* Heat only plants could meet 6% of Scotland's existing heat needs;
* Combined heat and power waste treatment plants could meet 3% of Scotland's total heat and electricity demand.
The study comes after the Scottish Government last week (June 9) published a Zero Waste Plan in which it scrapped plans to cap the amount of municipal waste which could be sent to energy-from-waste facilities in the country – instead opting to regulating its feedstock (see letsrecycle.com story) .
Energy Minister Jim Mather said: “Our Zero Waste Plan outlines how we can all prevent waste, increase recycling and reuse valuable resources. Yet energy from waste has a part to play in a low carbon society where all efforts have been made to reduce, re-use and recycle valuable resources that would otherwise be buried in landfill.
“This useful report highlights the potentially significant contribution of waste to our heat and electricity needs. Electricity only generation is, however, generally wasteful due to the loss of heat to the atmosphere so care must be taken to ensure we get the maximum energy output from waste by utilising heat wherever possible.”
Renewable Heat
Care must be taken to ensure we get the maximum energy output from waste by utilising heat wherever possible
Jim Mather MSP
The report was commissioned by the Scottish Government for the Renewable Heat Implementation Group and takes existing and planned waste targets into consideration.
Scottish Government targets are to meet 50% of electricity demand from renewables by 2020 and 11% of heat from renewables by 2020.
Professor Jan Bebbington, Vice Chair of Sustainable Development Commission Scotland, which compiled the report, said that strong performance in waste minimisation and recycling could go hand-in-hand with the use of energy from waste as part of an integrated strategy.
He said: “This SDC Scotland report shows what the potential is and helps the Scottish Government's Zero Waste aspiration move forward. We believe the potential for energy-from-waste can be developed as part of creating low carbon communities across Scotland.”
COSLA
Councillor Alison Hay, regeneration and Sustainable Development Spokesperson said for the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA), added that energy-from-waste was important in realising the country's ‘zero waste' ambitions.
She said: “COSLA believes that energy from waste has an essential part to play along with waste prevention, re-use and recycling activities in a zero waste society.
“The report's identification of the various heat and/or electricity generation scenarios is welcomed. We see energy from waste include direct combustion as well as the creation and use of biogas.
“In either case the efficient use of heat and/or electricity locally will be important. However, the exact choice of energy from waste plant should be arrived at locally, where an analysis shows that such an approach achieves the smallest carbon emissions.”
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