ENERGY PRODUCTION
When old fruit is used to light up bulbs
As we head towards the moment when all energy requirements can be covered by renewables, we need alternatives to tide us over that are both reliable and climate friendly. That is precisely what we offer – thanks to our many decentralised electricity and heat generation solutions.
Tomorrow's energy will also come from the waste management sector
The energy transition is well under way. Our work at REMONDIS is also making a contribution towards ensuring this goal is reached. In several different areas. We not only generate electricity by thermally treating non-recyclable waste (waste to energy) but also biogas, which we recover from organic waste and as part of our wastewater treatment systems. The special feature of both the electricity and the heat that we help generate is that they are produced without the use of any fossil fuels at all. This conserves virgin raw materials and, importantly, cuts carbon emissions. Energy from waste also has the additional advantage that – unlike energy generated by wind and solar systems – it is available 24/7, 365 days a year. As a result, it can help counteract supply bottlenecks caused by the energy transition.
The systems used to produce electricity and heat from waste and biogas are both independent and decentralised. This helps further increase energy security.
Numbers that speak for themselves
336,900 MWh of energy (electricity and heat) are produced at the Lippe Plant in Lünen alone by its fluidised bed power plant (178,300 MWh) and its biomass-fired power plant (158,600 MWh). This is more than twice the amount needed by the site itself which means that around 222,300 MWh can be fed into the grid and used by others outside the plant. REMONDIS also has shares in a variety of waste incineration plants across Germany which also play an important role in supplying their regions with energy. Furthermore, electricity is also generated by the hazardous waste incineration plant operated by our subsidiary REMONDIS SAVA.
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Amount of energy produced by REMONDIS' Lippe Plant every year
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Films all about waste to energy
Not all incineration methods are the same. Both the fluidised-bed power station and the biomass-fired power plant at REMONDIS’ Lippe Plant are equipped with state-of-the-art technology to ensure that the materials are thermally treated in a particularly efficient and environmentally compatible way. Simply take a look at our explanatory films to see exactly how these two power plants work.
Go on a virtual tour of our Lippe Plant and discover our other explanatory films.
Energy from the organic waste bin
30% to 40% of all the materials that German households throw away are organic, for example fruit , vegetables,
garden cuttings etc. These are materials that have a huge energy-producing potential. Which is why we not only use them to produce compost but biogas as well. Our digester plant in Erftstadt alone (which, by the way, is one of the most modern of its kind in Germany) can treat 183,000 tonnes of organic waste every year. It also produces biogas that can be transformed into green electricity or used as a fuel, for example for lorries. Biogas is very much an energy for the future. Production of biogas in Germany is expected to double over the medium to long term.
REMONDIS’ subsidiary RETERRA operates a co-digestion plant in Erftstadt to produce compost and biogas
Municipal sewage treatment plants: a supplier of energy
Nowadays, modern municipal sewage treatment plants are genuine all-rounder facilities. Besides treating wastewater, they also recover valuable recyclable substances (such as phosphorus) and have become an important energy supplier. There is, for example, a great deal of energy hidden in sewage sludge. The sewage
treatment plants use digesters here to produce biogas that can then be transformed into climate-neutral energy in combined heat and power units. This, in turn, can be used as a source of energy for the sewage treatment plant itself or fed into the gas network. This is not the only way, though, that sewage sludge can be used to generate energy. This is a highly calorific material that, when dried, has the same calorific value as brown coal – but with a much better carbon footprint of course. Which means it can be used on a grand scale to produce energy that is practically free of emissions.
We not only generate energy from sewage sludge, we also recover the phosphorus
Producing electricity with microorganisms
We are also collaborating with the CUTEC Clausthal Research Center for Environmental Technologies and a number of other institutes to develop a completely novel way of producing energy from wastewater. Together, we are looking into the potential of a biological fuel cell, in which microorganisms act as biocatalysts and produce electricity by breaking down the organic substances in the wastewater.
There is also much potential hidden in industrial wastewater
It is not only possible to produce biogas at municipal sewage treatment plants. On the contrary: industrial wastewater – in particular water from the food processing industry – often contains large amounts of organic substances. We have a fully automated anaerobic pre-treatment system called RE2ENERGY® that can simultaneously eliminate these organic substances from the wastewater and generate biogas. This biogas can, for example, be transformed into electricity by a combined
heat and power plant or can be used to substitute natural gas to produce process heat. One of our customers using our patented RE2ENERGY® process is the Oettinger Brewery in Mönchengladbach. This highly efficient system is cost effective, helps prevent climate change and produces energy – and is 100% carbon neutral. This concept even led to the Oettinger Brewery being awarded the IHK Energy Efficiency Prize.
Hydropower: a sustainable source of energy
Water, in its pure form, can also be used to produce and/or store energy. As a shareholder in the ENERVIE Group, we operate a pumped storage power plant in Finnentrop-Rönkhausen (in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia). Depending on the requirements, energy can either be produced or stored here using the plant’s upper and lower reservoirs. If energy needs to be stored, then the water is pumped from the lower reservoir to the upper reservoir using the surplus electricity. If, on the other hand, energy is needed at short notice, then the water is moved from the upper reservoir to the lower reservoir located in the valley. This drives the turbines and produces energy. Pumped storage power plants can, therefore, help stabilise the national grid and even out fluctuations in demand – making them an important and sustainable component of the energy transition.
The pumped storage power plant in Finnentrop-Rönkhausen
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