Abstract

In the process of Serbia’s EU integration, in the immediate future there will be a requirement for solving problems in accordance with environmental protection and relating to waste management. Inadequate waste management and therefore the lack of waste energy utilization is one of the biggest environmental problems and mostly come from existing social relationship to the waste. In Republic of Serbia there is no continuous monitoring of waste and municipal waste is disposed on landfill without treatment. This paper describes possible way of waste energy utilization when pre-selected waste materials are prepared in a plant for mechanical biological treatment (SRF – solid recovered fuel). Based on the assessment of the quantity and composition of waste in the territory of the Republic of Serbia the possibility of using renewable fuel that is produced from municipal solid waste and industrial waste is discussed. Requires and needs for use of SRF in the process of co-combustion of power plants in Serbia are explained so that the energy production is economically and environmentally justified. The pulverized coal power plants as potential users of SRF in co-firing process are defined based on SRF produced and spatial distribution of facilities for SRF production. Ranking of power plants for the introduction of co-combustion was carried out according to basic criteria: availability of SRF prepared, transport, the technical capacity of the power plant and available space around the plant as well as protection of the environment during combustion of coal and renewable fuels. It is assumed that the total amount of coal that is now burned in boiler of power plants is reduced by 5 %, replacing with SRF, in the process of co-combustion. In the calculation the heating value of SRF of 18.7 MJ/kg is taken. The main focus of the paper is to promote sustainable energy production with the aim of technology that reduces waste on landfills in finding opportunities for using of waste energy in the process of co-firing in coal power plants.