Overcapacity, from a market perspective, means that supply exceeds demand. The waste incineration power generation industry is currently facing this situation.
According to the latest data from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, as of October 2024, there are 1010 incineration enterprises in China, 2172 incinerators, and an incineration capacity of approximately 1.11 million tons per day. The "14th Five Year Plan for the Development of Urban Domestic Waste Classification and Treatment Facilities" released in 2021 proposes that by the end of 2025, the national urban domestic waste incineration capacity will reach about 800000 tons/day, with urban domestic waste incineration capacity accounting for about 65%.
By comparing this data, not only did we achieve the planned goals ahead of schedule, but we also exceeded them by 38.75%.
Of course, it is not until 2024 that the planned goals were exceeded. According to the "2022 Green Development Level Assessment Report of the Household Waste Incineration Power Generation Industry" released by the Engineering Evaluation Center of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, there were a total of 930 waste incineration power generation enterprises in China at that time, with an incineration processing capacity of 1.0453 million tons/day, 2046 incinerators built, and a power generation installed capacity of 23026.67 MW.
A 5-year plan will be completed in 2 years, followed by the imminent outbreak of the "garbage grab" war in the waste incineration power generation industry.
The North Star Waste to Energy Network has noticed that the environmental impact assessment for co incineration and co disposal of waste incineration power generation projects will be launched one after another around the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022. According to incomplete statistics, in 2022, nearly 30 waste incineration power generation projects initiated the environmental impact assessment procedures for co incineration technology transformation (reference article: 28 technology transformation environmental impact assessment waste incineration power generation projects in 2022! Involving multiple leading enterprises~).
To this day, the "mixed combustion technology renovation wave" of garbage incineration power generation projects is still continuing, and 20 projects will join the mixed combustion technology renovation team in 2024.
According to publicly available data from some project renovation documents, the North Star garbage power grid has calculated the blending ratio for some projects. The blending ratio is within the range of 12% -35%; From a regional perspective, it involves 14 provinces across the country, including Guizhou, Hebei, and Jiangxi; In terms of project scale, there are 7 projects with a scale of over 1000 tons, while the rest of the projects are in the range of 500 tons/day to 900 tons/day. The project is accelerating its launch, with both large and small-scale projects facing insufficient waste incineration capacity and overcapacity issues, equally impacting every waste incineration power plant. The collaborative disposal of general industrial solid waste in the Nanyang municipal solid waste incineration power generation project has a co incineration ratio of up to 35%, which requires a daily co incineration of 1050 tons of industrial solid waste to achieve full load operation. It is reported that the garbage incineration power generation project in Nanyang City will be constructed in two phases, with a construction scale of 1500 tons per day in each phase, and both have been put into operation. Nanyang City is under the jurisdiction of Henan Province, which has accelerated the implementation of dozens of waste incineration power generation projects between 2019 and 2020. This has also led to the problem of insufficient capacity utilization after centralized production. During the same period, the region that launched the waste incineration power generation project alongside Henan was Hebei Province, and multiple waste incineration power generation projects in Hebei Province experienced a small-scale "technological transformation wave" in 2022. The solution to the insufficient amount of garbage is to "seize" the weak areas around the project that have not yet built garbage incineration facilities. Recently, the North Star garbage power generation network analyzed that the market for incineration and disposal and excavation of stale garbage in 2024 will bring more than 4.6 billion yuan of "supply" to the current industry. However, the service period of garbage incineration disposal projects can be as long as 3 years or as short as a few months, and it is still difficult to achieve long-term improvement in the problem of insufficient garbage incineration capacity. On the other hand, it is the large-scale co firing of general industrial solid waste that can be put into the furnace. Burning general industrial solid waste, sludge, etc. into the furnace can achieve long-term supply of garbage, improve production capacity utilization, and also solve the problem of local general industrial solid waste or sewage treatment plant sludge being unable to be reduced, harmless, and resourceful for disposal. Of course, many projects only focus on the disposal of household waste in the early stages of construction planning, resulting in large-scale project blending, technological transformation, environmental impact assessment approval, and verification. At the same time, we can also see that many local governments are gradually standardizing the approval process and policy regulations for mixed burning projects. In terms of policy improvement, Zhejiang Province has taken the lead in initiating a clear list of industrial solid waste that can be incinerated in multiple regions. In July 2023, the Department of Ecology and Environment of Zhejiang Province released the "List of General Industrial Solid Waste for Collaborative Disposal of Domestic Waste Incineration Facilities in Zhejiang Province (First Batch)", which clearly stipulates the general industrial solid waste industries and categories that can be accepted for collaborative disposal of domestic waste incineration facilities within Zhejiang Province, as well as the relevant management requirements for collaborative disposal.
Subsequently, Shanghai issued a standardized management process for the collaborative disposal of general industrial solid waste by domestic waste incineration units. According to the principle of total amount management, before December 15th each year, each domestic waste incineration unit comprehensively evaluates the annual production, logistics arrangement, disposal capacity, facility load, and facility equipment maintenance plan of domestic waste and remediation waste in the service area, and reasonably formulates the total amount of collaborative disposal of general industrial solid waste for the next year and declares it. It is strictly prohibited for each domestic waste incineration facility to handle general industrial solid waste beyond its capacity. In addition, Hefei City and Foshan City have also successively released a recommended list of collaborative disposal of general industrial solid waste by domestic waste incineration facilities. With the further improvement of the policy of collaborative disposal of waste incineration, it will effectively alleviate the problem of insufficient amount of waste entering the furnace. But this is a 'protracted war', after all, the amount of garbage generated is closely related to the national economy, the implementation of garbage classification policies, and so on. After the recent planning in the medium and long-term plan for waste incineration power generation, the industry growth rate has slowed down. As for the long-term planning projects, we have to wait a little longer.
