“We processed the final ton of waste on July 29. The boiler will then be gradually shut down until full decommissioning on July 31,” said Guido Lücker, Technical Managing Director of EEW Stapelfeld. “Over the past decades, the Stapelfeld waste combustion plant has not only provided safe waste combustion, but also generated more than 5.2 million megawatt-hours of electricity and 5.5 million megawatt-hours of district heating – making a major contribution to energy supply for households and businesses.”
Thanks to the Stapelfeld waste combustion plant, the Hamburg metropolitan region had an early alternative to climate-damaging landfilling, which was only legally banned in 1993 and finally phased out in 2005 after a twelve-year transition period. While thermally combusted waste emits around one ton of CO₂ per ton of waste, methane released from landfills has 30 times the climate impact – without utilizing the energy or raw material potential of the waste.
With the shutdown of the existing plant, a new era begins at the site: a newly constructed replacement facility, funded for its energy efficiency by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), will continue to treat the same volume of waste – but with state-of-the-art combustion and control technologies and significantly improved energy efficiency. The new facility will be able to generate twice as much electricity from the same amount of waste while maintaining current district heating output.
“For the region, this means continued energy security, preservation of jobs, and a long-term commitment to the Stapelfeld site,” emphasized Christian Funk, Commercial Managing Director of EEW Stapelfeld. “Thanks to the new facility, we will remain a reliable partner for municipalities and industry in the decades ahead. The shutdown is therefore not the end, but the beginning of a new chapter – with clear gains in climate protection and efficiency.”
Over its 46 years of operation, the two combustion lines ran for more than 703,000 hours, with an average availability exceeding 87 percent. Around 40 million tons of high-pressure steam (400 °C, 40 bar) were produced and used for electricity generation, district heating, and industrial processes. The amount of waste treated equals the household waste of more than two million people over nearly half a century.