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A pioneer in Latin America, the URE Barueri plant will convert waste into renewable energy from 2027, with the capacity to supply 75,000 homes per year, reducing environmental impact with sustainable technology.
The waste-to-renewable energy plant will have the capacity to supply 75,000 households per year and is scheduled to start operating in the São Paulo metropolitan area in the first quarter of 2027. The energy recovery unit (URE) in the final stages of construction Barueri is a pioneer in Brazil and Latin America of the technology of burning municipal solid waste (MSW) in a controlled manner.
The heat treatment at Massive burns The process used by companies consists of incinerating the MSW at temperatures above 850 °C. This process, which uses an advanced filtration system, prevents pollution, reduces greenhouse gas emissions and ensures reliable operation in line with international health and environmental standards, assesses Orizon Group Engineering Director Jorge Elias.
URE Barueri is a partnership between the Group and the São Paulo State Basic Sanitation Company (Sabesp), created after an auction by the federal government, and covers an area of approximately 37,000 square meters, the size of just over five soccer fields. It has an installed capacity of 20 megawatts (MW) and plans to export an average of 16 MW on a steady basis.
This will enable the proper treatment of up to 870 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day. “If you look at the scenario in Brazil today, the issue of wind and solar power (power plants) is very prevalent. This is a type of energy generation that I like very much, but it is always intermittent. This causes fluctuations in this type of generation. Generation from municipal solid waste is dispatchable, programmable and predictable,” explains Elias.
In addition to reducing the amount of waste in landfills, other benefits include reducing truck traffic and recycling ash from civil construction, the executive said.
The current phase of work on the project includes equipment assembly, which will begin in July and is expected to be completed by September 2026, with commercial operation scheduled for the first quarter of 2027.
The company plans to expand this model. However, since URE Barueri was created in partnership with the city hall, the factory will implement a separation process and prioritize the city’s requirement that recyclable materials be separated and sent to the cooperative.
“The waste part of the organic part will start receiving all solid waste from the city of Barueri once the plant is operational,” continued Elias. “Several other municipalities are interested (in setting up similar plants) and would be most welcome (…) but priority will always be given to the thermal treatment of Barueri waste.”
“This is a sanitation solution that generates electricity. It benefits society in terms of public health, municipal benefits and environmental issues. We support this kind of situation, and at a time when city halls are looking for an energy transition and the decarbonization of public transport, projects like URE can also be interesting supply hubs,” he added.
energy from waste
China, the world leader in this field, has a total capacity to incinerate about 1 million tons of waste per day and convert it into energy. In Europe, energy recovery plants process more than 100 million tonnes of MSW per year, representing 26% of the total.
No such factory is yet in operation in Latin America. In Brazil, the Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME) claims it is “closely” monitoring the development of waste technology.-to-energy (WtE — waste power generationin English)—that is, a waste treatment technology aimed at energy recovery in the form of heat, electricity, or alternative fuels.
fart earthThe ministry said it believes WtE has the potential to contribute “to both the diversification of the national electricity infrastructure and sustainable waste management.” “This alternative is positioned as a source of transition and is part of the federal government’s efforts to promote a just, sustainable and inclusive energy transition, in line with the guidelines of the National Energy Transition Plan (PNTE),” the ministry claimed.
For the Brazilian Waste to Energy Association (Abren), the WtE model is beneficial, but Brazil is still at the beginning of its journey in this field. In addition to URE Barueri, Mr. Abren has planned highly advanced projects in the capital São Paulo, Maua (SP), Cerropedica (RJ), Brasilia (DF) and Campinas (SP), which are expected to be operational in 2028.
“These projects mark a transition from a landfill-based model to a modern system that integrates recycling, composting and energy recovery, just as is being done in leading circular economy countries,” said the association’s president, Yuri Schmidtke.
According to the association, UREs can play a decisive role in mitigating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, particularly methane emissions released by the decomposition of waste in landfills. The association’s research shows that by expanding these plants in Brazil to serve 49% of the population, up to 86 million tonnes of CO₂ equivalent could be avoided annually, contributing directly to the Paris Agreement and national plans on climate change.
The main obstacles to the expansion of this type of plant are the regulatory framework and contractual predictability. “Brazil lacks mechanisms to enable the purchase of energy produced by UREs, as is the case in European Union countries and China,” he continued, citing the need to approve legislation such as PNRE (PL 924/2022) and Methane Zero (PL 3,311/2025) to create legal certainty, attract investment and accelerate the growth of the sector.
In addition to cultural issues, there are also institutional issues such as public-private partnerships (PPPs) and the creation of local government concessions. This is due to what Abren calls “misinformation regarding the operation of the power plant.” The expression “waste combustion” is initially frightening, since it refers to traditional thermoelectric power plants.
“Each URE is a hub for regional development. In addition to clean energy, it also generates skilled employment in the fields of engineering, maintenance and operations, in addition to the movement of production chains in equipment and civil construction. Planned investments by 2040 could exceed R$ 50 billion and have a direct impact on income generation, innovation and strengthening of national industry. With a population of more than 1 million people (49% of MSW in the country) 28 200,000 jobs will be created in the value chain once we reach our full potential to serve the largest metropolitan areas of the world,” Schmidtke concluded.
plus balance
José Antonio Perera Balestieri, professor at the Faculty of Engineering Sciences at the Guaracingueta Campus of the University of Paulista (Unesp), emphasizes that, despite having a lower electrical efficiency than traditional thermoelectric power plants (about 35-40% lower in the case of steam units burning mineral coal), the WtE model compensates for the lower heat utilization (which can reach 85% if you add the generated electricity). Environmental impact.
“While people still associate the word ‘incineration’ with an old and highly inefficient process that produces highly toxic atmospheric emissions, this is not the current technological reality. “Copenhagen, Denmark has one, and Paris, France has three,” he claims.
questioned in the report If there is a risk to nearby residents from this model, if filtration or pollutant control systems fail, no human technology is risk-free, and “any device or thermal machine that involves combustion can pose a risk,” the professor said. But “there is a control loop, a highly specialized area of engineering, whose purpose is to monitor the process and correct course or abort operation in the event of a catastrophic failure.”
For Balestieri, plants like URE, when integrated into recycling and composting policies, represent a concrete solution for significantly reducing dependence on landfills, optimizing energy use and transitioning to more modern and sustainable waste management.
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