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The novel concepts Enhanced Waste Management (EWM) and Enhanced Landfill Mining (ELFM) intend to place landfilling of waste in a sustainable context. The state of the technology is an important factor in determining the most suitable moment to valorize e either as materials (Waste-to-Product, WtP) or as energy (Waste-to-Energy, WtE) e certain landfill waste streams. The present paper reviews thermochemical technologies (incineration, gasification, pyrolysis, plasma technologies, combinations) for energetic valorization of calorific waste streams, with focus on municipal solid waste (MSW), possibly processed into refuse derived fuel (RDF). The potential and suitability of these thermochemical technologies for ELFM applications are discussed. From this review it is clear that process and waste have to be closely matched, and that some thermochemical processes succeed in recovering both materials and energy from waste. Plasma gasification/vitrification is a viable candidate for combined energy and material valorization, its technical feasibility for MSW/RDF applications (including excavated waste) has been proven on installations ranging from pilot to full scale. The continued advances that are being made in process control and process efficiency are expected to improve the commercial viability of these advanced thermochemical conversion technologies in the near future.

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Flexibility in district heating and cooling systems (thermal networks in general) is an important means to cope with the intermittent generation of heat and electricity as the share of renewable energy sources (RES) increases. An important source of flexibility is the thermal energy storage present in district heating and cooling networks, found in the thermal inertia of buildings, storage units and the network itself. To unlock this flexibility and to use it effectively and efficiently, a suitable control strategy is required. In this context, this paper presents a possible definition of flexibility and its sources in a thermal network. It reviews techniques to quantify flexibility and shows the need for a more advanced control strategy; moreover, it discusses the challenges involved in developing such a control strategy. Also, the literature on advanced control in thermal networks is reviewed, by making a distinction between central, distributed and hybrid control. Finally, possible future research topics are identified based on the findings.

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Building and district energy systems become increasingly complex, requiring accurate simulation and optimisation of systems that combine building envelope, heating ventilation and air conditioning, electrical distribution grids and advanced controllers. Hence, it becomes more challenging for existing simulation tools to provide integrated solutions for these multi-physics problems. Moreover, common building simulation frameworks tightly integrate model equations and their solvers in the program code, which affects model transparency and hampers tool extensions. This is contrasted by equation-based tools such as Modelica, for which different solvers can be used. In this context, the Integrated District Energy Assessment by Simulation (IDEAS) library is developed. After a recent development shift towards more detailed, multi-zone models, this paper presents a comprehensive, well-documented, overview of the buildings part of IDEAS. This includes new computational aspects of the library, improved usability aspects, an updated intercomparison with BESTEST and a verification based on IEA EBC Annex 58.

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