MHIEC Receives Order to Improve Core Equipment At Municipal Solid Waste Incineration Facility in Kanazawa City

Kanazawa's East Environmental Energy Center was engineered and constructed by MHI and completed in March 1991. The current incineration facilities consist of two stoker furnaces with 125tpd processing capacities and related equipment. Power generation capacity at the plant is 3,000 kilowatts (kW).

The newly ordered work is to consist of replacement and revamping of the plant's core equipment, including facilities for waste heat utilization, incineration, incinerator flue-gas cooling and waste gas treatment. The adoption of MHIEC's patented "combustion control method," which contributes to stable combustion, reduces the volume of waste gas through high-temperature combustion technology and low-air-ratio operation, enabling consumption of less energy. Energy is further conserved through the adoption of various high-efficiency motors. Together these features enable a greater than 8% (approx. 277 tons) reduction in carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year, contributing to curbing global warming.

Recently the number of projects to modify and improve existing MSW incineration plants, both to extend their operational lives and to reduce their impact on global warming, is in an increasing trend as local governments face tight budgets that make it difficult to construct new facilities. Moves in this direction are also gathering further momentum with the central government's introduction in 2010 of a state subsidy system created to promote operational life extension and enhance energy savings of waste treatment facilities^*2.

MHIEC took over MHI's waste treatment plant business in 2008, acquiring MHI's technological development capabilities in environmental systems and its abundant expertise in the construction and operation of waste management facilities both in Japan and overseas. On the strength of these assets, MHIEC today is in a prime position to provide comprehensive solutions encompassing all aspects from plant construction to operation.

Leveraging this latest order and its solid track record, going forward MHIEC will proactively propose further energy-saving enhancements and system improvements for stable operation at existing waste treatment facilities as well as ways to reduce lifecycle costs, including maintenance and management costs, in a quest to expand its business in this field further.

Notes:
1. A stoker furnace is a common feature of MSW incineration plants. In a stoker furnace, MSW is combusted as it moves along on a fire grate made of heat-resistant castings.

2. This program, which falls under the jurisdiction of Japan's Ministry of the Environment, targets effective use and improvement of existing waste treatment facilities as a contribution to the prevention of global warming. Local (city, town or village) governments that seek to extend the operational life of their MSW facilities are eligible to receive subsidies covering one-third to half of the project cost, dependent on the CO2 reduction rate.