Integrated life-cycle data envelopment analysis for techno-environmental performance evaluation on sludge-to-energy systems

Chor Man Lam, Shu-Chien Hsu, Valeria Alvarado and Wing Man Li

Applied Energy, 2020, vol. 266, issue C, No S0306261920303792

Abstract: Sludge-to-energy systems have been widely recognized as a favourable approach to treat sewage sludge and recover energy from the energy-rich biomass waste simultaneously. An inclusive efficiency benchmarking tool for sludge-to-energy systems is lacking. This study developed a life-cycle data envelopment analysis framework, by integrating life-cycle assessment and data envelopment analysis, for evaluating sludge-to-energy systems. The life-cycle data envelopment analysis approach highlighted the strong linkage between sludge treatment and energy systems and included all the essential performance metrics in benchmarking the efficiency of the sludge-to-energy systems. Using life-cycle data envelopment analysis, this study compared the relative operation efficiency of nine Hong Kong sludge-to-energy systems and seven systems in other urban cities based on the volatile solids reduction, energy recovery, energy use, chemical consumption, sludge residues generation and direct environmental emissions. The results showed that 44% and 69% of the sixteen sludge-to-energy systems were efficient in terms of overall and pure technical efficiency, respectively. The life-cycle data envelopment analysis results also informed the appropriate strategies for improving efficiency, such as increasing energy recovery, reducing energy use and scaling up/down the systems, for the less efficient systems. The life-cycle data envelopment analysis framework is widely applicable for guiding decision-making on enhancing sludge-to-energy systems worldwide.

Keywords: Sludge to energy; Life-cycle assessment; Data envelopment analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261920303792
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:appene:v:266:y:2020:i:c:s0306261920303792

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/405891/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... 405891/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2020.114867

Access Statistics for this article

Applied Energy is currently edited by J. Yan

More articles in Applied Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().