LPIPT in Saraburi, Thailand, currently operates waste-to-energy power plants. Our company has brought a residual waste such as municipal solid waste (MSW), landfills and non-hazardous industrial trash into the sorting process. The main purpose of it is to improve quality, for example the heat, size, and chemical composition to be transformed as refuse derived fuel (RDF) production. Using RDF technology from Europe and China along with the machinery developments of the company ourselves gaves us an opportunity to produce RDF with a capacity of 2,500 tons/day for use as renewable energy for generating electricity of our 2 RDF Power plants with a size of 20 MW and 60 MW. The need of using RDF power for generating electricity is 1,550 tons/day and our company has another 70-MW RDF power plant under construction. Besides, this new plant is planned to supply power to the system for commercial operation date (COD) in 2017. In this manner, our organization needs to expand the capacity of RDF production to support the RDF power plants.
We likewise have two more similar RDF production projects in the Laemchabang City Municipality and Sriracha City Municipality in Chonburi. These areas have a high volume of municipal solid waste and other rubbish with high potential that is enough to produce RDF as fuel to supply our RDF power plants. We believe that the implementation of this project will benefit the company, society, and the nation as a whole. The benefit of these projects to the company is reduction of the use and cost of imported fossil fuels. Energy that would be produced from MSW and landfills will be beneficial to the community, environment and the country since it helps to reduce the amount of municipal waste that must be treated by means of a landfill, which cause a number of issues such as air pollution, odor, contamination of groundwater and emissions of greenhouse gases. The projects will not only reduce the use of landfill space, but also promote energy conservation in electricity generation of the country, which is in accordance with the government policy. Moreover, it will increase the employment rate and new vacancies in the community nearby the project sites. It is worth noting that the projects could expand to surrounding provinces in the region because the amount of junk is increasing every year due to population growth and economic development.
Solid Waste Management
Chonburi is a city with high population density. It generates around 2,400 tons of waste per day and the waste is improperly managed and illegally disposed at open dumping sites. This causes a problem because the lack of landfill sites to dump everyday trash occurs. In addition, the government has the policy to close all illegal open dumping sites in order to make various steps of waste management more effective. Therefore, converting everyday and old waste that has accumulated for a long time into RDF is an approach to solve the problem of waste disposal. This type of waste-to-energy plant can be implemented rapidly and it has been recognized by the community rather than a regular power plant or incinerator in the area.
Solid Waste is a significant issue in numerous countries around the world. Thailand is not an exception and it is also facing an increasing trend of waste throughout the decades likewise other developing countries. In 2013, Thailand generated around 26.77 million tons of waste, but only 7.2 million tons of waste were managed properly. A million tons of waste were left and none of the practices were effectively performed; just only 5.1 million tons of waste from the remaining could be recycled. This problem has a huge impact on the environment and human health. These two RDF production projects are in line with the government policy as a practice of converting waste into renewable energy sources is more than effective. If the projects are completed, we would be able to eliminate municipal solid waste (MSW) and landfills up to 600 tons/day per project and produce RDF as a fuel with a capacity of 200 tons/day per project.
Overall Objective:
Outcomes:
RDF for use as fuel in the company's power plants with a total capacity of 400 tons/day.
200 direct and indirect jobs will be created.
The impacts of climate change will be reduced
The following projects are an RDF production from MSW and landfill for use in RDF power plants. It has an impact on the society and the community around the project site. The initial segment is making employments for local people. What is more, it will help people in the area in terms of income distribution, such as restaurants, convenience stores and apartments. This is the direct stimulation of economic in particular community. The second part is about the environment and lifestyle of people in the community. Since this project is an RDF production project from MSW, it would reduce the amount of MSW in the garbage dumping sites. Once the project has been established, it will improve the environment of the surrounding areas by reducing wastewater, pathogens and air pollution continuously. Another major problem of deposition of waste in the landfill is a landfill fire that can emit toxic gasses, dangerous fumes and also toxic contaminants in the water in the nearby areas. This may harm life and property. Hence, if there is such a project, wastes would be processed into waste management continuously. Problems or impacts that might happen can be reduced sustainable.
LPIPT currently operates waste-to-energy power plants by using waste heat recovery from cement production and renewable fuels. The details are as follows:
40-MW power plant project: using heat from waste gas discharged from a cement plant that is called “Waste Heat Recovery Power Plant” for electricity generation. The current status is in the “Operation mode”.
