EEW Energy from Waste

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
EEW Energy from Waste
legal form GmbH
founding January 26, 1873
Seat Helmstedt
management
  • Bernard M. Kemper, Chairman of the Management Board
Number of employees 1,150 (2014)
Branch Energy supply , thermal waste recovery
Website eew-energyfromwaste.com

EEW Energy from Waste GmbH (EEW) (formerly E.ON Energy from Waste AG , or Braunschweigische Kohlen-Bergwerke (BKB)) based in the Lower Saxon district town of Helmstedt is a producer of electricity from waste . The Energy from Waste Group plans, builds and operates waste recycling and disposal plants. With a total of 18 plants in Germany and neighboring countries, EEW has specialized in the thermal treatment of waste and substitute fuels. Every year, the EEW Group's plants can recycle around 4.7 million tons of waste. With around 1,150 employees, EEW generates process steam for industrial companies, district heating for residential areas and electricity for around 825,000 households. Locations are in Andernach, Delfzijl (Netherlands), Göppingen, Großräschen, Hanover, Helmstedt, Heringen, Knapsack, Premnitz, Rothensee, Schwedt, Stapelfeld, Eschbach, Leudelange (Luxembourg) Neunkirchen, Pirmasens and Stavenhagen. The company has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Beijing Enterprises Holdings Limited since 2016 , which acquired 100% of the shares in EQT .

background

Share of 1200 Marks in the Braunschweiger coal mines from May 19, 1922

BKB was founded on January 26th, 1873 as a listed company. In the Helmstedt mining area , it mined lignite and refined it into fuel (mainly briquettes ) and electrical energy . Until 1945 the company was a member of the Central German Brown Coal Syndicate .

With 7,000 employees, the highest number in the company's history was achieved in 1950. From 1974 onwards, the BKB concentrated on generating electricity from lignite , which was mainly supplied to customers throughout eastern Lower Saxony via the subsidiary Überland-Zentrale Helmstedt AG (ÜZH). Against the background of decreasing lignite stocks, diversification began in 1993 in the field of disposal with the later focus on waste incineration; With stakes in 18 waste incineration plants across Europe, the company rose to become the market leader.

Since 1986 the majority of BKB has belonged to the then VEBA group via PreussenElektra . As part of the reorganization of the group and the formation of E.ON , the company was gradually split up from 1998 and the business concentrated on generating electricity from waste . Due to the realignment, Braunschweigische Kohlen-Bergwerke AG changed its name to BKB Aktiengesellschaft in 2003 and then to E.ON Energy from Waste (EEW) in 2008 . After the financial investor EQT took over 51% of the shares in the company in March 2013, the company was renamed EEW Energy from Waste in July 2013 . Since 2016 the company has been wholly owned by Beijing Enterprises Holdings Limited .

Company history

Administrative headquarters in Helmstedt in 2006

Foundation phase

The BKB was founded on January 26th, 1873 with a capital of 1,600,000 thalers by a Berlin consortium of banks. Previously, following a Europe-wide tender, the “Tiefbaue Prinz Wilhelm, Treue and Trendelbusch with all associated facilities and a brown coal field property of over 7,000 hectares” had been acquired from the Duchy of Braunschweig . To refinance the purchase, it brought the investments into the stock corporation and placed the shares on the capital market . At the same time, when it was founded, BKB took over a mining tradition that had already existed for around 100 years in the western part of the Helmstedt-Staßfurter-Mulde.

Lignite mining

In the year of its creation, BKB was forced, not least due to the general economic effects of the founder crash, to significantly increase the profitability of its mining operations by turning away from civil engineering . In 1874 the company opened the first open pit mine . A contemporary source points out that “on the opencast mining of the huts comfortably gains three to four times the performance of a comrade in underground operation. He does not use any wood at all, during which the underground operation devours large sums of money. Furthermore, the greatest concentration of operations is in opencast mining. ”In the following years, the share of underground mining declined more and more. The Prince Wilhelm mine, the last regular civil engineering company, was shut down on September 4, 1925.

