The plant technology company B&W Vølund has turned over its flagship waste to energy (wte) project in the Danish capital of Copenhagen. The Amager Bakke or Copenhill plant has drawn international attention because of its design, which includes a rooftop ski slope and climbing wall. B&W reports that the plant has a maximum treatment capacity of around 560,000 tonnes of waste per year and can supply more than 50,000 homes and businesses with electricity and 120,000 households with district heating. The plant is operated by client Amager Ressourcecenter (ARC), which is owned by five Danish municipalities. The plant was initially to have been completed in the spring of 2017.
“B&W Vølund has installed hundreds of waste and biomass-fired units worldwide, but Copenhill is particularly special for us because of its unique world-renowned design and location near our own Denmark B&W Vølund headquarters,” said the company's managing director Koen Bogers.
A problem with the wte plant's piping design, discovered in 2016, set off a chain reaction of construction delays, affecting not only the Copenhagen project, but other facilities under development in Denmark and the UK as well. The Danish company has been focused for some time on closing out those projects its beleaguered US parent company, Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, has identified as loss-making in its financial reporting. As of the end of last year, there were still five on the books, with three still outstanding now following the hand-over of Amager Bakke this week and of the Dunbar wte plant in Scotland last week.
B&W expects to achieve handover on all but the final project within the first two quarters of 2019.
