Dublin's Poolbeg Incinerator Receives First Waste

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Written by Martin Lynch, European News Editor for Industrial Info (Galway, Ireland)--The first load of waste has been delivered to the controversial Poolbeg energy-from-waste (EfW) plant in Dublin with incineration starting by the weekend.

The milestone has been reached two decades after the Poolbeg plant--now renamed the Dublin Waste-to-Energy project--was first proposed. According to project developer, Covanta Energy (Kingswinford, England), a subsidiary of Covanta Holding Corporation (NYSE:CVA) (Fairfield, New Jersey), the plant will be fully commissioned by the summer.

Covanta managing director, John Daly, said: "It'll be what people would traditionally refer to as black bag or residual waste. It's the waste that's in your black bag that's not going for recycling or composting. So today we will be taking in the first deliveries and they will be going into the boilers, probably within the week, around the weekend."

The plant will generate energy from up to 600,000 tonnes of waste per year that would typically go to landfill. With a generating capacity of just under 60 megawatts, the plant will be capable of powering up to 80,000 homes annually, as well as supplying district heating for a further 50,000 homes. When fully commissioned, 120 truckloads of waste will delivered to the plant every day.

The company stated: "The hot commissioning of the plant is ongoing, with the steam blows almost 80% completed. Over the coming days trucks will be seen delivering waste to the plant to enable commissioning of the weighbridge and bunker cranes. It is expected that the first fire of waste will occur within seven working days of first waste acceptance. Dublin Waste to Energy will send out a further information bulletin closer to this time."

The troubled 500 million-euro ($544 million) incinerator project has been the subject of planning inquiries, licensing issues, complaints to the European Union (EU) and vigorous public protests. Addressing people's fears, Daly said: "I fully recognise that people living in Dublin, and in particular people living in the vicinity of the plant at Irishtown, Ringsend and Sandymount have concerns about the impact of the plant. Covanta is the world leader in turning waste into energy, and its record across the 42 plants it operates is outstanding. In the United States, for instance, it consistently betters the emission levels permitted by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and by a considerable margin."

He added: "The Irish EPA will be onsite here, undertaking constant monitoring, and regular data reports will be available to the public on our website. We will have a public office here where people can drop in and see the data returns for the plant when it is up and running."

Industrial Info reported that the project had finally gotten the green light to go ahead in 2014, after years of delays. For additional information, see September 9, 2014, article - Controversial Dublin Incinerator Project Good to Go.

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