Zuchwil plant turns waste into electricity and heat
Sunday 23rd August 2026 on 18:00 in
Switzerland
Switzerland’s new waste incineration plant in Zuchwil can process up to 265,000 tonnes of waste a year, producing electricity and heat, SRF reported on Sunday. The Kenova facility in the canton of Solothurn cost nearly 600 million Swiss francs and is among the country’s largest and most modern plants of its kind.
The plant operates with two wider and more powerful incineration lines instead of the four used previously. This reduces the energy needed to run the facility, while electricity production is about 15 percent higher than at the old plant.
The previous waste incineration plant began operating in 1990. Unexpected breakdowns became more frequent over the years, leading to costly interruptions and disposal bottlenecks. The new facility is intended to secure waste disposal in the long term.
Kenova processes waste from nearly 180 municipalities in the cantons of Bern and Solothurn. More than 220,000 tonnes are incinerated each year, or over 600 tonnes a day. The plant produces 160 gigawatt hours of electricity annually, enough to supply more than 50,000 households. Kenova says it can supply between 50,000 and 60,000 households in the region.
Waste is burned at around 1,000 degrees Celsius. The heat turns water behind the furnace walls into steam, which drives turbines to generate electricity.
The heat is also used for district heating. Steam heats water in the plant’s pipes to 120 degrees Celsius before it is sent through lines to heating systems in homes, businesses and schools. The system saves eight million litres of heating oil or more than 20,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions each year. When the water returns to Kenova, it has cooled to about 60 degrees and is heated again.
District heating from renewable energy supplies 5,300 single-family homes in the Zuchwil region.
Material that cannot be burned remains as dry bottom ash. It is sent to a recycling plant in Hinwil in the canton of Zurich, where materials including around 100 kilograms of gold are recovered each year.