The co-combustion of municipal sewage sludge in block 5 of the Staudinger power plant has guaranteed the environmentally friendly, cost-effective and secure disposal of sewage since mid-2004.

The conventional manner of sewage disposal, its use as a fertilizer in agriculture has been attracting increasing criticism recently as the pollutants contained in the sewage could wind up in the food chain through the plants it fertilizes.

Therefore, it is more cost-effective and environmentally friendly to co-combust sewage sludge in coal-fired power plants that are already equipped with modern flue gas purification technology and capable of filtering out the pollutants.

For the surrounding region, this is the more attractive way to dispose of sewage in an environmentally friendly manner.

The sewage sludge from the region is dehydrated mechanically and contains about 30 percent dry solids and 70 percent water. It is delivered to the power plant by truck and first pumped into a storage silo. From there it is moved to the coal pulverizing mills, where it is added to the coal via metering equipment and dried. The proportion of added sewage in the dry solids must not be more than three percent. In this way, it is possible to save up to 2,000 tons of coal and about 5,000 tons of CO₂ per year.