Abstract
To actively promote WtE (Waste to Energy) plants with high power generation efficiency, the “Subsidy System for Promoting the Establishment of a Sound Material-Cycle Society” raised its subsidy rate up to 50%. This subsidy system, with 5-years validity, started from fiscal 2010 and ended in fiscal 2015. This article verifies how much the elemental technologies encouraged by the system have been adopted and to what level they contribute to the improvement of power generation. Technologies such as Starved Combustion, High Temperature and High Pressure Boilers and Condensing Extraction Turbines have been increasingly accepted since the subsidy system was enacted. However, technologies like abolition of the Zero-effluent Closed System, etc. have not been, due to social conditions and development of infrastructure on location. As a result, the average power generation efficiency rose from 14.1% to 18.5% ; changes particularly in those small-scale plants that were not emphasized in the past are remarkable. To make WtE plants contribute more to the realization of a sound material-cycle and low-carbon society, further improvements on power generation efficiency will be required under a new subsidy system in the future.