20-MW power plant project: using waste as fuel to produce electricity. The project was completed because of a loan from domestic financial institutions.
30-MW power plant project: using heat from waste gas discharged from a cement plant (Line 4) for electricity generation. The current status is in the “Operation mode”.
60-MW power plant project: using waste as fuel to produce electricity. The investment budget by way of a loan from domestic financial institutions and the project was completed. The current status is in the process of selling electricity to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.
70-MW power plant project: using waste as fuel to produce electricity. The investment budget by way of a loan from domestic financial institutions. Currently, the project is in the construction stage and is planned to supply power to the system in 2017.
Our energy plants currently need to utilize the waste of 2,000 tons per day and and are prone to need more. The two projects at Sriracha and Laemchabang district in Chonburi that were applied for participating EEP will have the capacity to produce RDF for our power plants up to 400 tons/day.
There are such benefits of the projects to the target groups as reducing environmental issues e.g. soil or water sources that may be contaminated by wastewater, which contains pollutants and toxins; reducing the air pollution caused by the accumulation of a landfill as a source of waste gas production such as Hydrogen Sulphide (H2S) etc. In the case of waste that was deposited for a long time, it will generate methane which can burst into flames in the hot climate condition. Unfortunately, such air pollution contributes to global warming and the greenhouse effect in the long term.
In establishing the projects, we expect to diminish landfill waste and resolve the environmental issues in a concrete way. Moreover, if in the future the production would increment, the employment rate would increase with it as it is necessary to recruit employees when the projects and production lines are completed. This will make an additional way of income for people in the community. They might have established women's groups in the cooperative stores, shops and restaurants that would help the local economy. Accordingly, the economy and living conditions of the people in those regions will become better.
In case of projects are completed, there will be the beneficiaries as below:
Directly:
The people and living animals around the area will get advantage from the project in terms of society, environment, and economy.
The local authorities of the Chonburi province such as Sriracha City Municipality and Laemchabang City Municipality will be able to reduce the budget of solid waste and wastewater management. The projects can also be used as a model project for waste management in other areas or provinces for further operation.
The nation will be able to manage an expansion plan for waste management sustainably and systematically. The main goal of it would be to decrease the ecological destruction and CO2 emissions which cause greenhouse effect and to help in global warming reducing.
For the projects to be built in a concrete way, we require courtesy and cooperation from various departments, including the supply of space section, the consultation section and the procurement section as below:
Local authorities, such as Provincial Administrative Organization (PAO) and Sub-district Administration Organization (SAO).
Moreover, the company created a learning center to provide a better understanding of the projects and to share technology and experience with the government agencies or private educational institutions in order to extend the operation of waste-to-energy and resolve the waste problem everywhere.
The planning period consists of space exploration, public listenings from residents of the surrounding areas and the management of construction projects and installations as well as production. Thus, approximately 1 month will be needed to implement the plan and we expect to finish it in June 2016. After the plan is completed, the next step is to proceed. It is obligatory to request permission from the relevant authorities such as local government agencies, Ministry of Industry or Ministry of Environment. This procedure will take approximately 4 months (June-September 2016). For the people in the project area, the company plans to make public relations with the community, for example education in the process of waste management, health care, ways of improving the used-to-be landfill area, assisting children with diligence and determination in the community. The public relations will start from the start of the construction and will take about 11 months (July 2016 – July 2017). 3 months from June to August are required for the Engineering and Procurement. The importation of machinery and equipment will start in August 2016 and should last in April 2017 (9 months). The construction period will take about 8 months (October 2016 – July 2017). The start-up period will last half a year from February to July 2017. Thus, the periods of implementation of the project will be completed in a total of 14 months.
LPIPT will intend to complete both the construction projects and keep following the outlined plan if RDF production from MSW and Landfill is not funded by the EEP. The reason of it is that such projects will highly benefit the society and the environment. We might need to obtain support from the local authorities with limitation.
We would like to emphasize that PIPT has started a construction of RDF production from waste since April 2009 to be able to utilize the waste in Thailand. In October 2010 and in 2014 the company won the Asean Energy Awards from the renewable energy contest. In 2015, we produced RDF with a capacity of 67,275 tons.
