With the third combustion line finished, which makes for a major boost to overall capacity, EVN’s thermal waste utilisation plant at Zwentendorf/Dürnrohr has been operating, since January 2010, at a throughput of more than 500,000 metric tons of household, bulk and industrial waste, ranking it among the largest plants of its kind in Europe. Based on the “waste-to-energy” concept, it uses garbage to generate electricity, district heating and industrial process steam.

The line was constructed in less than two years – quite a feat, especially when considering that normal operations involving the incineration of 300,000 metric tons of garbage had to be fully maintained. Handling the regular delivery and incineration of about 1,000 metric tons of waste per day to be fed to Lines 1 and 2, combined with the work to construct Line 3 which involved up to 400 construction workers per day, called for maximum concentration and precise coordination. By late February 2010, some 30,000 metric tons of waste had already been processed by the new Line 3.