In order to further increase the profitability of the operations, the BKB gradually took over the mining companies that were separating the Markets from 1903 . With one exception, it united all mines between Helmstedt and Oschersleben until 1917 . The takeover of the Norddeutsche Braunkohlenwerke Völpke and the Harbker Kohlenwerke Harbke played an important role in this concentration process . The BKB expanded its activities beyond the state border because the fields of the two companies were in the area of ​​the former Prussian province of Saxony in what is now Saxony-Anhalt .

After the Second World War , this resulted in the difficult situation that the factories were partly under the British and partly under the Soviet occupation forces. The zone border not only intersected two opencast mines, overall the BKB was a divided company . In the years 1947 and 1948 the eastern parts of the company were expropriated and declared public property. In order to maintain the energy supply for the population in both occupation zones, the overall economic and technical management initially remained with the BKB.

On May 26, 1952, in response to the signing of the Germany Treaty, the GDR Council of Ministers issued the “Ordinance on Measures on the Demarcation Line between the German Democratic Republic and the Western Occupation Zones of Germany.” With the establishment of a five-kilometer-wide exclusion zone and construction of the border fortifications the inner-German border increasingly impassable. At the same time, the Verziefer campaign began the forced relocation of residents of the border area. In the Helmstedt district, around 1,400 employees could no longer get to their workplaces in Lower Saxony. The People's Police occupied the eastern opencast mines and operating facilities; The BKB also lost access to over 60 percent of the lignite reserves that were recoverable in the open pit at the time.

Despite the Cold War developing between the world powers , the relationship between the miners in the divided mining area remained rather pragmatic. Without attracting public attention, the mining companies exchanged operating areas. In addition, the BKB marketed lignite products from GDR companies. Against this background, there were initial considerations early on to amicably mine the lignite under the border strip. Initially, however, these plans came to nothing in 1961 with the construction of the wall and the complete closure of the inner-German border.

Former logo of the BKB

In the 1970s, these plans revived against the backdrop of the first oil crisis and were negotiated between the two German states in connection with other border issues. On May 19, 1976 could limit coal agreements (including border posts agreement ) be signed; it enabled the BKB (Helmstedt open-cast mine) and the VEB brown coal works " Gustav Sobottka " ( Wulfersdorf open-cast mine ), which is active in the east, to promote the lignite in the respective area according to "technical expediency" and "regardless of the national border". In the Helmstedt district, the so-called lignite mining began through the fence .

The Schöningen opencast mine became internationally known in the 1990s through extensive archaeological excavations and the discovery of the Schöningen spears , which, with an age of 270,000 to 400,000 years, are considered to be the oldest fully preserved hunting weapons in the world. In 2017 the Schöningen opencast mine was exhausted. Since plans to open the Emmerstedt opencast mine failed against the background of the liberalization of the electricity markets in the 1990s, the history of lignite mining in the Helmstedt district ended. What remains is an agricultural and forestry recultivated post-mining landscape with several large bodies of water such as the Lappwaldsee .

In 2008 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH took over the opencast mines .

Briquetting

In the founding phase, BKB was only able to sell lumpy lignite to a few industrial customers due to the firing technology used at the time . The so-called fine coal was initially not used. This changed with the introduction of briquetting . In 1887, the BKB started up its first briquette factory with two presses and three drying ovens. As demand grew, more businesses were created. Sales continued as far as Scandinavia. Briquette production reached its absolute peak in 1951 at 1.4 million t. In the following years, however, more conveniently manageable fuels increasingly replaced the briquette; In 1974 the BKB stopped the briquette production.

Power generation, power supply

To cover the mining operations' own needs (transport, water drainage , ventilation , lighting), BKB built the first power generation plant in 1888. The mine power plants also supplied neighboring mining communities with electrical energy early on .

In 1906 the Überland-Zentrale Helmstedt AG (ÜZH) began building a regional power supply in the Helmstedt area . Relatively quickly, it expanded its supply area from the district town mainly into adjacent parts of the Duchy of Braunschweig (today: Lower Saxony ). In doing so, it cooperated with BKB, which acquired all of the ÜZH shares in 1912 .

