Predictive Analysis of Electricity Consumption of a Mechanical Biological Waste Treatment Plant Using Machine Learning Techniques

The aims of this paper can be traced back to goals number seven, twelve and thirteen introduced by Agenda 2030, namely "affordable and clean energy", “responsible consumption and production” and "climate action”, respectively. This is due to the fact that the present work supports decarbonization processes acting in a direct way on the electricity consumption achieved by plants pertaining to the waste industry; in fact, this study aims at the realization of a machine learning model for predicting the energy consumption achieved by a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) waste plant located in central Italy, given the distribution of the entering waste. This model is implemented in MATLAB. The model can be used to tune the distribution of the entering waste in order to adapt the plant energy consumption to the capability of the energy sources and can serve as a play-ground model for other energy transformation plants. The results of the study, which feed the literature on the application of artificial intelligence to real industrial plants, could be used to determine energy efficiency actions that could be incorporated into Property’s strategic planning.