Business Talk : Let's talk about: Waste-to-Energy (Part 3)
Manfred Frach, Vice President Sales & Marketing at Clyde Bergemann talks about what sets the company apart and future developments of the waste-to-energy sector.
What products in waste to energy do you specialize in?
Clyde Bergemann designs, supplies, and services innovative products, systems, and services to safely and effectively provide on-load boiler cleaning for waste-to-energy plants throughout the world. We offer a comprehensive product portfolio for WtE plants including products for furnace, superheater/ reheater, and economiser. As a cleaning medium, we use water, steam/air, or a pneumatic technique.
In addition, we offer a dry bottom ash discharge system for WtE plants to discharge IBA (incinerated bottom ash) e.g. to recover metals.
What sets your products apart from others?
Clyde Bergemann has developed a series of boiler cleaning systems with cleaning parameters that can be adapted flexibly to changing deposit situations for increased boiler efficiency. We stand out in the WtE market with products that have been specially developed for waste incineration boilers (e.g. SMART Helix Water and the Shower Clean System) and the flexible design of our products so they are fully adaptable to the plant conditions. Intelligent use of Clyde Bergemann's state-of-the-art technology with low-wear and highly reliable products and solutions will increase the boiler efficiency of every WtE plant. Our intelligent control concepts enable targeted cleaning.
All these measures lead to an improvement in plant availability.
Due to our huge installed base with more than 50 years experience in on-load boiler cleaning in WtE plants, we have a partnership/trusting cooperation with our customers who trust in our process engineering know-how.
Where do you see the biggest market growth?
Asia: Because there are still many landfills, rapid urbanization in China rapid increase of municipal solid waste, Japans waste-to-energy market is driven by efficient solid waste management and financial support for waste-to-energy projects from both national and local governments
How do you see the future of waste to energy?
Waste-to-energy is pivotal to the success of a circular economy - many countries still use landfills and face the challenge of energy supply to meet demand - WtE is a solution for both.
With population growth and the idea of moving away from fossil fuels, there is a lot of growth potential for the waste-to-energy market in the coming years, which just needs to be exploited.
Today's waste incineration plants are very advanced. Considering the innovative technology in waste management, it is very likely that energy recovery from waste will be used more in the future. In addition, raw materials can be recovered from slagging, which benefits the circular economy. (see our dry bottom ash discharge system)
How do you see the role of waste to energy in a circular economy?
It is fundamentally important that WtE is utilised for a circular economy - recovery of raw materials from slag as well as energy generation from waste (increasing energy demand e.g. for electric cars). Reducing landfills will thereby improve environmental protection through e.g. reduction of microplastics in groundwater/oceans etc.
