The World Waste To Energy City Summit 2013 London

The Summit brought together policy-makers, project developers, technology companies and investors from throughout Europe to discuss the opportunities and challenges in developing advanced waste-to-energy facilities in towns and cities.

With the emphasis on advanced conversion technologies for municipal and industrial waste, this was a good opportunity to present the work of Broadcrown Renewable Energy Ltd (BREL) and put forward our vision for municipal based waste to energy developments.

To date, waste to energy plants have had to be large in order to be financially and operationally sustainable and achieve that balance between investment and a profitable return.

BREL has developed a gasification technology that essentially allows for the development of small financially sustainable and economical waste to energy power plants. This technology allows for 1 MWe to 20 MWe plants, faster lead time, minimal operational requirements, minimal parasitic loads and maximum exported power.

The European Union is calling for countries to reduce their use of landfills. Along with the UK, Italy, Poland and Ireland are responding to the call.

As evidenced by the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI), the British Government clearly supports the move towards advanced gasification.

The ETI has selected Broadcrown along with two other companies, to design and develop a commercially viable demonstration plant in the UK.

(http://www.eti.co.uk/news/article/eti_announces_shortlist_of_companies_in_2.8m_competition_to_design_energy_f)

The aim of this ETI commissioned / funded £2.8m project, is to demonstrate how a plant could create energy from municipal waste at efficiencies higher than previously produced in the industry at this scale. The challenge is that the plant must demonstrate an industry leading net overall operational efficiency of at least 25%.

This is all very good news and major steps are being taken in the right direction. However, it would appear the investor needs more convincing as cash is still being pumped into older technologies such as incineration and steam turbine generation. We are confident the ETI project will turn a few heads and investment streams in our direction.