Incinerators

BOFA's incineration plant was commissioned in 1991.

The incinerator receives all waste suitable for incineration from the island. This includes:

• Household waste
• Recycling centres
• Environments
• Bulky waste collection
• Business organisations
• Institutions
• Seized drugs/hash and smuggling cigarettes etc.

Every year, approximately 20,000 tonnes of waste is received and incinerated.

The heat produced during incineration is sent to the heating network and supplies energy to both citizens and businesses in and around Rønne. BOFA's heat is prioritised for RVV (Rønne Varmeværk) and covers approximately 25 % of the annual heat consumption in Rønne.

The incinerator is in operation around the clock, every day of the year. There is always at least one employee on duty to monitor the incineration process and ensure that the furnace is working properly.

Inspection of the oven
Twice a year, a furnace shutdown is scheduled, lasting approximately one week. During this period, operations are interrupted and the kiln is cooled down to perform audits and necessary maintenance tasks.

When the stove is in operation, it has a temperature of around 1,000 degrees. It takes about four hours to stop combustion, at which point the stove is still around 800 degrees centigrade. It then takes about a day and a half for the stove to cool down sufficiently for internal inspections and any repairs to be carried out in the hottest areas.

What happens to combustion slag?
When waste is burned, incineration slag is created. This is the residue left over from the waste that cannot be burned. Every year, around 3,500 tonnes of incineration slag is produced.

The slag is sorted so that all metals larger than 0.9 mm are removed and recycled. After sorting out the metals, the slag is typically used in large construction projects. Here they replace large amounts of gravel or other virgin material that would otherwise have to be extracted from underground.

Cleaning smoke from the combustion process
The smoke generated during the combustion process is cleaned in a built-in flue gas cleaning system before being discharged into the atmosphere through a 75 metre high chimney. In the flue gas cleaning system, the smoke is treated with a lime product that effectively binds the harmful substances.

The smoke emitted is therefore as clean as possible. What you can see from the chimney is primarily a vapour plume consisting of water vapour. The residue from the cleaning process, called flue gas cleaning residue, is deposited at a specialised depot in Langøya, Norway.

Incinerator modernisationt
The incineration plant was extensively modernised in 2011-2012.
In 2019, a new economiser will also be installed. An economiser helps to utilise the last of the heat from the flue gas while stabilising the temperature of the flue gas before it enters the flue gas cleaning filter.
These upgrades ensured both higher environmental standards than before and stable operations that are expected to be maintained until the 2032 vision is realised.

Revised environmental authorisation of 2020

Revised environmental authorisation of 2016