The mission of the PREWIN European Network
Performance, Reliability and Emissions Reduction in Waste Incinerators.
The Mission of the PREWIN European Network is to support progress towards improved performance and reliability of European Waste-to-Energy plants (incineration and co-incineration) while maintaining low or reduced emissions to the environment.
In addition, the network will provide a channel of communication for the discussion of technical issues between operators and support industries involved in waste incineration and policy makers of the European Commission.
Background and Aims
The EU Waste Management Directive requires, in priority order, waste avoidance, followed by recycling, then incineration and finally, as a last resort, land-fill for the disposal of the waste produced within the EU. While substantial effort is focused on waste avoidance and recycling, it is inevitable that many types of waste will need to be disposed of by one of the last two options. The aim of the PREWIN network is to support the industries involved in waste incineration, co-incineration and biomass combustion promoting effective use of heat in a way that affords economic plant operation while ensuring that emissions to the environment are maintained below acceptable limits.
PREWIN provides technical support to waste-to-energy operators, that operate in a rather fragmented industry, in order that best practices are adopted by all those involved in order that the targeted low emissions can be achieved.
Future directions
The main areas for future development are:
- Plant condition/emission monitoring methods
- Plant condition modeling
- Better materials and better informed selection of materials for critical applications
- Effective repair and maintenance methods for efficient plant operation
- Improvements to flue gas cleaning
- Improved gas filtration/catalysis
- Alternate technologies to incineration of waste (e.g. gasification/pyrolysis and plant performance/emissions in these systems)