European waste-to-energy industry remains optimistic

Compared with the already high level of the previous year, the business climate in the waste-to-energy sector in Europe has improved once again. However, the gap between operators and equipment suppliers of waste-to-energy plants continues to widen. While among operators the already very good mood from last year has once again increased significantly, the situation of the industry remains difficult.

The operators of waste-to-energy plants assess both their current business situation and future business prospects positively. Almost 80% of them rate the current utilization of their plant as relatively high. Compared to 2015, which was already rated very positively, another 60% of the operators who participated in the survey report increased demand on the spot market. Two thirds were able to stabilize the high utilization of the previous year, and almost one third were even able to increase it once again.

Rising prices expected

For the coming months, 40% of the operators even expect a further improvement in their business situation, only 1% expect worse business. As higher capacity utilization of their own plant is hardly possible in many cases, the positive business expectation is primarily associated with further price increases. Almost 60% of the respondents expect such a price increase.

The situation is different for plant manufacturers in the WtE sector: They consider their current business situation to be poor. More than 50% of the industry representatives surveyed consider their order backlog to be too low, and overall it has fallen for more companies in recent months than it has risen.

Although more than half of the companies do not expect the situation to change in the near future, the number of optimists is still significantly higher than the number of pessimists.

The WtE Industry Barometer 2016 surveys the current business climate in the WtE industry according to a system developed by the IFO Institute. In addition, questions on current developments were examined. For example, operators of thermal waste plants were asked, among other things, about their expectations of the EU's circular economy package, the consequences of Brexit, or company takeovers by companies from China. The technology providers additionally provided information on their assessment of the various market regions worldwide.

The WtE Industry Barometer is conducted by the Cologne-based consulting firm Ecoprog GmbH. The European umbrella organization of operators of thermal waste utilization plants CEWEP (Confederation of European Waste-to-Energy Plants) supports the survey.

The industry barometer is available as a free download at the CEWEP website available.

Source: Ecoprog