With the Harbker Kohlenwerke , BKB also took over their supply area in the province of Saxony (today: Saxony-Anhalt ) as well as the Harbke power plant , which was expanded to become the central production focus. Including all electricity supply contracts, in 1917 BKB supplied the entire area between Magdeburg and Braunschweig , the Harz and Stendal with electricity from lignite .

At the end of the 1920s, PreussenElektra and Elektrowerke AG Berlin took over larger blocks of shares in BKB as part of the electrical peace process.

After the Second World War, the zone border cut through the historically grown supply area of ​​the BKB. The Harbke power station , located in the Soviet occupation zone , and the power distribution systems there were declared public property. After the original supply structures were initially retained for the benefit of the population, the GDR cut the power grids on May 26, 1952. BKB immediately began building the Offleben power plant . This went into operation in 1954 with two machines and was expanded to a total output of 770 megawatts during the years of the economic miracle in order to be able to safely supply customers in Lower Saxony with electrical energy.

In 1985 the Buschhaus lignite power plant started generating electricity after heated discussions about environmental policy. Two years later, it was connected to an innovative flue gas desulphurisation system based on the Wellman-Lord process , together with Unit C of the Offleben power station , which produced elemental sulfur for the chemical industry from the sulfur dioxide in the flue gases . The BKB received the German Recycling Prize for using the process.

After German reunification , the Harbke power plant, which was renamed the Philipp Müller power plant in GDR times and largely unchanged in terms of technology, was demolished. The last block of the Offleben power plant went offline when the Helmstedt open-cast mine was burned out . In 2017, the generation of electricity from lignite ended in the Buschhaus power plant and in the Helmstedt district .

In 2008 E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH took over the Buschhaus power station.

Disposal, waste incineration

As the surrounding coal extraction sites became more and more carbonized, the waste disposal business area has been increasingly expanded since 1993. Through further incorporations or the establishment of new waste disposal companies and waste-to-energy plants, the BKB Group has developed into the German market leader in the field of waste incineration and the electricity and district heating generated from it .

At the Annual General Meeting on November 8, 2002, it was resolved to transfer all outstanding shares to E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH in return for cash compensation of EUR 375.67 per share . The severance payment was increased to EUR 450 through an award procedure.

As part of an internal group restructuring on March 31, 2008, the business field of lignite mining and its generation of electricity has been operated directly by E.ON Kraftwerke GmbH , and energy generation from waste incineration continues under the new name E.ON Energy from Waste AG (EEW) .

From summer 2011 the company was up for sale. In June 2012, the sale of the E.ON subsidiary was canceled due to insufficient bids. Instead, a joint venture was founded in 2013 with the infrastructure fund of the Swedish financial investor EQT . This should further develop the operational business and the geographic expansion and take over all shares of EEW; E.ON will only hold a minority stake of 49% in the planned joint venture . In May 2015, EQT also took over the remaining 49%.

Acquisition by Beijing Enterprises

In February 2016, EQT announced an agreement to sell EEW to the state-owned Chinese conglomerate Beijing Enterprises for € 1.438 billion. With the approval of the BMWi (clearance certificate according to foreign trade regulation ), this is the most expensive purchase by a Chinese company to date by a German company.

Operating facilities and opencast mines

Buschhaus lignite power station

In the course of more than 130 years of company history, u. a. operated the following systems:

