Financial feasibility of waste to energy strategies in the United Arab Emirates.

The present research explores the financial feasibility of alternative waste management strategies, based on waste to energy, in the United Arab Emirates. The integrated strategies assessed in this study were primarily based on anaerobic digestion (AD) or incineration. The economics of both strategies were evaluated based on various revenue and cost streams, as well as multiple financial parameters over a 20-year period. Carbon credits were estimated based on the projected carbon emission reductions from each strategy. Realistic public participation and recovery rates for waste separation and recycling were applied. It was found that the incineration strategy is profitable with a net present value of 181 million USD, compared to -127 million USD for the AD strategy. The incineration strategy was more financially favorable in terms of the payback period, internal rate of return and profitability index, mainly due to the larger amount of processed waste. On the other hand, the AD was substantially affected by the landfilling cost of the produced digestate as well as the low participation rate in the proposed food waste separation program. The levelized cost of electricity for incineration and AD was 0.096 and 0.101 USD/kWh, respectively. The incineration and AD strategies were found to breakeven at a minimum of 52.4 and 31.2 million tons of processed waste, respectively. Certain legislative and social modifications made the AD strategy financially feasible. The sensitivity analysis showed that the net present values of both strategies were strongly affected by the variations in capital investments, landfilling costs, and electricity tariff.