Electricity Generation:

Waste

The U.S. market tallied an estimated $640 million in revenue in 2011 from waste, with biogas accounting for 97% of that total.

Global revenue for electricity from waste reached $4.7 billion, with 1.3 GW of new installed capacity among waste-to-energy (WTE) and biogas facilities in 2011. Biogas for electricity generation, which includes anaerobic digesters and landfill gas-to-energy facilities accounted for 93% of that revenue, led by small-scale digester installations across Germany. However, 2012 revenue for the Waste subsegment are expected to drop 42% to $2.8 billion, with installations estimated at 850 MW. Growth in Europe is expected to continue due to strong waste management policies, and Asia Pacific is expected to be a region of growth for landfill gas recovery.

The United States has generally been slower to adopt biogas capture and utilization technologies from anaerobic digesters due to policy uncertainty, interconnection challenges, and the relatively low cost of grid electricity. It does, however, remain a market leader in landfill gas-to-energy utilization. The U.S. market tallied an estimated $640 million in revenue in 2011 from waste, with biogas accounting for 97% of that total. Although emissions control technology has proven to be effective in minimizing WTE combustion facility emissions, local opposition issues and a high reliance on landfilling continue to impact WTE adoption in the United States. Conversely, anaerobic digestion of source-separated organic waste is gaining traction in municipalities where waste reduction efforts have strong policy support and in industrial applications such as food processing. Nonetheless, in 2012, the U.S. Waste subsegment is expected to contract nearly 55% compared to 2011, down to an estimated $290 million. This is explained by a drop-off in landfill gas-to-energy project development due to lower natural gas prices and reduced revenue potential from environmental attributes such as renewable energy certificates (RECs).