Urbaser Environnement will be the future operator of the Isséane Waste-To-Energy facility, owned by the “Syctom, l’Agence Métropolitaine des déchets”, which is the public agency in charge of the municipal solid waste treatment of 85 municipalities from the Paris Region, including the city of Paris. The contract takes effect from next September and runs for 99 months, i.e. 8 years and 3 months.

Syctom informed Urbaser Environnement of its decision to award the operating contract for the Isséane waste-to-energy plant on 20 June 2019. The contract will represent a total turnover of approximately €220 M.

The waste facility, on the banks of the Seine, in Issy-les-Moulineaux, has been running since 2008 and can process 510,000 tonnes of MSW per year. It receives the household waste from 22 municipalities belonging to the Syctom, and generates enough heat energy to supply almost 80,000 homes, as well as electricity to cover its own needs and to send the rest to the EDF network grid. Isséane, alone, turns every day a quarter of Syctom’s household waste into power.

Greater energy efficiency

The successful Urbaser offer will permit a significant increase of the energy efficiency of the plant, boosting the steam supply to the CPCU (Paris Urban Heating Company). It will also provide concrete solutions for public service continuity and will secure the facility’s long-term future, especially with the introduction of a new-generation combustion management system, and a major maintenance and renewal programme (GER).

Commitment to maintain social conditions

All employees at the facility will be integrated in the future “Issy Urbaser Energie” operating company, subsidiary of Urbaser. Urbaser also pledged that all staff, including new recruits, will benefit from the IEG statutes conditions (statutes from the French Electricity and Gas Industries).

Operating Isséane plant in a sustainable development approach

Urbaser Environnement highlighted its sustainable development approach which will be part of the quality certification to be developed for Isséane.

Through the ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001 and ISO 50001 quality certifications, Urbaser is focusing on improving performances in the frame of the environmental monitoring scheme, involving, in particular, limiting electricity and heat consumption.

Urbaser Environnement will also improve Isséane’s environmental footprint by transporting 92% of incineration slag by waterways.

Isséane is one of France’s largest Waste-To-Energy facilities in terms of its processing capacity, followed closely by the Metropolis Aix-Marseille Provence energy recovery plant, built and also operated by Urbaser.

Trifyl, the public entity in charge of the municipal solid waste treatment in the Tarn Départment, selected the Urbaser’s offer in order to build and run its future household waste treatment plant. The winning group of companies, led by Urbaser Environnement, includes the Socotrap, Albert & Fils and Touja companies, in charge of civil engineering works and building construction, and Alliage Architectes in charge of the design and architectural integration.

The plant will be able to process 91,000 tonnes of household waste and 11,000 tonnes of mixed waste per year, with an option of 8,000 tonnes per year of biowaste.

The development fits with the goal of addressing new taxation, regulatory and economic challenges for waste, that require :

• Reduction of the amount of waste going to landfill ;
• Renewable energy production (biogas) ;
• No organic matter injected into the soil ;
• Development of the RdF sector (Refuse derived Fuel).

Urbaser has designed a new-generation facility using Valorga anaerobic digestion technology, that extracts the full energy potential contained in the organic fraction of household waste. The Trifyl plant will be able to generate 64,000 MWh of biogas, and more than 40,000 MWh of heat through the combustion of part of the RdF on-site, heat which will be used to dry the remaining part of RdF for the cement industry. It will also recover recyclable waste (ferrous metals, aluminium, PET and HDPE plastics, etc.). Recovery and recycling rates will exceed 80%, thus minimising the need for landfill.

The volume of biogas produced and injected into the natural gas network is equivalent to the amount used to heat approximately 5,500 homes a year.

Architecturally-speaking, the plant will fit perfectly into its surroundings. Its resolutely modern style includes a learning trail for all audiences, to discover and find out more about the facility.

According to the future decisions of Trifyl about the options, the contract will represent for the Group led by Urbaser Environnement an amount of approximately 150 million euros, including an investment of some 90 million euros.