Luxembourg, 10/02/2003 (Agence Europe) - The European Investment Bank (EIB) has granted a loan of DKK 318 million (i.e. EUR 43 million) to part-finance the construction of a municipal waste incineration plan in Esbjerg, Denmark. The EIB loan has been granted to KommuneKredit, Denmark's prime lending institution to the public sector. KommuneKredit is also the beneficiary of an EIB Global Loan of DKK 1 billion (EUR 134.5 million), which should assist small and medium-sized public investments in Denmark in the sectors of health, education, ICT, energy, environment and urban development.
The final beneficiary of the EIB loan for construction of a waste incineration plant is the company, L90. L90 is a not-for-profit single-purpose entity, formed and owned by public municipalities in the Jutland region in Western Denmark. The waste incineration plant will be built at Made, an industrial zone on the outskirts of Esbjerg (west coast of Denmark). The plant will treat and dispose of the residual municipal waste of 35 municipalities in Jutland and will also co-generate heat and power. The heat generated will be used for the communal district heating system in Esbjerg, and the electricity output will be sold to the regional supply grid. The technology used meets the most stringent environmental standards. The plant should be fully operational in 2003. The project will enable the municipalities concerned to fully comply with EU and national legislation that bans the "land filling" of untreated municipal waste. In addition, it will allow the efficient recovery of energy from the combustion of waste by producing steam and electricity. This will contribute to reducing regional consumption of primary energy for heat and power generation, and thereby to a reduction in related pollutants and CO2 emissions. The project's economic interest is thus linked to its contribution to improved waste management and to the rational use of energy. The operation ties in with EIB activity in favour of protecting the environment, an objective for which some EUR 9.2 billion was advanced in 2002".