CEWEP: Big Opportunity to Deliver More Heat from Waste to Energy
On 4th November 2013 Ella Stengler (pictured), CEWEP’s Managing Director, and Luc Valaize, President of the SVDU – the French Waste-to-Energy association, presented the role Waste-to-Energy plays in ensuring sustainable waste management and in helping the EU reach its resource and energy efficiency goals, at the European Parliament in Brussels. Ella Stengler highlighted the need for existing EU waste legislation to be fully implemented in order to divert waste from landfills to Recycling and to Waste-to-Energy, treating the remaining part not suitable for recycling by generating precious energy from it. She also urged the MEPs during the forthcoming “Waste year” in 2014 to support moves to a more ambitious waste policy diverting waste from landfills in order to ensure that it is used as a resource. It is worth noting that the European Member States with the highest recycling rates (e.g. Germany, Netherlands, Austria and Belgium) rely on Waste-to-Energy to treat their remaining waste, and have all introduced landfill bans. Luc Valaize presented how the 3 Parisian Waste-to-Energy Plants supply 50% of the city’s district heating network. They treat household waste not suitable for recycling from the 5.7 million inhabitants of the Parisian Metropolitan area. By treating this waste they prevent the consumption of 300,000 tonnes of oil equivalents each year and the release of some 900,000 tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. Ella Stengler pointed out that “There is a major opportunity to use even more of the energy generated by Waste-to-Energy plants in the form of heat, if linking of heat (or process steam) customers to the plants would be encouraged. Therefore we need drivers for improving infrastructure for district heating and cooling in addition to maximizing electricity production from waste (incl. grid access).” Considering that district heating and cooling provide 42% of the final energy consumption in the European Union, the Heat Alliance, of which CEWEP is a member, calls on the MEPs to reiterate their support for heating and cooling in the up-coming report on a 2030 framework for climate and energy policies. For further information please see Ella Stengler and Luc Valaize’s presentations, as well as the CEWEP paper “Energising waste: a win-win situation” and the Heat Alliance’s position paper. Read More Dutch Firm Wins Global District Energy Climate Award Twence, has been awarded the Global District Energy Climate Award 2013, for its supply of heat to energy utility Essent’s local district heating network and its supply of steam to multi-national paint and chemicals manufacturer, AkzoNobel.