The waste-processing company Afvalverbranding Zuid-Nederland (AZN) in Moerdijk, part of Essent Milieu, has already been generating sustainable energy for many years. The company’s activities include producing electricity from waste incineration.

Around one-eighth of all household and similar industrial waste in the Netherlands is transported to Moerdijk. According to Cees Martens, Operations Manager of AZN Moerdijk, this waste incineration is an excellent way to generate sustainable electricity, reducing the use of fossil fuels and at the same time keeping waste streams under control. “We provide more than 200,000 households with sustainable energy.”

AZN Moerdijk burns unseparated waste, leaving behind incinerator bottom ash or slag. Both ferrous and non-ferrous metals are removed by magnets. “We extract metals after incineration, although some other processors do it first. Our metals are re-used in the scrap-metal and metal-processing industry. After processing, the slag is used in the foundations of roads, viaducts and industrial sites, reducing the need for sand and gravel. As well as that, AZN is one of the few waste-incineration plants in the Netherlands that produces plaster from one of the incineration by-products. That also saves energy and raw materials.”

AZN uses the heat from the incineration process to generate steam, which in turn is used to produce electricity at the nearby Essent combined heat and power plant. The result is an energy-conversion efficiency of thirty per cent, one of the highest in Europe. Shell Chemicals in Moerdijk also uses heat from AZN, with a pipeline that transports a large part of the steam produced by AZN to the petrochemical plant.

Strict selection
According to Martens you’re only really working sustainably if all your operations are conducted in a socially responsible way. “Good intentions alone or occasional attention for sustainability aren’t enough. We’re also strict in choosing our suppliers. For example we look at how sustainable our suppliers’ operations are, and whether they pay attention to the health and safety of their employees.”

Stork is one of the chosen suppliers, which led to a multi-year contract that includes providing asset utilisation and plant maintenance services at AZN Moerdijk. The aim is to improve the performance of the incineration plants. Stork uses TPM (Total Productive Maintenance), an improvement tool which is embedded in the AZN organisation. Stop management is another task which Stork carries out for AZN.

“AZN is committed to sustainable and socially responsible operation”, says Martens. “We’re currently working on getting the permits for a fifth incineration line, so that we can increase our capacity further if necessary.”