Framework and Key Success Factors of Governance and Sustainability of Very Small Municipal Solid Waste Power Plants

Abstract

Inordinate municipal solid waste issues and ever increasing demand for electricity, the Thai government formulated the Power Development Plan focusing on supporting the use of renewable energy to generate electricity and using measures to promote the purchase of electricity from very small power producers. This support indubitably leads to the question as to whether Very Small Municipal Solid Waste Power Plants (VSMSWPPs) are sustainable or not. Thus, this study aims to develop a framework and key success factors for evaluating governance and sustainability of VSMSWPPs in Thailand. It consists of documentary research and interviews with professionals, policy makers, practitioners and power plant owners conducted to develop the framework and determine the key success factors. Subsequently, the framework and factors were assessed by 12 experts. The good governance and sustainability concepts were selected as a framework and used to construct key success factors to evaluate the performance of VSMSWPPs. The framework contains four dimensions and each dimension had key success factors as follows: (1) Governance dimension with 7 key success factors; (2) Economic dimension with 8 key success factors; (3) Social dimension with 5 key success factors; and (4) Environmental dimension with 7 key success factors: at total of 27 key success factors.