Start of construction of the sewage sludge processing plant in Waßmannsdorf near Berlin
The Berliner Wasserbetriebe (BWB) have started the construction of a new sewage sludge processing plant in the Waßmannsdorf sewage treatment plant in the Schönefeld municipality bordering on Berlin. Shortly before, the Brandenburg State Office for the Environment had issued a first partial permit. With the announced completion of the Waßmannsdorf waste incineration plant in 2025 and the existing Berlin-Ruhleben waste incineration plant, all of Berlin’s sewage sludge could be thermally recycled in the future, the municipal utility announced. A high level of phosphorus is to be recovered from the remaining ashes.
In total, around 100,000 tons of sewage sludge dry matter (DM) accumulated in the federal capital every year. The Ruhleben waste incineration plant, which went into operation in 1985, can currently only dispose of around 56,000 tons of DM per year. Although the capacity is to be expanded to 60,000 tons of DM in the future, around 40,000 tons of DM are detailed, which are currently still being burned in power plants and cement works.
In the future, Berliner Wasserbetriebe want to take over the recycling completely themselves. The application submitted to the State Environment Agency in November last year and approved in July provides for the construction and operation of a mono-incineration plant consisting of three parallel fluidized bed lines. Each will have a maximum throughput capacity of 3.4 tons of DM per hour. Overall, according to the BWB, the plant is specified for an annual volume of 68,000 tons of sewage sludge and screenings.
The system is operated with negative pressure, effectively odour-tight, and is equipped with the most modern exhaust gas cleaning system, the BWB further explain. Essen-based WTE Wassertechnik GmbH was commissioned with the construction as total contractor. The investment volume is around €260 million.
In total, the water companies even want to invest around €560 million in the Schönefeld site. The Waßmannsdorf sewage treatment plant has been expanded with additional systems since 2017 with the aim of significantly increasing the cleaning performance. The five other BWB sewage treatment plants at the Stahnsdorf, Münchehofe, Schönerlinde, Wansdorf and Ruhleben sites will also be equipped with more extensive cleaning stages, some will also be expanded or a completely new building is planned for the Stahnsdorf plant by 2030 in the autumn. The total investment for the current or planned sewage treatment plant projects is around €2 billion.
The approval notice for the KVA Waßmannsdorf is here available.