
The project in Dublin is a public-private partnership between the City of Dublin (on behalf of the four local municipal authorities) and the recycling and energy company Covanta. Besides minimising landfill and generally reducing the volume of waste, the regional Dublin Waste Management Plan contained plans to build an Waste to Energy (WtE) plant for the thermal treatment of non-recyclable municipal solid waste. The technology was supplied by Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI). This is the first joint WtE project of Covanta and HZI.
The project received initial planning approval in November 2007 from An Bord Pleanála, the local building and infrastructure authority. A year later the project was granted a waste license by the Environmental Protection Agency, and in September 2009 it received authorizations from the Commission for Energy Regulation, before the last remaining approvals were granted for construction work to commence in summer of 2014.
After various previous attempts over the years to build WtE plants in Ireland had failed, the construction of the Dublin installation marked new milestones in various respects: As well as being HZI’s first project in Ireland, the capital’s WtE plant is also among the first of its kind in the country. The installation’s two combustion lines will thermally process up to 600,000 tonnes of municipal waste per year to generate up to 68.8 MW of electricity, enough for the daily use of around 80,000 homes.
Harnessing Advantages of the Site for Top Efficiency
The facility was built on the Poolbeg peninsula, in Dublin’s port area. The site has various advantages: Direct access to the sea enables considerable savings for the water condenser without any impact for the sea life. Moreover, an additional flue gas heat exchanger reheats the condensate, resulting in net plant efficiency of over 30%. This puts Dublin on a par with other HZI installations at the head of the European efficiency rankings. The WtE plant operates on a completely wastewater-free basis. Most of the feed water comes from its own rainwater treatment system or the neighboring water treatment plant. Not only this, but thanks to the HZI DyNOR® SNCR from Hitachi Zosen Inova, the lime-based HZI SemiDry flue gas purification system, and a wet scrubber, the facility achieves emissions that are well below the WID standard, meet the most stringent environmental requirements, and are constantly monitored.
Reliable Processes Thanks to First-Class Technology
Municipal and commercial waste that cannot be reused or recycled is delivered by truck and unloaded into the waste bunker from where it is put into the feed hopper by crane and then taken onto the reciprocating grate, the heart of HZI’s combustion technology.
