Incineration Plant Celebrated Ten-Year Anniversary (Portal of Prague)

The Malešice incineration plant has gained its reputation over time. It has taken almost ten years before city residents have started perceiving the incineration plant in a more positive light. Today, not only is it the tenth anniversary that is being celebrated, but also the fact that its usefulness has been proven. Amongst other things, more than fifteen thousand households a year are heated by refuse incineration.

The Malešice incineration plant, now called Energy Refuse Facility (ZEVO) is one of the establishments under Prague Service Company. The company deals with refuse treatment, collection and recycling.

ZEVO itself, which transforms waste into heat, has already processed over two million tons of communal waste according to the company’s spokeswoman Miroslava Egerová. The waste processed in ZEVO would fill the area of the stadium in Letná and the pile would be one kilometer high. As the spokeswoman has clarified, 11 970 652, 00 GJ of heat have been supplied into the Pražská teplárenská a.s. heat system, which is a quantity sufficient to heat the yearly demand of all centrally heated Prague households.

Not only refuse disposal

The installation of de-dioxin filters, which took place last year, was a significant step to improving the ecological standards of the company. The filters cut the dioxin emissions by seventy percent.

Further steps for improving the unfavorable air conditions in the city is, according to Egerová, a project which started early this year whereby ZEVO has been gradually replacing diesel vehicles used for collecting communal refuse with gas operated vehicles. ZEVO will have 12 gas operated vehicles by the end of this year and will continue with the project next year.

The incineration plant has other projects planned as well. One of them was partly explained in the statement of Patrik Roman, Director General of the Prague Service Company. He introduced a plan for the construction of a cogeneration unit. The unit should produce heat as well as electricity.

This is a future investment. After it’s in place, refuse will not only heat Prague households, but it will also light almost 20 000 of them. A De-NOx facility will be a part of the cogeneration unit which will lower carbon monoxide emissions by 50% under the legal limit, added P. Roman.

Thanks to these arrangements, the operation of the incineration plant reaches such ecological standards as to place it among the most modern facilities of this type in Europe.

Incineration Plant Celebrated Ten-Year Anniversary

Not only refuse disposal

Cogeneration Unit