German plant operator EEW has opened a new sewage sludge mono-incineration plant in Stavenhagen. The plant will make a significant contribution to the thermal treatment of sewage sludge in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
Key Takeaways
- EEW inaugurated a new sewage sludge mono-incineration plant in Stavenhagen, enhancing thermal treatment in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania.
- The plant can process up to 160,000 tonnes of raw sewage sludge annually, contributing to environmentally friendly waste disposal.
- Minister Till Backhaus highlighted the plant’s importance for safe and efficient waste management and phosphorus recovery.
- The plant will also recover energy from waste heat, supplying climate-friendly district heating to Stavenhagen by 2026.
- This is EEW’s third operational sewage sludge mono-incineration plant out of five approved in Germany.
Last week, German plant operator EEW inaugurated its new sewage sludge mono-incineration plant at its Stavenhagen site. The event was attended by Till Backhaus, Minister for the Environment of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, as well as representatives of municipal partners and participating companies.
Significance of the new plant
According to EEW, Backhaus emphasised the necessity of the new plant in his speech. Due to increased construction costs, not all of the plant capacity required for the incineration of sewage sludge can be implemented in Germany. ‘Thermal recycling, i.e. the incineration of sewage sludge, is now a central component of safe, environmentally friendly and resource-efficient waste disposal and a prerequisite for developing processes for recovering the phosphorus contained in sewage sludge ash for large-scale industrial applications,’ said Backhaus.
The plant has a treatment capacity of up to 160,000 tonnes of raw sewage sludge per year. It is designed to thermally recycle all municipal sewage sludge in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. At 56.8 per cent, agricultural sewage sludge treatment in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania is above the national average of 13 per cent.
Energy recovery from waste heat
Another aspect of the new sewage sludge mono-incineration plant is the recovery of energy from the waste heat generated during incineration. This is fed into the district heating network of the town of Stavenhagen as climate-friendly district heating. The construction of the connecting pipes and the expansion of the district heating network are already being planned. The district heating is expected to be available from 2026.
With this inauguration, EEW now has the third of five approved sewage sludge mono-incineration plants in Germany that has been put into operation.
Leave a Reply