Pakistan' s First Waste-to-Energy Plant Gets License

Finding renewable and domestic energy resources is the need of the hour, and most of the countries have already been working on different such projects in order to reduce carbon foot-prints and generate electricity in return. In line with the efforts to promote such sustainable energy production plans and to use indigenous resources for electricity generation, the National Electric Power Regulatory Authority (NEPRA), Pakistan has taken a revolutionary step.

The authority has granted power generation license to Lahore Xingzhong Renewable Energy Company Limited. The company will set up country' s first waste-to-energy power plant with 40 Mega Watt power production capacity at Lakhodair, Lahore. Generating electricity should be the only reason to burn solid waste, which will also reduce the amount and weight of materials that would otherwise be buried in landfills. Experts say that burning solid waste reduces the volume of waste by almost 87%.

To fulfil the purpose, the project is said to install a state of the art incineration-type generation facility and implement the most up-to-date and modern waste-to-energy technology. As per a statement issued by the officials about the project, "The project will reduce the city' s municipal solid waste by 2,000 tons a day to generate electricity and is seen as a silver bullet to address the municipality' s waste issue and meet energy needs as well."

Moreover, NEPRA has also announced an upfront tariff of 10.007 US cents per kilowatt-hour for waste-to-energy projects based on an operational period of 25 years with overall capacity cap of 250MW. The share of all four provinces and the federal capital has been fixed at 50 Mega Watts each.

"A successful implementation of the project will pave the way for other such initiatives to solve pressing waste disposal problems and address challenges of limited space for landfills and gas emissions, resulting in cleaner cities and a healthy life," the statement also said.

It should also be discussed here that the project is said to reduce 2000 tons/day solid waste of the city, which will be used to generate electricity. The project seems to be an amazing opportunity to address the municipality' s solid waste and energy needs of the country. It is a commendable step to address electricity crisis and definitely, at cheaper rates which will result in minimizing the energy crisis in Pakistan for sure.