Utilization of energy from waste potential in Turkey as distributed secondary renewable energy source

• Energy from waste (EfW) provides renewable energy in a full-recycling paradigm.
• Paper investigates EfW potential of Turkey to establish smart grid policies.
• Municipal solid waste can be a distributed resource for sustainable development.
• EfW potential shows distribution corresponding to human population.
• Yearly overall 230 GWh distributed electricity generation is possible for Turkey.

Running out of fossil fuels and rising of environmental issues pressurize energy policies in the direction of increasing renewable energy utilization. As a part of full-recycling scheme, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) can be accounted as an alternative and prevalent source of renewable energy for smart grid applications. This study presents a case study investigating the future of dry combustion in Turkey and gives some projections on Energy from Waste (EfW) utilization potentials as secondary local generators. EfW potential of MSW incineration plants is modeled depending on MSW mass function. An empirical formula for prediction of EfW potential of Turkey is derived by curve fitting to yearly MSW data. Dependence of EfW potential on human population is modeled and thus spread of EfW potential over the territory of Anatolia landscape is illustrated. Analyses reveal that EfW has a potential to be local source of renewable energy for future smart grids due to the fact that EfW exhibits energy generation distribution correlated with city population. We concluded that EfW incineration plants can act on sustainable development of Turkey by serving as a consistent, distributed, near-field generators integrated to waste management systems of cities.