Identification of waste management strategies and waste generation factors for thermal power plant sector wastes in Turkey

Thermal power plants are of great environmental importance in terms of the huge amounts of wastes that they produce. Although there are process-wise differences among these energy production systems, they all depend on the logic of burning out a fuel and obtaining thermal energy to rotate the turbines. Depending on the process modification and the type of fuel burned, the wastes produced in each step of the overall process may change. In this study, the most expected process and non-process wastes stemming from different power generation processes have been identified and given their European Waste Codes. Giving priority to the waste minimization options for the most problematic wastes from thermal power plants, waste management strategies have been defined. In addition, by using the data collected from site visits, from the literature and provided by the Turkish Republic Ministry of Environment and Urbanization, waste generation factor ranges expressed in terms of kilogram of waste per energy produced annually (kg/MWh) have been estimated. As a result, the highest generation was found to be in fly ash (24–63 for imported coal, 200–270 for native coal), bottom ash (1.3–6 for imported coal, 42–87 for native coal) and the desulfurization wastes (7.3–32) produced in coal combustion power plants. The estimated waste generation factors carry an important role in that they aid the authorities to monitor the production wastes declared by the industries