Environmental and economic analysis of the Turin incineration plant

There has been a great deal of attention given to the necessity to improve innovative systems of energy recovery and this, together with a positive trend in the increase of waste, has lead to a need to consider systems of the disposal and treatment of waste that enable the reduction of both volumes and energy and, if possible, a recovery of materials. Incineration is a system that offers both of the aforementioned opportunities (volume reduction and energy recovery). The aim of this work is to analyze the waste incineration plant that is built in Turin (Piedmont, North Italy). We analyze two different kinds of energy recovery: from one side, a recovery only of electric energy (electrical configuration) and on the other side, a recovery both of electric and thermal energy (cogenerative configuration) with different hypotheses on their connections to the district heating network from an environmental and economic point of view. From an environmental point of view the aim is to understand which of the two energy recovery configurations is more convenient (in terms of environmental compatibility) and from an economic point of view the aim is to understand if the environmental convenience corresponds to the economic convenience.