10 years have passed since Landskrona Energi's energy recovery plant was opened to supply electricity and district heating from Helsingborg in the north to Lund in the south. The plant currently has a capacity of 60,000 tons of sorted residual waste (RDF) per year, as well as 20,000 tons of recycled wood (class 1) and 10,000 tons of forest chips. At full production, the company can supply 50 MW of electricity and 160 000 MW of heat per year from the waste boiler alone.
Stefan Nyrud, production manager at Landskrona Energi, can look back on ten productive years for the plant in southern Sweden, the last two of which have been the most challenging.
- From the onset of COVID in March 2020 until April 2021, fuel was sometimes difficult to obtain. At the turn of the year 2020-21, the warehouse was almost completely empty, something we have never experienced before. As a result, we had to make some changes to our routines, including replacing RDF with around 1000 tons of waste wood. The period we have been through shows us the importance of good predictability and storage capacity, says Nyrud.
Less proactive
Limited freedom of movement has also hampered the operator.
- Because the quality of the waste fuel is particularly important for the operation of our boiler, we normally have regular visits to suppliers to check the final product. Obviously, this has been difficult over the past year. In addition, it has been challenging to be proactive in a market where both the willingness to pay among producers and the regulations are constantly changing. "Our deliveries have mostly come domestically from Sweden or Norway, but we have also received RDF from both Germany and Italy in recent years," says Nyrud.
But the COVID period has not only been negative, explains Stefan Nyrud.
- In fact, our 10-year-old boiler has performed very well during this period, and 2020 was the best operating year ever with 97% uptime. The explanation is probably that we have had good revision planning and fewer bottlenecks over the last couple of years. This process has also shown that a homogeneous and cleaner fuel gives us less wear and tear," says Nyrud.
10 years of cooperation extended
Geminor has delivered around 30,000 tons of RDF annually to Landskrona Energi over the past 10 years. That is 50 percent of the total volume that the Skåne company burns per year.
Country Manager for Geminor in Sweden, Per Mernelius, is very pleased with the extension of the agreement and is now looking forward to continuing the cooperation.
- This cooperation is a good example of how the waste market is constantly changing. "In the first years, Landskrona Energi paid for the fuel we handled for them, but since 2015 the company has received street fees for the volumes they incinerate," says Mernelius.
- Ensuring good and stable deliveries of RDF, SRF and other fractions has been a challenge for many industry players during this time. This just shows the importance of having access to several markets, to good storage capacity and punctual transportation solutions, concludes Per Mernelius in Geminor Sweden.
