06. Mai 2014 | MVV

SEMARDEL and MVV Umwelt found joint venture SEVE Energie

Foundation of SEVE Energie announced at IFAT 2014, the world's leading trade fair for water, sewage, waste and raw materials management, in Munich on Tuesday. SEVE Energie is a joint venture between the French and German companies SEMARDEL and MVV Umwelt, two experienced partners in the field of waste treatment and utilisation.

SEVE, the new company, will pool the expertise of the French public-private SEMARDEL Group and the German energy company MVV Umwelt. The purpose of this cooperation between the two companies with municipal roots is to participate in current and forthcoming operations management tenders at energy from waste plants in France.

SEVE will offer solutions for local authorities in the French market. In operating their plants, it will help them use the waste from energy feedstocks and thus also meet regional requirements in terms of a sustainable energy supply.

SEMARDEL is a French company that is 72 percent publicly and 28 percent privately owned and has operated in waste management in the Essonne region for 30 years now. The company has 600 employees and generated annual sales of Euro 80.9 million, a figure that has grown by 30 percent over the past four years. SEMARDEL thus offers a unique model in France and also makes its expertise available to local authorities.

MVV Energie, the parent company of MVV Umwelt, is a successful player both within and outside Germany and has decades of experience in building and operating energy from waste plants. It operates eight plants in Germany, a further plant in the Czech Republic and is currently building two new power plants in the UK. MVV Energie has been publicly listed since 1999. The city of Mannheim, its majority owner, owns a 50.1 percent stake. With annual sales of Euro 265 million and 460 employees, MVV Umwelt has been active in the field of waste incineration for more than 50 years now.

Regional energy solutions
The legislation governing the conversion in the energy supply foresees the promotion of new local energy concepts. It also provides for making less use of fossil and nuclear fuels and more use of renewable energies in the longer term. At the same time, the amendment to the European Waste Framework Directive has set a clear objective of reducing the volume of landfill waste to 50 percent by 2020. This will change waste management processes in the regions and increase the shares of waste recycled and incinerated to generate energy. This policy realignment will alter the existing model, which is based on the landfill principle, and lend new momentum to the generation of energy from waste.

Drawing on German experience
Germany is often viewed as a role model when it comes to waste management. Over the past decades, Germany has introduced three-stage recycling and simultaneously developed energy from waste plants that now supply millions of inhabitants and industry and business with electricity and heating energy. Decentralisation of the energy supply has also accelerated the development of closed substance cycle waste management.

This way, Germany has gained valuable experience in reducing the volumes of waste requiring treatment and enhancing efficiency at its energy from waste plants. To this end, companies have invested heavily in targeted research and development programmes. The decades of experience that MVV Umwelt can now contribute should particularly benefit French local authorities at their plants, which are mostly 20 to 30 years old.

50 operations management contracts due for tender
Around 50 local authorities are due to renew the operations management contracts at their energy from waste plants in the coming years. These contracts cover around 6 million tonnes of waste a year.

SEVE will offer French local authorities an alternative to traditional private sector plant operators, and that in the context of the energy supply transformation process, changes in public sector markets and the new European Waste Framework Directive. SEVE will act as a new service provider for French local authorities. Over and above the selection of plant operator, the company will support authorities in building an efficient energy supply and using alternative energies in their regions.

SEVE is a company organized under French law and is 50 percent owned by SEMARDEL and MVV Umwelt respectively. Its Managing Directors are Patrice Brun and Olivier Schwartz.

Further information: