Zonguldak refuse disposal TPP investment

Dear Energy Professional, Dear Colleagues,

Governor Erdal Ata of Zonguldak province, announced yesterday that 400-ton daily municipality garbage will be disposed/ fired in new thermal power plant investment and the plant will create heat and power, which will be financed by Erenco energy and investment subsidiary of Erdemir Iron and Steel works, within the commercial coverage of ZONÇEB Zonguldak and surrounding municipalities private investment union entity.

400 tons municipality refuse is collected per day in Zonguldak. After firing in an appropriate thermal power plant, 90% of MSW refuse will be converted into heat and power generating 10% ash neutral to dispose into ash dam or even utilised in cement and ceramic industries.

It is also advised that for the establishment of such thermal power plant is not within financial capability of ZONÇEB, however the investor Erenco will investigate local and financial sources for project financing with support of Ministry officials.

At this time, wild dumping of municipality is the current procedure for waste disposal. That is too dangerous. Contagious material is released to the environment, land and sea both in municipality waste disposal land near Catalagzi.

Governor Ata, continued to speak as follows:

"Erenco, an engineering and investment subsidiary of Erdemir, called us about a month ago, and they advised that they are constructing a thermal power plant for municipality refuse disposal in Baku Azerbaijan. They can also do the same thing here in our own cities, starting with Zonguldak, their home city."

Erenco also made a presentation about the technical details of the proposal. Project and development ideas are fine with the city pubic administration. However Erenco is only interested in the engineering portion of the scope.

So they created the project and expect ZONÇEB to participate into project financing. They advised that they have no financial power as to ZONÇEB has. The project is expected to cost around 25-30 million euros to fire the complete municipality refuse and furthermore to generate approximately 15 MWe electricity output.

Their investment budget may be too small compared to 90 million Euros world market estimations based on 150,000 tons per year at 600 Euros per ton.

Erenco and Erdemir could handle the local in-house engineering, contracting and plant operation. Zonguldak ZONCEB is expected to solve the financial support and project financing at this point.

This will be a great opportunity for municipality refuse disposal systems in thermal power plants in other provinces. Plant will employ approximately 100 local engineers and 1000 qualified workers for 2-3 years of engineering and construction period, and further 40-50 qualified workers during plant operation in future. So in the end, parties decided to apply to Ministry of Energy and other public regulatory administrations for appropriate licensing, EIA approvals and support for project financing.

We are pleased to learn such good news and hope to have similar developments in future in other provinces for refuse disposal thermal power plant constructions with maximised local engineering and local employment.
Your comments are always welcome
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Haluk Direskeneli, Hamburg based Energy Analyst