While not all work at the site is complete, the Doel E-Wood biomass plant in the port of Antwerp began supplying electricity and heat into the grid on 1 December 2022, said plant engineering company Standardkessel Baumgarte (SBG), the EPC contractor for the project. The turnkey power plant specialist, noted that it the E-wood plant was commissioned just in time to qualify for green certificates, and had reached this "important milestone" just one day before the set deadline. The plant operator, a joint venture between Indaver and Veolia, has thus secured revenues totalling some €165m for the biomass energy to be produced over a period of 15 years. Each of the waste management companies behind the project holds a 50 stake in the joint venture E-Wood Energiecentrale NV.
To date, a total of around €95m has been invested in the E-Wood project. The new plant has an annual capacity of up to 180,000 tonnes of unpolluted waste wood. The wood – mainly construction and demolition waste, but also waste wood from container parks and industry – is treated in a fluidised bed incinerator that can reportedly generate 20 MW of electricity and 11.5 MW of heat for the Ecluse steam network in the Waasland port area using an efficient, sustainable and environmentally compatible process.
Completing the project was no mean feat. SBG spoke of "enormous pressure", first as a result of the coronavirus crisis and then to the war in Ukraine. The company had faced pandemic-related deliveries delays for components and staff illness and later had to replace Ukrainian staff who returned home after the invasion.
