About Us

Somewhere in the middle of the year 2006, a group of masters students from the faculty of Process Engineering and Energy Technology (PEET) of the University of Applied Science in Bremerhaven in the Federal Republic of Germany undertook a study and research visit to a waste management and RDF processing plant (known as Abfallservice Osterholz)) in a nearby town called Osterholz – Scharmbeck. Amongst them was a young mechanical engineering student from the Takoradi Polytechnic (now Takoradi Technical University) by name Elvis Owusu-Adansi Junior who was by then studying for his Master of Science degree in renewable energy technology. He became very much interested in the processes and began thinking aloud how to re-design the full automated RDF processing system into a semi or manual process and also couple the idea with a waste-to-energy design for implementation in Ghana. His thoughts came out of his mouth and caught the attention of Dipl.-Ing. Frank Theilen, the then managing director of the company who also happened to be their tour guide. He (Frank Theilen) encouraged him to work on the ideas in his mind and was ready to assist him in every way possible to make the thoughts a reality.

This young student began researching and collating data from the major cities in Ghana and with the help of HYSYS and ASPEN Tech simulation, he presented his findings and results to Mr. Theilen (in November 2007) who further sort the assistance of Dipl.-Ing. Claudia Bunkenborg, managing director of Nehlsen GmbH of Germany and Nehlsen International. Her passion for managing waste and development of Africa coupled with her over twenty years of experience in Angola made her accept the challenge to help this young graduate develop a waste management concept for Ghana and also work to get a large scale waste-to-energy plant(s) in Ghana. To further equip this young graduate for the task ahead, she placed him in an intensive on-the-job training programme in all the major branches of Nehlsen Group of Companies to acquire on the job experience in new business development, waste collection and safe disposal, mechanical and biological treatment of waste such as biogas generation and composting, design, installation and operation of waste-to-energy plants (incineration and gas combustion processes), handling and treatment of hazardous waste.

In July 2011, Elvis was sent to Ghana with the help of Claudia and Nehlsen AG to establish Nehlsen Ghana limited and bring the dream and thoughts which has been nurtured and groomed through that two and half years of training into reality. Nehlsen AG sent down few waste collection trucks to run a collection business and also work on getting to the ultimate destination; installation of large scale waste-to-energy plants by incineration to reduce the influx of large volumes of waste being generated in Ghana. He became the first managing director with assistance from Dipl.-Ing. Claudia Bunkenborg. “Ebenezer”; thus far grace has brought us and grace will lead us home.