Governor Erdal Ata of Zonguldak province announced yesterday that a 400-ton daily municipality garbage will be disposed/ fired at a 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.
Four hundred tons of municipality refuse is collected per day in Zonguldak. After firing in an appropriate thermal power plant, 90 percent of MSW refuse will be converted into heat and power, generating 10 percent ash neutral to dispose into an ash dam or even utilized in cement and ceramic industries.
It is also advised that for the establishment of such a thermal power plant, it is not within the financial capability of ZONÇEB; however, the investor Erenco will investigate local and financial sources for project financing with the support of Ministry officials.
Governor Ata, continued 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 public administration; however, Erenco is only interested in the engineering portion of the scope.
They created the project and expect ZONÇEB to participate in project financing. They advised that they have no financial power as ZONÇEB has. The project is expected to cost around 25-30 million Euros to fire the complete municipality refuse and to generate approximately 15 MWe of electricity output.
Their investment budget may be too small compared to the 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. The plant will employ approximately 100 local engineers and 1000 qualified workers for 2-3 years of engineering and construction, and a further 40-50 qualified workers during plant operation in the future.
So in the end, the parties decided to apply to the Ministry of Energy and other public regulatory administrations for the appropriate licensing, EIA approvals and support for project financing.
We are pleased to learn such good news and hope to have similar developments in the future in other provinces for refuse disposal thermal power plant constructions with maximized local engineering and local employment.
2012 National Coal Policy for Turkey
