Govt-run plant to generate 50MW electricity using garbage of Dhaka city
Using the garbage of Dhaka city, the government for the first time is going to generate 50 megawatt of electricity to add to the national grid.
KM Mozammel Hoq, additional secretary of the local government division of LGRD and Cooperatives ministry, said they had sought opinions of different ministries concerned in this regard and soon after the initiative gets the go-ahead they would opt for the final agreement with the selected company.
Italian company Management Environment Finance SEL has already been selected as the lowest bidder to install the power plant. The LGRD ministry is the implementing authority of the project.
Four agreements would soon be signed with the company, said an official of Dhaka North City Corporation (DNCC).
DNCC and Dhaka South City Corporation would strike two agreements with the company on land use and waste supply, the Power Development Board would ink the one on power supply and the Local Government Division would sign another on the project implementation, the official added.
He said the government would initially purchase per kilowatt electricity at Tk 8.75 from the company, which would operate here for 20 years on Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) basis.
The company would implement the project with its own cost and would take a year to go for commercial operation, said the DNCC official.
Initially, it would use 1,000 tonnes of waste to generate 10MW of electricity and would start generating 50MW of power using around 5,000 tonnes of waste in next three years, said Tareq Bin Yousuf, superintending engineer of Environment, Climate Change and Disaster Management circle of DNCC.
Two types of power plants will be set up on two landfill sites of the capital. At Matuail there will be an incineration plant where electricity will be generated by burning waste and at Aminbazar an anaerobic digestion plant will be set up where bio-gas produced from organic waste would be used.
Approximately 21 hectare of land is required for each plant. The government will provide 13 acres of land in Matuail and 5 acres in Aminbazar. The company has to purchase rest of the land needed, said Tareq.
According to him, the city per day produces around 6,000 tonnes of waste, of which 60 to 70 percent is organic.
He said they would start the project using the waste in the capital and after three years garbage from nearby municipalities like Gazipur and Savar might also be used.
With this the garbage problem of the capital will be solved to a great extent while the residue could be used as organic fertiliser, said Mozammel Hoq, adding that once the project is implemented, the government would take the model to other city corporations.
“We already have proposals from different companies to install waste-based power plants in metropolises like Khulna and Chittagong,” he said.
-With The Daily Star input
