Eneco and AVR Rozenburg supply heat again to Rotterdam
After more than 18 months of construction and repair work, the AVR waste processing plant in Rozenburg can now once again supply heat to Eneco’s heat grid. The heat supply was restarted step by step over the past several months, until AVR returned to full capacity earlier this month. The supply came to an abrupt halt on 21 September 2023, when a large fire broke out at AVR. Eneco was able to switch immediately to heat supplied by Uniper, and also installed emergency boilers around the city. Thanks to these efforts, the 46,000 customers connected to Eneco’s heat grid did not notice anything of the problems at AVR. With AVR’s heat supplies now fully operational once more, the emergency boilers are no longer needed.
Although the fire caused a great deal of damage, fortunately no-one was injured. Most of the waste for AVR was diverted to alternative processing sites, with some of it being stored for later processing. Once the necessary permits were obtained, the rebuild of the AVR plant began on 1 January 2024. Starting 1 October 2024, waste was fed into AVR’s residual waste incinerators again, and the heat supplies gradually returned to the previous level. It will be early 2026 before the repairs are completed, including replacing the steam turbines to produce electricity.
AVR’s Director of Energy Michiel Timmerije comments: “Almost immediately after the fire, our number one priority was to offer our customers as much continuity as possible. Our relationships with Eneco and other partners in the value chain go back many years, and thanks to those partnerships not a single home had to manage without heat. We can all be very proud of that.”
Eneco’s Director of Heat Ron Wit adds: “Suddenly not having AVR available showed how vulnerable collective heat systems can be, with their dependence on one or a few large sources. This makes it vital to invest in proper back-up facilities. We’re very fortunate that our long-term partner Uniper was available to produce heat immediately, and that we were able to instal several heat boilers around the city in such a very short space of time. We knew that this gave us enough capacity to produce extra heat if and when we needed to, for example at peak moments or on cold days.”
Shortly before the winter, the ‘heating season’, the emergency boilers were installed at Albeda College, next to the Ahoy event centre and on the site of WSG. The boiler by Ahoy has since been removed. The boilers on WSG’s site will be moved in the near future, to Eneco’s new Groenoord heat transfer station in Schiedam. The boilers at Albeda College will remain where they are for now, although they will not be used.
AVR supplies heat from three separate sources to feed Rotterdam’s grid. The main source is heat from the incinerator that processes non-recyclable household waste. This waste incinerator started up again in October 2024 and now supplies heat from household waste. However, the rebuild is not yet finished. Later this year, steam turbines will become operational that will produce electricity. When they are in place, the waste incinerator will return to full operation. As soon as the steam turbines are working, AVR’s heat supplies will be as sustainable again as they were before the fire.
Eneco and AVR are very pleased that they can once more supply heat to Eneco’s customers, and are proud that their strong partnership will continue during the years ahead.
