Cape Town Launches Pioneering Landfill Gas To Power Plant Supplying Energy To More Than 4,300 Homes

The City of Cape Town has invested R93-million in a gas-to-power plant at the Coastal Park Landfill site near Muizenberg. Powered by methane gas emissions from decomposing refuse, it generates enough energy for over 4,000 households. The City intends to invest another R82-million to expand the technology to other landfills. Photos: Jeffrey Abrahams

One of the largest landfill sites in Cape Town has been running a “pioneering” project by converting gas from waste into enough electricity to power over 4,300 homes.

The most harmful by-product of landfills is the release of methane gas from decomposing organic matter. It has been estimated that between 20 and 30% of global warming is caused by methane.

To counter this, the methane in landfill gas is captured and converted in the flare or gas engines to produce water vapour and carbon dioxide. (Per ton released into the atmosphere, methane causes more global warming than carbon dioxide.)

Oliver Stotko (left), an environmental engineer and head of special projects and innovation for waste services at the City of Cape Town, checks in with maintenance contractor Aaron Khethisi at the Coastal Park site. Around them is the network of pipes which feed methane from the landfill to the power plant.

Landfills like Coastal Park are engineered and managed to prevent solid waste from ending up in the environment, transmitting diseases, and to keep the air and communities clean.

The R93-million Coastal Park Landfill near Muizenberg aims to reduce the release of harmful methane gas. It converts waste to energy. It generates 1.3 gigawatt hours (1.3-million kwh) of electricity per month.

Maintenance contractor Andile Muleka with the vacuum pumps which pull the gas from the landfill wells. These pumps first first feed the gas through the extractors along the main feeder line which remove condensate. Then final extraction tales place in heat exchangers, within which chilled water from a chiller, condenses out further impurities, before driving the generators. The pumps are used alternately.

This project, operating since November, converts the landfill gas into electricity by digging perforated pipes or ‘wells’ to extract methane gas.

There are 49 vertical gas wells, each 30m deep, embedded into the waste, and about the same number are trenched horizontally. These collect the methane which is channelled to the main collector pipe which leads to the landfill gas extraction and flaring plant.

Maintenance contractor Andile Muleka does regular checks on the meters which measure and calibrate the flow of methane.

On the way this gas is first treated to extract condensate. It is then put through a heat exchanger within which chilled water from the 110kw chiller supplies coolant at 7°C and removes more condensate.

But crucially it also removes impurities that damage the generators.

A portion of the generated electricity is fed into the grid while the remaining electricity will be used to run operations at the landfill, explains mayco member for Urban Waste Management Grant Twigg in a statement.

This is one of two generators, driven by engines, which are fuelled by methane at the plant.

This initiative turns what would be a net loss operation into something much more positive.

The environment is protected, emissions are brought down and bulk electricity purchases from Eskom are reduced.

The two waste-to-energy generators which use recovered methane as fuel for the engines which drive the generators. On the right is the transformer from where the electricity is fed into the grid.

Also, carbon credits of R36-million have already been realised from reduced gas emissions at landfills, leading City officials to believe that such projects will in time pay for themselves.

This project will be expanded with an investment of a further R82-million by the City.

The City of Cape Town plans to expand the project to other waste management sites.

This article was originally published on GroundUp.

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