Growth in the worldwide market for waste to energy plants will slow beginning in 2015, according to a newly released study by the consultancy firm Ecoprog. Sales are expected to weaken particularly within Europe, as the UK market becomes increasingly saturated. While order volumes in Eastern Europe increase, growth on these markets was not enough in the medium term to compensate for the slowdown elsewhere, Ecoprog said on Wednesday.
The consultancy put the number of existing waste to energy plants at just less than 2,200 worldwide. Together, they had a waste treatment capacity of around 255 million tonnes of waste per year. By 2017, it is estimated that another 180 plants with a combined capacity of around 52 million tonnes per year will be added to the total.
Until around 2015, the waste to energy market is expected to grow. In 2015 alone, some 45 new energy from waste plants with a joint capacity of around 15 million tonnes per year are expected to go online, estimated Ecoprog.
In the following years, market expansion will slow, above all in Europe, according to the new report. The addition of new capacity in Europe is expected to fall from around 3.5 million tonnes per year in 2015 to less than 2 million tonnes per year in 2017.