Power plants
Opencast mines
  • Trendelbusch opencast mine (1874–1916)
  • Treue opencast mine (1881–1993)
  • Opencast mine Viktoria (1902–1963)
  • Harbke opencast mine (1922–1926)
  • Open pit Anna (1922–1935)
  • Jakobsgrube opencast mine (1926–1931)
  • Wulfersdorf opencast mine (1936–1952)
  • Alversdorf opencast mine (1962–1991)
  • Opencast mine Helmstedt (1973-2002)
  • Opencast mine Schöningen (1978-2017)

literature

  • Jürgen Bödecker: Support for nature - recultivation in the Helmstedt area. In: Landkreis Helmstedt (Hrsg.): Kreisbuch 1993. Helmstedt 1993.
  • Jürgen Bödecker: From mining to service company - 125 years of BKB. In: Landkreis Helmstedt (Hrsg.): Kreisbuch 1998. Helmstedt 1998.
  • Wilhelm Eule: Two centuries of mining in the area of ​​the Braunschweig coal mines Helmstedt. Helmstedt 1937, DNB 57936254X
  • Hartmut Thieme , Reinhard Maier: Archaeological excavations in the lignite opencast mine Schöningen. Hahn, Hannover 1995, ISBN 3-7752-5640-7 .
  • Werner Vogt, Andrea Dreifke-Pieper: The Braunschweigische Kohlen- Bergwerke AG. Industrial history of the Helmstedt district. Econ-Verlag, 2000, ISBN 3-430-11487-X .
  • LMBV (Ed.): Wulfersdorf. Landscapes and industrial locations in transition (=  Central German lignite mining area changes and perspectives . No. 14 ). Senftenberg September 2014 ( PDF, 6.84 MB [accessed April 21, 2020]).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Numbers on eew-energyfromwaste.com
  2. ↑ [Company brochure “Setting Signs”, p. 6, 2014] on eew-energyfromwaste.com
  3. ↑ Locations eew-energyfromwaste.com.
  4. ↑ Company history eew-energyfromwaste.com.
  5. ↑ a b Bödecker: From mining to service company - 125 years of BKB. 1998, p. 10.
  6. ^ Owl: Two centuries of mining in the area of ​​the Braunschweig coal mines in Helmstedt. 1937, p. 44 f.
  7. ^ Vogt, Dreifke-Pieper: The Braunschweigische Kohlen- Bergwerke AG. Industrial history of the Helmstedt district. 2000, pp. 147, 151 ff.
  8. ^ Bödecker: From mining to service company - 125 years of BKB. 1998, p. 12 f.
  9. ↑ Zone border / opening. Shots at Helmstedt. Spiegel, May 30, 1956, accessed April 28, 2012 .
  10. ^ Vogt, Dreifke-Pieper: The Braunschweigische Kohlen- Bergwerke AG. Industrial history of the Helmstedt district. 2000, p. 168 ff.
  11. ↑ Thieme, Maier: Archaeological excavations in the lignite opencast mine Schöningen. 1995.
  12. ^ Bödecker: From mining to service company - 125 years of BKB. 1998, p. 22.
  13. ^ Bödecker: From mining to service company - 125 years of BKB. 1998, p. 12.
  14. ↑ NDR: E.ON plans to sell subsidiaries. July 13, 2011 (accessed March 13, 2012).
  15. ↑ Reuters: E.ON initiates sales process for waste division. March 8, 2012 (accessed: March 13, 2012).
  16. ↑ Reuters: Offers for E.ON waste division. April 12, 2012 (accessed April 15, 2012).
  17. ↑ Reuters: Bidder for E.ON subsidiary not in a spending mood. May 23, 2012 (accessed: July 7, 2012).
  18. ^ Mannheimer Morgen: Düsseldorfer corporation stops selling the waste division.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. June 30, 2012 (accessed: July 7, 2012).@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.fnweb.de  
  19. ↑ E.ON: E.ON founds a joint venture with EQT Infrastructure ( Memento of the original of January 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , December 19, 2012 (accessed: December 26, 2012). @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.eon.com
  20. ↑ Eon separates from waste division. handelsblatt.com, May 5, 2015.
  21. ↑ EEW: Chinese start largest takeover in Germany. In: Der Spiegel. Online, February 4, 2016.
  22. ↑ MIBRAG : E.ON and MIBRAG sign contracts to sell the Helmstedt mining area. In: www.mibrag.de. September 18, 2013, accessed November 29, 2014 .

Coordinates: 52 ° 13 '24.1 "  N , 11 ° 0' 37.1"  E