Page 64 - Waste-to-Energy in the Danube Strategy Region. Challenges and Prospects

Even though Zwentendorf is majority publically owned, it remains important for the

company to be profitable. Generally, the source of income is split into three categories: 79% of
income comes from the incineration fee, 20% from sales of heat and electricity, and 1% from sales

of recovered metals (Netoliczka 2018). Electricity is sold through EVN AG group, supplemented

by long-term contracts for energy, such as providing industrial process steam to the AGRANA

bioethanol plant (Alfons 2018).

Given the plant’s dependence on waste incineration as a source of income and its
commitments to the district heating networks in St. Pölten and Zwentendorf, the constant influx

of waste into the plant must be ensured (EVN Abfallverwertung 2018d). Zwentendorf obtains its

fuel waste through two main channels. Long-term contracts with municipalities ensured through
BAWU contribute approximately 40% of waste, while the remaining 60% is obtained on the market

(Austrian Court of Audit 2017). Most of the waste material is from Austria, and nearly half of the

material (250,000 tons/year) comes from Lower Austria. Nevertheless, the waste available in

Austria is insufficient to meet the plant’s capacity, and thus it is necessary to import waste in order
to keep operations profitable. Because neighbouring countries such as Czech Republic and

Slovakia have neither high landfill fees nor landfill bans, municipalities in these countries have no

economic incentive to send waste to Austria for treatment. The Zwentendorf plant thus imports

some 70,000 tons of waste (13% of capacity) mainly from Rome, which suffers from full landfills
(Bell 2017). When importing waste from abroad, both the incineration fee and transport costs are

borne by the client of the WtE plant. The fee paid for incineration is in accordance with domestic

market prices (Netoliczka 2018).

The means of transport is an important consideration in the process of waste acquisition.
The feasibility of long-distance land-based transportation (1,000 km from Rome to Zwentendorf)

is dependent on the availability of low-cost rail connections. Fortunately for the Zwentendorf

plant, it is able to import waste from Italy by rail. While rail transport is beneficial for longer

distances, shorter distances within Austria are served more economically by truck. Originally the
Zwentendorf plant aimed to obtain 90% of waste by train and 10% by truck, but this proportion

changed in 2015 to 73% by train and 27% by truck in order to improve competitiveness with other

WtE plants within the waste market (Austrian Court of Audit 2017).

Project co-funded by the European Union
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