EEW Energy from Waste has announced it has been awarded a contract to build and operate a thermal waste recovery plant by the publicly owned waste management company of the City of Gdansk, ZAKŁAD UTYLIZACYJNY Sp. z o.o. (ZUT).

Subject to a possible appeal from the losing bidder, the contracting authority ZUT and the project company ITPOK Gdansk Sp. z o.o. Sp. k. (an 85% subsidiary of EEW Energy from Waste Polska Sp. z o.o.) will sign a public-private partnership contract by the end of this year.

The annual thermal treatment capacity at the Gdansk plant, which will operate under the name Port Czystej Energii, will be around 160,000 tonnes of waste with a calorific value of approximately 11 megajoules per kilogram. Following construction of the plant, EEW Polska will operate the single-line grate firing system on behalf of the publicly owned waste management company ZUT for 25 years. As well as producing electricity, the combined heat and power (CHP) plant will supply energy to the district heating customer GPEC, which operates the city of Gdansk’s district heating network.

Bernard M. Kemper, Chief Executive Officer of EEW, described the successful participation in the tender process as a milestone in project work in Poland and a win for both sides:

“For us, the award of this contract represents our entry into the Polish market, while our Polish partners are assured of professional execution of the project and excellent service.” By partnering with EEW, ZUT will benefit not only from nearly 50 years of experience in thermal waste recovery but also from synergy effects with the 18 plants in the EEW Group."

“The EEW Group is known for the highest environmental standards, economic efficiency and high plant availability. We are now looking forward to being able to demonstrate our abilities in Poland as well."

Frank Paasche, Managing Director of the Polish subsidiary EEW Polska, stated:

"Thermal waste recovery to produce electricity and district heating is the best solution from an environmental and economic point of view. On the one hand, waste resources replace valuable primary fuels such as coal or oil. On the other hand, the greenhouse gases resulting from the landfilling of waste, such as CO2 and methane, are not released into the environment. State-of-the-art flue gas cleaning equipment captures the pollutants contained in waste and removes them permanently from the biosphere."

EEW Energy from Waste is Germany’s leading company in the production of environmentally-friendly energy from thermal waste recovery. EEW develops, builds and operates energy from waste (EfW) plants. Every year, the Group’s 18 plants in Germany and neighbouring countries thermally recover around 4.7 million tonnes of waste. By utilising the energy contained in the waste, EEW generates process steam for industrial plants, district heat for residential areas and eco-friendly electricity for the equivalent of around 700,000 households. With biogenic substances making up an average of 50 percent of the waste, EEW generates energy from renewable sources in accordance with the German Renewable Energies Act (EEG), and saves 1,000,000 tonnes of CO2 every year. EEW has around 1,050 employees in total at all its sites as well as its headquarters in Helmstedt.