B+T Energie5,000,000 tonnes of RDF: Witzenhausen CHP plant is a success story

It is a special moment: Christoph Marx reverses his lorry exactly in front of the large roller shutter of the RDF power plant of B+T Energie GmbH in Witzenhausen. On the loading area of his trailer is the 5 millionth tonne of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) to be delivered to the power plant. This means that the B+T Group’s first power plant has reached another magic number after around 15 years.

The RDF power plant on the site of the DS Smith Paper mill was the B+T Group’s entry into thermal utilisation. Managing Director Bernd Hoffmann remembers the beginnings of the project: ‘We started the project in 2005 in order to supply the paper mill site with a long-term and reliable supply of energy.’

On 26 October 2008, the time had come: the first RDF fire was lit. ‘The power plant now supplies the entire site with steam and electricity – and has completely replaced the existing gas-fired power plant,’ reports Bernd Hoffmann. Depending on capacity utilisation, the surplus energy is fed into the public grid. The plant operates 24/7, 365 days a year.

Driver Christoph Marx has also been with the B+T Group since May 2009 and drives to the Witzenhausen site. Half of the EBS required comes from the B+T Group’s plants. The other half is made up of seven long-standing contractual partners. These long-term partnerships are particularly pleasing, as they have not only existed for around 15 years, but will continue to work closely together in the future.

The long-standing, reliable partnerships are a cornerstone for around 350,000 tonnes of substitute fuel that are recycled in Witzenhausen every year – and have now totalled more than 5,000,000 tonnes in around 15 years. However, the great demand for thermal utilisation of waste is not only reflected in this one large figure. The Witzenhausen power plant alone is connected to 13 districts in Hesse, Lower Saxony and Rhineland-Palatinate via the disposal of residual waste bins. And thus more than 2 million people!