Japanese company JFE Engineering develops autonomous garbage incinerator

Shinden Refuse Incineration Center that Japanese Company JFE engineering designs and operates at Niigata city, northeastern Japan, converts the energy generated by burning garbage into electricity.

Normally, in the central control room, workers monitor the condition of combustion at all times.

When the alarm sounds like advanced combustion, they stop supplying garbage and adjust the condition of combustion.

"On this screen, a dust collector is a device that puts garbage into an incinerator. The grid is a device that sends garbage, and the two devices adjust the amount of garbage for incinerated," said Shirou Tabe of JFE Engineering.

This plant is monitored by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology without human power.

The technology helps controls the amount of combustion for being efficient and stable 24 hours.

"Auto-driving is a system that automates this work which employees currently operates and renders the central control room unmanned. It automates combustion stabilisation. At the waste disposal facility, various kinds of garbage are gathering, so the combustion condition is unstable. In order to achieve this, it is necessary for the driver to operate in order to stabilize. The system automatically operates, which reduces the number of employees," Tabe said.

"This will allow the central control room to be operated unattended. The other one is the system, so there are no mistakes and operating under certain conditions without a break, so the combustion condition is more stable. In addition, the system is currently in operation in waste plants. We want to adapt it to the sewage treatment plant and biomass power plant, and we want to contribute this advanced technology to solve the environmental problems in Asia and countries of the world," Tabe added.

Efficient and stable re-use of disparate waste in a way that reduces the workforce, is enabled by JFE's plant knowledge and AI technology.