Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
investigate if any unambiguous trends can be seen in this material; is there a correlation
between high DH production and/or high market share and high proportion of energy
recovery as a waste treatment method? In Sweden this is the case, but what about other
European countries?
100%
80%
60%
40%
20%
0%
Coal
Oil
Natural gas
Renewables
Waste
Others
Figure 3. Fuels used for DH in the countries surveyed in a report by Euroheat and Power (2003).
Figure 3 shows the amount of fuel used for DH production by some European countries.
It can be seen that the supply differs between countries. Coal is the major fuel used in the
Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries and natural gas is also widely used; and the
two fuels account for about 85% of the total supply. The CEE countries show a less
diversified supply than the old EU member states and a large untapped potential exists for
using more heat from waste incineration, renewables, and industrial surplus heat. As regards
the proportion of DH produced in CHP plants, this is high in the old member States (64-94%)
with the exception of Sweden.
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In the CEE countries, the proportion is lower (35-72%).
Figure 4 shows the total DH production in several European countries together with its
share of the heat market. It can be seen that Poland and Germany are the largest producers.
The highest market shares exist in some Nordic countries, along with some CEE countries.
Profu (2004) identifies a number of “key-factors” when assessing environmental impact
of waste incineration, where one is energy recovery per ton waste. Figure 5 shows the extent
to which the useful energy content of the incinerated waste is taken care of in a number of
countries. Sweden has the highest energy recovery of the countries surveyed, mainly due to
the country's extensive DH network. The efficiency of using waste as a fuel varies between
the countries surveyed. It should be noted, however, that if the data in the diagram were
recalculated into oil equivalences, countries would show more similar figures.
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One reason for this is the historically low electricity prices in Sweden (Sjödin, 2002) and (Trygg and Karlsson,
2005).