In 2019, the Mayor and Aldermen of Amsterdam set up a three-member independent committee to investigate the situation of the ailing Waste Energy Company (AEB). Elbert Dijkgraaf was a member of this committee, which presented its report on July 2nd, 2020. The committee’s main conclusion is that AEB was not robustly privatised in 2014. Due to a lack of integral risk management and proper financing, AEB could not deal with challenges that it faced, such as adequately identifying the risks of overdue maintenance, leading the company to be overwhelmed by technical problems. As a result, AEB had to shut down four of its six waste-to-energy lines in order to regain control. The report (in Dutch) can be found here.
Erasmus Competition & Regulation institute
