Chairman of the Board of Directors at Indaver
“Waste-to-energy helps a little bit … but it cannot remove the energy volatility entirely”.
That’s a key message of Paul De Bruycker at the Tuesday Breakfast in Ghent, co-organised by Boardio, Cronos Group, Faculty of Engineering and Architecture (Ghent University), ImpactBuilders Industry, and Wellness Orbit.
In the heart of major industrial zones
Indaver operates waste-to-energy plants in several major industrial regions across Europe, including Antwerp, Hamburg and Duinkerke. The principle is straightforward: waste in, energy out. The installations convert industrial and hazardous waste into heat, steam and electricity.
For industrial companies connected to the network, the advantages are twofold. They contribute to the processing of chemical and toxic waste streams while at the same time reducing pressure on the wider energy system.
Most industrial users are located close to the waste-to-energy facilities. Heat and steam distribution typically remains economically viable within a radius of around 10 kilometres. According to Paul De Bruycker, this makes the model particularly suitable for dense industrial clusters where large production sites require stable energy volumes and where permanent infrastructure investments can be justified.
In these environments, waste-to-energy becomes part of the broader industrial ecosystem rather than a standalone energy solution.
There is no perfect solution
The model, however, also has its limitations. Waste-to-energy plants themselves consume considerable amounts of electricity to process incoming waste streams.
“Our plants face the same challenge as other industrial companies when it comes to volatile energy prices,” says Paul De Bruycker. “We purchase electricity through a mix of long- and short-term contracts , and we sell energy on the same markets and under similar conditions as other industries. As a result, energy price volatility also becomes part of our own pricing towards customers.”
Waste-to-energy installations can generally provide energy at slightly more stable conditions and often at a somewhat lower average cost. Yet the sector alone cannot fully shield industrial companies from the structural volatility affecting European energy markets.
“It helps,” says De Bruycker, “but it is not a complete answer.”
How to cope with the current volatility
The recent fluctuations on European electricity markets illustrate the scale of the challenge. Negative electricity prices and extreme peaks can occur within very short timeframes.
“The real solution is to buy energy at the right moment and store it for future use,” explains Paul De Bruycker. “But large-scale electricity storage remains expensive. That means industrial companies increasingly need to adapt their production planning to the energy market itself: producing when energy is cheap and temporarily slowing down or stopping production when energy becomes expensive.”
For many factories, this requires an entirely new operational approach. Traditional production planning systems were not designed for highly volatile energy conditions.
According to De Bruycker, future competitiveness will increasingly depend on the ability to integrate energy intelligence directly into industrial operations.
“It requires smarter production systems and a much more flexible way of organising industrial activity,” he says. “The companies that adapt fastest will be in the strongest position.”