Thermodynamic, Economic, and Environmental Evaluation of Municipal Waste Incinerator to Produce Power and Fresh Water

ABSTRACT In this study, three waste‐to‐energy (WTE) operational scenarios, that is, electricity‐only production, fresh water‐only production, and combined electricity and fresh water generation, were evaluated using Thermoflow software. The assessment was conducted based on the thermodynamic, economic, and environmental performance of a municipal solid waste incineration plant with a capacity of 1000 tons/day in Tehran, Iran. The simulated outputs for the three scenarios were 411,542 MWh of electricity (Scenario 1), 17,427,400 m 3 of fresh water (Scenario 2), and 14,757,200 m 3 of fresh water along with 143,819 MWh of electricity (Scenario 3). Despite the technical feasibility, the results revealed that all three configurations are economically unjustified under current electricity and water tariffs, primarily due to the high capital investment and low revenue from product sales. Among the scenarios, Scenario 2 (fresh water production) demonstrated the lowest levelized cost and yielded the highest net asset value ($14.65 million) compared with its initial cost of $36.65 million, assuming municipal gate fee support. Environmentally, all scenarios resulted in the emission of approximately 378,805 tons of CO 2 and 1318 tons of SO 2 annually. These findings underscore the need for policy incentives and tariff reform to improve the economic viability of integrated WTE‐desalination systems in urban contexts.