The president of the Cluj County Council, Alin Tișe, signed a contract with Waste Powertech for the design and execution of the molecular disintegration treatment facility for the energy recovery of municipal waste from the county. The awarded value of the contract is 60 million lei, excluding VAT. The financing is provided from CJ Cluj’s own funds, and contracting takes place following an auction, according to Transilvania Business.
“We are at the end of a winding road and the beginning of a new stage in waste management in our county. It is a state-of-the-art facility that aims to significantly reduce the amount of municipal waste resulting from sorting recyclables and mechano-biological treatment. Thus, we can meet the target set by the national waste management strategy: the energy recovery of at least 15% of municipal waste by 2025. It is an audacious goal that we can now tick off much more easily. The proposed technical solution is an ecological one: it will generate green energy, which can be economically exploited. According to our estimates, the energy produced in one year covers the consumption of CJ, Cluj Arena and the other subordinate institutions,” says Tișe.
The station will be completed by Waste Powertech in the first part of next year, with the possibility of upgrading with new modules depending on the identified needs. The first stage is dedicated to design. According to the contract, the contractor of the works will also have to carry out the operation and maintenance of the installation during the three-year warranty period, during which CJ Cluj will not have any additional costs.
The fully automated installation will be located within the technical area of the Cluj Integrated Waste Management Center, on an area of 1,000 square meters, near the sorting station and the TMB station. According to the technical data in the specifications, the molecular disintegration station will be able to use 25,000 tons of residual waste/year as energy.
The specific technological process presupposes going through the stage of shredding to a grain size of less than 25 mm and drying to a humidity of less than 20%. Afterwards, the waste is introduced into the station’s reactor to undergo the chemical decomposition stage (molecular disintegration).
The resulting gases are passed through a complex system of cleaning, cooling, filtering and storage in a pressure tank. From this tank, the gases are introduced into the engine of the current generator, energy that will be delivered to the national energy system. From 1 ton of shredded and dry waste, 400 cubic meters of gas can be obtained, the exact amount depending on the calorific value of the waste.
From the gases thus obtained, which have a calorific capacity similar to that of methane gas, 1.1-1.15 MW/h of electric current can be generated, of which up to 10% will be used for the operation of the installation. By generating the resulting gas over the course of a year, CJ Cluj aims to produce 18,240 MWh.