Energy
The City of Amsterdam's Waste and Energy Company (AEB, Afval Energie Bedrijf) now has one of the most efficient incinerators in the world. The facility is a world leader in producing energy and products from waste, has unrivalled environmental credentials and has set a new global standard for electrical efficiency and maximising products from waste.
Working towards a greener future, together
Amsterdam is dedicated to finding renewable energy solutions and has already introduced numerous initiatives to work towards this goal. For example, the City of Amsterdam has introduced a subsidy programme to encourage residents of the city to create green roofs and walls on their properties. However, residents of the city are also working towards a greener future.
In Amsterdam Noord, residents plan to produce the electricity needed to power more than 8,000 households using 7 windmills. Every household can buy shares in the windmills, enabling them to potentially make a profit further down the line. Read more about Onze Energie (in Dutch).
Facts and figures
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The waste-fired power plant has an electrical efficiency of 30%, 8% higher than the average waste-to-energy plant.
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The AEB can produce sustainable energy because 48% of the waste consists of biomass. Energy released from biomass qualifies for CO2 neutral certification.
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The AEB produces 300,000 gigajoules of district heating per year. A household connected to the district heating grid uses an average of 36 gigajoules per year. In the near future, 40,000 additional households will be connected to the district heating grid provided by the AEB.
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The AEB produces renewable electricity for 320,000 households.
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The AEB produces 1 million MWh of electricity per year. This is enough to cover the electricity needs of three quarters of the households in Amsterdam. It is also enough to power a 60 watt light bulb for almost 2 million years.
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The AEB processes over 1.4 million tonnes of waste per year, and is the largest single location waste processor in the world. 1.4 million tonnes of waste are equal to the total weight of 185,000 African elephants!
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In 2007, the AEB avoided CO2-emissions equal to 470 kt. Just by generating energy from waste.
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There are about 123,000 street lights with 138,000 fittings and 145,000 light bulbs in
Amsterdam. Green energy, delivered by the Amsterdam Waste and Energy
Company, is used for all streetlights.
Visit the Waste and Energy Company website for more information.
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